We are in the middle of South Florida’s prime weather months. COVID-19 has meant fewer tourists, but plenty of people still are finding their way to South County beaches, and an upswing in tourism may be imminent. ‘Tourism is in recovery but is not as strong as we had hoped,’ Palm Beach Tourist Development Council Executive Director Glenn Jergensen wrote in an email to The Coastal Star. ‘The bright side is 80% of Americans are ready to begin traveling over the coming months, and summer — which is our drive-market season — could be strong as folks get vaccines and decide to take a trip.’

ABOVE: (l-r) Ellen Christy, Diane Bourgeois, Elizabeth Edwards, Tom Goulet and Deanna Chandonnet, visitors from Boston, converse Feb. 26 with Delray Beach lifeguard Chris Javens.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

A man rides a recumbent trike at the Boca Raton Innovation Campus on Feb. 20. The campus was home to IBM for almost 26 years. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Pandemic pushes techies, others to friendly climate

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By Mary Hladky

When looking to move his corporate headquarters out of Los Angeles, Ben Spoont, CEO of e-sports and gaming company Misfits Gaming Group, set his sights on Florida.
He considered Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando. But Boca Raton won out.
Misfits Gaming leased 18,000 square feet of space at The Park at Broken Sound and made the move last year.
Spoont grew up in Boca Raton, giving the city a big edge. He valued the quality of life, availability of good office space and the relatively low cost of doing business in the city.
“Boca afforded us more bang for our buck,” Spoont said.
Beyond that, he is seeing a transformation in South Florida.

“The technology scene here is growing rapidly and we wanted to play a big part in that,” Spoont said. “It seems like everyone is packing up and coming to South Florida. It is absolutely happening and we are seeing it across industries and sectors.”
After a decade of effort to grow South Florida into a tech and financial powerhouse, the slow progress is moving into a faster gear.
Among the prominent companies that have either announced plans to move or expand into South Florida, or are reportedly considering it, are Elliott Management Corp., Blackstone Group, Icahn Enterprises, Virtu Financial Inc., and Goldman Sachs.
Tech company leaders also are on the move, with a sizable contingent landing in Miami or elsewhere in South Florida.
In a boon to young tech companies that have struggled to raise money here, Softbank has announced a $100 million venture capital initiative aimed at fueling Miami-based startups or those moving to the city.
City and county economic development directors are moving quickly to seal relocation deals with an eye to landing good paying jobs and fattening tax bases. Spoont, for example, is growing his workforce from 70 to 100, with average salaries of $95,500.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has drawn outsized attention for his Twitter campaign to lure tech companies.
When a principal of a venture capital firm tweeted that Silicon Valley should move to Miami, Suarez’s Dec. 4 reply “How can I help?” went viral. The support was warmly received by tech company leaders who otherwise feel besieged by criticism. They started packing their bags.
“Miami has been on fire,” Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer said in a January virtual meeting with residents, describing Suarez as a “one-man Twitter machine.”
“We have entered the fray as well,” he said.
Singer met with Suarez and Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis in January to explore joint marketing efforts for the three cities.
“We have a strong tech base in Boca,” Singer said in an interview, noting that the personal computer was developed at IBM’s iconic Boca complex. “We are expanding our messaging to play on those strengths.”
While Suarez’s tweets have spurred interest, the seeds of the movement to South Florida were planted about three years ago when companies began fleeing high-tax states like New York to low-tax Florida.
The coronavirus pandemic gave companies even more reason to head to South Florida.
“I think anyone who was on the fence about coming has decided to pull the trigger,” said Jessica Del Vecchio, Boca Raton’s economic development manager. “I really think COVID has been the last straw.”
Because of the pandemic, people have been cooped up in high-cost housing and unable to enjoy restaurants or cultural events. They’ve had to juggle working from home with overseeing their children’s schooling on Zoom.
And since their offices were closed, they realized they could work from anywhere, Del Vecchio said. So why not do so in a low-tax state with housing less costly than in New York or San Francisco and with many other advantages.
“COVID has absolutely been a game changer,” Singer said. “When you can work from anywhere, why not work in paradise.”
Kelly Smallridge, president and CEO of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, agrees that the pandemic is a catalyst. Company officials “started coming to us saying ‘we don’t need to be in Manhattan.’ … COVID has opened a lot of doors to Palm Beach County,” she said.
About 30 companies are considering moves to the county, and five of those are close to making announcements, Smallridge said in mid-February.
Elliott Management, a prominent New York investment firm, made a commitment to move its headquarters to West Palm Beach last fall. Virtu Financial, an electronic trading firm, said in January it was moving about 30 people to Palm Beach Gardens from New York, with the number expected to grow.
Boca Raton scored a victory in January when Colony Capital Inc., a digital infrastructure, real estate and investment management firm, announced the relocation of its corporate headquarters from Los Angeles. Its digital infrastructure operation has been in the city for about 10 years.
In February, Round Table Wealth Management, based in New Jersey, announced the expansion of its Boca Raton office.
In its announcement, Round Table said the expansion allows the company to maintain close relationships with clients who have moved to Florida as a result of the pandemic.
In mid-February, Del Vecchio was speaking with two companies about moving from New York City and Chicago.
Her effort to lure companies includes advertising inserts in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle. The four-page Journal insert caught the eye of the companies she is now talking to.
She also sees opportunity at the Boca Raton Airport, where she has placed marketing materials that corporate executives will see as they fly in and out.
The city complemented Del Vecchio’s efforts by establishing an Office of Innovation, led by innovation strategist Pedro Moras, who joined the city about 18 months ago.
His work is focused on making Boca Raton operate more efficiently and developing a stronger technology and startup ecosystem to attract entrepreneurs, Moras said.
“One of the biggest challenges we see in South Florida is funding for startups,” he said. “We are looking to see how we can attract other players to provide funding for these startups.”
He has worked with a very large Brazilian software development company that has established an office in the city and another Brazilian company that invests in startups and is looking to open a Boca office.

