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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OCEAN RIDGE — A resident for nearly 20 years, Mr. Mangione served on the Town Commission from 1982 until 1994, including four terms as mayor.
Mr. Mangione died Oct. 8 after a brief illness. He was 67.
A financial adviser, Mr. Magione brought his professional expertise to his work for the community. “He was a very nice gentleman, and very diligent during our budget deliberations,” recalled Town Clerk Karen Hansck. “We completed our water improvements during his time in office, and in 1993, he was instrumental in hiring our police chief, Ed Hillary.”
Mr. Mangione, who moved to Ocean Ridge in 1976, also built three homes in the community. He was appointed to the town’s Planning and Zoning board following a resignation and served until 1982, when he resigned to run for a seat on the five-member Town Commission.
Mr. Mangione was a devoted tennis player and a dancer. He moved away in 1996 after the death of his wife, Catherine. The couple had been married for more than 30 years. “Even after he left, he sent a Christmas card to myself and the chief ever year,” Hansck recalled. He is survived by two children, Philip Mangione and Lindsey Magione Schuster, and a granddaughter, Morgan Catherine Schuster.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Give Kids The World Village, 210 South Bass Road, Kissimmee, FL 34746.
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By Ron Hayes
DELRAY BEACH — One of the city’s oldest houses has a new home, a new name and a future as bright as its past.
In 1908, when a young man named Horace Hunt arrived from New Jersey to grow tomatoes, beans and pineapples along a canal in the fledgling town called Linton, he bought a five-room house on the Boynton Road.
That canal is called the Intracoastal Waterway these days. Linton is known as Delray Beach and the Boynton Road is U.S. 1. Horace Hunt is long gone. But his old homestead stayed put through a century of growth, until last year. When developers bought the block and planned to demolish the existing structures, the Delray Beach Historical Society offered to take the old Hunt place off their hands.
On Nov. 11, 2007, the house at 124 N.E. Fifth Ave. was moved to 111 N. Swinton Ave., in the Old School Square Historic District.
A 550-square-foot annex has been added to the rear, and the restored Hunt House is now the Ethel Sterling Williams Learning Center.
The cost of transporting and restoring the 1,500-square-foot home was about $600,000, including the annex. The funds arrived largely in the form of grants from the city, county and state, as well as about $100,000 in private donations.
Now the Historical Society has launched a drive to raise $1.2 million to put some learning in the Learning Center. The society’s president and a moving force behind the move, Robert Ganger, would like to see philanthropists and program developers help establish an endowment.
“If this house had been torn down, it’s gone forever,” Ganger said. “But finally adapting it to a use that serves the whole community is, I think, a noble objective.” As workers from Morning Thunder Construction added final touches one morning last month, Ganger roamed the restored rooms, describing his new vision for the old house. The annex — a seamless addition painted the same pale yellow as the house, but built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane — will soon hold the society’s collection.
“Hurricane Katrina damaged an awful lot of historical sites beyond repair in Louisiana and Mississippi,” Ganger said. “So our number one objective was to find a sound place for the collection, most of which is paper.” He tapped a wall. “I sold it to the city as a bunker that’s bulletproof,” he said with a smile.
Step across a narrow hallway and you’re in the original Hunt House, where Ganger envisions a learning center that teaches what the city’s pioneers found here and what they endured, beginning with a section on the local Seminoles who traded fur and venison for pots and pans.
He wants a center that talks about “critters,” perhaps the hardest of hardships the city’s settlers had to endure.
And he wants a section to honor the contributions of women. “
Women really built this city,” Ganger said. “The men worked the farms, but the women civilized the community. In the late 1890s, they formed the Women’s Improvement Association. They built a school, and a so-called town hall. They raised money to build roads. I don’t think people really appreciate what women did to make this a livable place.” Which is one reason the Learning Center is named after one of those women. Horace Hunt left Linton in 1915, returned North and drowned in New York, still a young man, in the 1920s. But Ethel Sterling, 5 years old when she arrived here in 1896, endured. Part of another early pioneer family, and an early member of that same Women’s Improvement Association, she became the Historical Society’s first president in 1964, and remained active there until her death in 1987. “She almost made the whole century,” Ganger said, “and she was one of the most respected people in the community.”
So the sign along North Swinton Avenue will bear her name. But the home’s original owner won’t be forgotten.
“On the fireplace, we’re going to put a tile plaque over the hearth, and it will just say Hunt,” Ganger said. “With maybe some pineapples around it.”
The Hunt House is located at 111 N. Swinton Ave. in the Old School Square Historic District. For information, contact the Delray Beach Historical Society at 243-2577 or visit www.delraybeachhistoricalsociety.org.Read more…
A Coastal Star of the Month Ocean Ridge police Lieutenant Chris Yannuzzi stepped up to bat when illness and injuries hit the town management team. In addition to his normal duties as an investigator in the Police Department, Yannuzzi agreed to oversee the coordination of the move into temporary trailer offices and then the second relocation into the new town hall. Yannuzzi’s responsibilities included coordinating with a myriad of contractors and making multiple decisions on furniture, electrical, computer and police data systems. It was a difficult and time-consuming responsibility, but he did it willingly. Thanks to his efforts — and the cooperation the town received from the contractors — the construction and move went smoothly and were completed on schedule.
Thanks to the efforts of Yannuzzi, the commission and staff, Ocean Ridge citizens appear to have hit a home run with their new facility.
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Ocean Ridge Town Manager Ken Scheck and Police Chief Ed Hillary nominated Chris Yannuzzi to be A Coastal Star.
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