The Boca Raton Innovation Campus, once the IBM plant, designed by Marcel Breuer and Associates, is emblematic of Boca’s history as a technology hub. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Prime space available
Companies relocating or expanding in Boca need office space, and the city has plenty to offer in two primary locations.
The Park at Broken Sound, the former Arvida Park of Commerce at 5100 Broken Sound Boulevard NW, has 5.2 million square feet of office space, 618,000 square feet of commercial/retail space and more than 1,000 multifamily residential units.
The 700-acre development is home to many corporations already located in the city.
The 1.7 million-square-foot Boca Raton Innovation Campus, built in 1969 for IBM, was acquired in 2018 by Crocker Partners and is now undergoing a $100 million renovation.
“We want to be the technology and life sciences hub”for the southeastern United States, said Crocker marketing director Giana Pacinelli. “We want to have national recognition.”
Sitting on 123 acres at 5000 T-Rex Ave., it is designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, has a power plant that can maintain power for 13 days, conference center, 1,200-seat dining hall and a STEAM lab, meaning science, technology, engineering, arts and math education.
BRIC has 36 tenants, including Modernizing Medicine — which has announced it will add more than 800 new jobs — Canon, Bluegreen Vacations, MDVIP and Baptist Health South Florida, which recently leased nearly 38,000 square feet of space.

Gone are the days of the classic IBM uniform of a button-down white shirt and tie. Now tie-dye colors and mood lighting welcome tech employees. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Universities help startups
Local universities are playing a strong role in nurturing and building startups.
Florida Atlantic University’s Tech Runway, launched in 2014, is a public-private partnership that is a hub to accelerate technology development and incubate startups. It provides work space, mentoring and helps find venture funding.
Startups can then transition to FAU Research Park, where they can continue to grow.
Lynn University created a Social Impact Lab in 2017 to provide cultural and career preparation programs, social impact training and networking opportunities to help students discover “purpose-driven careers.” It also offers a bachelor of science in social entrepreneurship.
How everything Boca has to offer can help launch a new tech company is illustrated by Harald Braun, who believed he had found “the next big thing in terms of exponential growth.”
The former CEO of Siemens Networks USA and Aviat Networks started Guident last year. The company has developed technology to enhance the safety and efficiency of electric autonomous vehicles.
He plans to establish a remote monitoring and control center in Florida that would be something like an air traffic control tower. It would monitor autonomous vehicles and take over control if problems develop.
“We developed a strategy to improve safety and facilitate a faster adoption of autonomous vehicles,” he said. ”We believe it is the future.”
A Boca resident since 2002, Braun said the city is a good place to start his company.
The city has many talented former IBM and Siemens employees, and the county is home to “industry captains” such as former Apple CEO John Sculley, he said.
“We are seeing a trend right now as people relocate from Silicon Valley and other parts of the U.S. … to South Florida with hotspots in Boca Raton and Miami.
“There is a lot of talent here in the technology space,” Braun said. “It is not hype.”
He also notes “we are surrounded by universities and students and space.”
Braun won a launch competition at Tech Runway, which entitled him to office space there. He expects his control center to be completed this year. If it operates as expected and he is successful with fundraising, Braun plans to relocate to BRIC.
While the race is on to attract technology and financial companies, the counties and cities are not competing, but working together, Del Vecchio, Smallridge and Singer said.
That cooperation didn’t exist until Amazon announced in 2017 that it was looking for a location for a second headquarters, Smallridge said. With a prize that big, everyone decided to join forces.
While South Florida lost out, the cooperation continues.
“They won’t come to Palm Beach County unless they like South Florida first,” Smallridge said. “It is really important that we promote ourselves as a region.”

By Paul Blythe

How red, or blue, are the towns and neighborhoods that make up The Coastal Star’s distribution area?
Red enough that Donald Trump won South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream, most of Highland Beach and coastal Boca Raton, and parts of coastal Lantana, Boynton Beach and Delray Beach.
Blue, here and there, to the extent that Joe Biden won most of coastal Delray Beach, a sliver of Highland Beach, a part of coastal Boca Raton, and the County Pocket between Gulf Stream and Briny Breezes.
That’s 15 of the distribution area’s 20 precincts that went for Trump, and five for Biden. Or 53.9% of the area’s overall vote that went for Trump, compared to 45.4% for Biden, according to a Coastal Star analysis of data from the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections website.
Not too surprising in an area where Democratic voters are outnumbered both by Republican voters and those registered with other parties or no party. Of the distribution area’s 27,624 voters registered in time for the Nov. 3 election, 11,258 or 40.8% were Republicans, 8,154 or 29.5% were Democrats and 8,212 or 29.7% were other or no party.
What is surprising, perhaps, is that Biden picked up more non-Democratic votes than Trump did non-Republican ones in 18 of the 20 precincts, for an area total of at least 1,856 such crossover votes compared with at least 620 for Trump.
Those pickups helped Biden win five precincts even though Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans in only three of them. And they contributed to Biden’s winning Palm Beach County, 56% to 43.2%, just as Trump’s area numbers contributed to his taking Florida with 51.2% of the statewide vote to Biden’s 47.9%.
And, of course, it is the state total that delivered Florida’s 29 electoral votes to Trump. But Biden scored a 306-232 triumph nationwide and became the 46th president of the United States.
So what does all that tell us about the coastal area’s voters?
That they, like voters throughout the nation, are primarily divided into two types — one that makes decisions based on policy, and the other on personality. So say a couple of Delray Beach pros who know Palm Beach County politics about as well as anyone.
Andre Fladell has been consulting for campaigns, mostly Democratic but not always, for more than 40 years. Mary McCarty served as a Delray Beach city commissioner, Palm Beach County commissioner and the county’s Republican Party chair for 22 years before she left politics in 2009 after pleading guilty to a federal charge of honest services fraud and serving 21 months of a 3½-year prison sentence.
In national and statewide races, the policy voters typically are the extremes of both sides, the hard left and hard right who vote the party line. Fladell also calls them the “message voters.”
Personality voters, or what Fladell calls “messenger voters” tend to be the soft Republicans and soft Democrats, and they often meet in the middle.
“The middle tries to navigate between message and messenger, and for soft Republicans, the messenger became the overriding factor,” he said. Biden “peeled off the soft Republicans.”
The crossover votes for Biden weren’t voting against Trump’s immigration or tax policies, Fladell said. They were fighting a guy who kept attacking Rosie O’Donnell and claiming he was the greatest ever.
“Humility gets the middle,” he said. “Trump had policies the Republicans liked and the narcissism they didn’t. ... Biden became more warm and fuzzy on a number of levels, but it didn’t matter who ran for the Democrats. It was a referendum on Trump.”
Similarly, McCarty said the ability of the coastal area’s Republican plurality to give Trump a majority of the area’s vote “speaks to people looking at policy over personality, and supporting those policies of President Trump compared to Joe Biden’s policies.”
So what about McCarty’s east Delray neighborhood, precinct 4102, where Republicans outnumbered Democrats 569 to 469 but Biden won 594 votes to Trump’s 553?
“In my precinct, more people were voting personality than policy,” McCarty said. “They were just tired of the tumult that we’ve had the past four years.”
But here McCarty diverged from Fladell, as she described the tumult not as of Trump’s making but as “the pushback” Trump had received from Democrats since his inauguration. “A lot of people were just exhausted,” she said.
In the count for McCarty’s precinct, Biden picked up 125 more votes than there were Democrats in the precinct while Trump won 16 fewer votes than there were Republicans.
That means Biden had to have won at least 125 votes from either Republicans or the precinct’s 468 other- and no-party voters.
Six people voted for other candidates, while 353 sat out the election. With that many people sitting out, the precinct had a voter turnout of 76.6%, very close to the county’s average turnout of 76.3%.
Of the neighborhood’s swing to Biden, McCarty said, “I’m a policy voter. But I know Republicans, friends of mine, who can’t get past the personality issue, so it doesn’t surprise me.”
Another resident of the neighborhood, a Democrat who voted for Biden, also wasn’t surprised. Coldwell Banker real estate agent Terry Roy said there were no Trump yard signs in the neighborhood whereas there were Biden/Harris signs, including one in her yard that vandals stole or knocked down several times and even once replaced with a Trump sign. A stalwart, Roy reposted her Biden sign each time, always a little more securely than before.
She said she doesn’t talk to neighbors about the election — “It’s not the type of thing you talk about in polite company” — but added, “Republicans that I know who voted for Trump again don’t advertise it.”

Biden gained in 3 precincts
McCarty and Roy’s precinct was one of three Republican-leaning precincts where Biden picked up enough non-Democratic votes to win.
The other two were:
• Precinct 4172, at the north end of Boca Raton east of the Intracoastal Waterway, with 733 Republicans, 705 Democrats and 679 other. Biden won 872-820, meaning he picked up at least 167 non-Democratic votes while Trump picked up at least 87 non-Republican ones.
• Precinct 4156, at the southern end of Highland Beach, with 586 Republicans, 533 Democrats and 434 other. Biden picked up at least 121 non-Democrats to Trump’s 44 non-Republicans, allowing Biden to win 654-630.
In 2016, then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in all three of these precincts.

Jack Fox, who lives at the Yacht and Racquet Club in Boca Raton’s precinct 4172 and is a former president of the Beach Condominiums Association of Boca Raton and Highland Beach, said he was not surprised that Biden won the precincts in Boca Raton and Highland Beach.
Like Fladell and McCarty, he said, “This may not have been an election about principles and policies. It may have been about personality.
“I know a lot of Republicans who voted against Trump clearly because of his behavior. They didn’t like Trump’s personal traits. His total unpresidential behavior lost Republicans the election.”
Fox also noted that some women in his precinct “were just incensed by President Trump’s behavior.”
“Trump lost the support of suburban women,” he said, “and many women in Palm Beach County were suburban women when they lived up North.”
County Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo agreed that woman voters and many other people just tired of Trump may have contributed to Biden’s pickup of crossover votes in the coastal area but she said it also had a lot to do with her party’s get-out-the-vote and vote-by-mail efforts.
“We did better than would have been anticipated based on straight registration, so that’s very good and shows that the hard work of our precinct people is very good. ...
“We have some very hardworking precinct people in this area. I would attribute the turnout to that.”
Biden’s other two wins came in Democratic-leaning precincts that Clinton also won: 4044, the County Pocket, and 4074, another Delray precinct just north of the one where McCarty and Roy live. It includes a slice of the barrier island and many homes west of the Intracoastal.
But Biden lost in the coastal area’s third Democratic-leaning precinct, a precinct that Clinton won four years earlier.
Precinct 4002, in east Lantana and including Hypoluxo Island, was one of two precincts where Trump got more non-Republican votes than Biden got non-Democratic ones.
The precinct has 543 Democrats, 506 Republicans and 445 other voters but Trump won 546-539, meaning Trump picked up at least 40 non-Republican votes while Biden didn’t win as many votes as there were Democrats in the precinct.
“That is interesting,” Lantana Councilman Malcolm Balfour said when told of the results.
“In this neighborhood, there are many wealthy people,” Balfour surmised in trying to explain the vote. He also said that he lives in the precinct but isn’t among the wealthy. “And many prefer Trump’s economic policies to Biden’s.”
The other precinct where Trump picked up more crossover votes was 4004, the sole precinct for South Palm Beach. Its voter registration was 532 Republicans, 462 Democrats and 422 other-party voters, and Trump won 606-526, meaning he picked up at least 74 non-Republican votes to Biden’s minimum of 64 non-Democrats.
Noting that Trump won South Palm Beach in 2016 as well, Mayor Bonnie Fischer said that based on her conversations with council members preceding her, “I had been assumptive there was more of a Democratic slant to our town and I was very surprised in 2016 when people supported Trump. ... Now I guess it’s happened twice. The population of our town seems to be changing.”
The other 13 precincts Trump won in The Coastal Star distribution area also were all Republican-leaning and consist of five in Boca Raton, two in Highland Beach, and one in each of Delray Beach, Gulf Stream, Boynton Beach, Briny Breezes, Ocean Ridge and Manalapan.

Biden outpaced Clinton
Overall, Biden did only slightly better than Clinton in the area’s 20 precincts. He won five precincts to her three. His margin of loss to Trump was 8.5 percentage points, whereas Clinton’s margin of loss was 9.6 percentage points.
And Biden received 10,010 votes to Clinton’s 8,190, an improvement of 22.2%, slightly better than Trump’s improved vote total of 19.1%. The increase for both Biden and Trump reflects the 18.3% increase in ballots cast in 2020 over 2016 as well as the fact that far fewer votes, less than half, went to third-party candidates in 2020 than did in 2016.
But Trump’s improvement was more significant than Biden’s in the countywide vote. Trump received 28.7% more votes in Palm Beach County than he did in 2016, whereas Biden’s county performance was just 15.7% better than Clinton’s.
A few political observers, Fox of Boca Raton and Balfour of Lantana, noted the vote preceded the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, implying that people might vote differently if the election were held today.
“I myself am an independent voter who has voted for Democrats and Republicans,” Fox said. Regarding Trump, he said, “I voted for him, but I really didn’t vote for him. I voted for the policies of the Republican Party. ... But I was not terribly disappointed with the results of the election.”
Asked whom she voted for, McCarty said, “I voted for Donald Trump. I’m not for open borders.”
On Dec. 23, in between the election and the events of Jan. 6, McCarty was one of 26 people who received full pardons from Trump for their convictions. Asked if she had experienced any second thoughts about her vote for Trump in light of recent events, she said, “Why would I? I’m a policy voter.”

We are in the middle of South Florida’s prime weather months. COVID-19 has meant fewer tourists, but plenty of people still are finding their way to South County beaches, and an upswing in tourism may be imminent. ‘Tourism is in recovery but is not as strong as we had hoped,’ Palm Beach Tourist Development Council Executive Director Glenn Jergensen wrote in an email to The Coastal Star. ‘The bright side is 80% of Americans are ready to begin traveling over the coming months, and summer — which is our drive-market season — could be strong as folks get vaccines and decide to take a trip.’

ABOVE: Manuel Desbats of Miami digs through sand at South Beach Park in Boca Raton on Feb. 21 while his children, Gabriel, 4, and Nicholas, 2, play with beach toys.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Related Story: Charter questions would stiffen residency rules

By Mary Hladky

With the countdown on for the March 9 municipal election, the City Council election campaigns have turned negative.
Brian Stenberg, who is challenging incumbent Monica Mayotte for Seat D, has sent out campaign emails that criticize her for having the “wrong priorities,” “offending residents” and “costing taxpayer money.”
Stenberg, vice president of the Boca Raton medical office real estate management firm The Greenfield Group, does not dispute that he has gone dark.
“At this point in the campaign, we have gone negative,” he said. In part, this is because Mayotte has said their positions on issues are similar, and he needed to show where he differs.
“I had to point out some of the negatives of the things she has said and done,” he said.
The reaction of residents is a “mixed bag,” Stenberg said, with some saying they will not vote for him and others thanking him for explaining why he wants to serve on the council.
Mayotte, a former sustainability specialist with JM Family Enterprises who is seeking her second term, criticized his approach.
“I think the residents of Boca want to know what the issues are that matter to the candidates,” she said. “They don’t want to see people going negative.
“He is not saying anything different than what the five of us (on the City Council) are doing. He doesn’t bring any new ideas to the table.”
Among matters that Stenberg has highlighted are comments by Mayotte and now-Deputy Mayor Andrea O’Rourke in 2018 when they questioned whether a proposed luxury adult living facility was a good fit for the downtown.
“Other places within our city limits are probably more applicable for these types of residents,” Mayotte said.
The City Council voted 3-1 to deny the project and the developer sued the city, alleging age discrimination. In an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit, the American Seniors Housing Association said the project denial “represents an unlawful discriminatory bias against seniors with disabilities.”
The city settled the case and the council reversed course and approved the project. “Monica’s anti-senior comments led to a lawsuit against the city,” Stenberg’s campaign said in an email to residents.
Mayotte said she has no bias against seniors. Her vote was based on her belief the proposed building was too big for the lot on which it would be built. The developer, she noted, modified the project to reduce the number of living units before the project was approved.
Stenberg pointed to another lawsuit against the city involving a proposal to build a duplex at 2600 N. Ocean Blvd. The City Council voted 5-0 to reject the project. Palm Beach County Circuit Court judges ruled that Mayotte and O’Rourke prejudged the application and their emails to residents showed they were not impartial. The project was entitled to a new hearing, but Mayotte and O’Rourke could not participate, the judges ruled last year. The hearing has not yet been held.
Mayotte said she could not comment because the duplex matter is still pending. “I will continue to be the voice of the resident. I promised that in my first term. I will continue that promise,” she said.

In the Seat C race to replace term-limited Jeremy Rodgers, former council member and Deputy Mayor Constance Scott said the council unfairly appointed her opponent Yvette Drucker to temporarily fill Rodgers’ seat in October after he was deployed on an overseas military assignment.
That gave Drucker an advantage in the race because she could run as an incumbent, Scott said.
“We all knew the fix was in,” she said, referring to the City Council. “It was no secret. Do I think it is unfair? You bet I do.”
In a recent flier sent to residents, Scott’s campaign said Drucker was “hand-picked in a political power grab” and is “bankrolled by special interests.”
“Will Yvette Drucker only look out for her developer and special interest friends?” it asked. The flier uses a quote from the Sun-Sentinel’s endorsement of Drucker that could be read as indicating the newspaper was endorsing Scott.
Scott defended the flier, saying “it states the facts.” Asked if the flier gave the false impression that the newspaper endorsed her, she said, “You can interpret it any way you want.”
Scott “is always attacking me,” Drucker said. “She is not saying the truth.”
Drucker noted that both she and Scott were among 32 applicants to temporarily replace Rodgers, suggesting hypocrisy is at play.
Asked why she thinks she was chosen, Drucker said, “I feel it was because they want someone with a community background, a new perspective, no political baggage.”
While Drucker has received contributions from the developer community, so too has Scott. Drucker said that this is typical in council races. “They donate to both sides,” she said, maintaining that she is not in anyone’s pocket.
Scott also has criticized Drucker for missing meetings of the Historic Preservation Board when she served on it.
“If she has to pick up kids from school, or has a nail appointment, or something she thinks is important, will she attend” City Council meetings? Scott asked.
Drucker said she did miss “a few” board meetings, but noted this was a volunteer position. She has not missed any meetings when she has served in non-volunteer positions, including the City Council.
“My first job is being a mom. I don’t like it when women attack women for taking care of their children,” she said.
The candidates cite similar priorities as they campaign.
Mayotte’s are ending the coronavirus pandemic and promoting recovery for the city’s businesses, ensuring public safety, and responsible and innovative development that takes into account sustainability and resiliency. She is a strong advocate of environmental reform.
Stenberg predicts the pandemic will decrease commercial property values as tenants work from home or cannot pay rent, and says the City Council will have to grapple with ways to deal with that without raising taxes. He also cites City Manager Leif Ahnell’s eventual retirement and the importance of selecting a strong replacement, and mitigating the impacts of the pandemic on businesses and residents.
Drucker, a first-generation Cuban American who is the first Hispanic to serve on the City Council, stresses helping businesses recover from the pandemic and commonsense but smart development. She hopes the city will be able to have a distribution site for vaccine administration. She is a longtime volunteer in many organizations and previously worked as a human resource manager for ADP.
Scott, director of local relations at Florida Atlantic University who has wide-ranging involvement with the city and civic organizations, cites prioritizing public safety during the pandemic, helping businesses recover, protecting the city from overdevelopment and making Boca Raton a world-class city “again.”
Two other candidates for Seat C have been less visible in the campaign.
Bernard Korn, a real estate broker, has twice lost elections to Mayor Scott Singer and says he is now also running to defeat U.S. Sen. Rick Scott. His campaigning, done mostly by email, stresses rooting out city corruption.
Josie Machovec, a stay-at-home mom, is one of four plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit in an attempt to overturn Palm Beach County’s mask mandate. She also participated in a protest in which a few masks were burned.
Her mask activism began when she asked the County Commission to provide proof that masks are safe and effective, she said. Getting no answer, she joined the lawsuit hoping her question would be answered during the discovery process.
She said she has a “healthy distrust” of government because her grandparents escaped the Nazis.
“Government says it is for your safety,” she said. “History has shown us it is not always the case.
“I am not trying to be a rebel and tell people they can’t do this and that,” she said.
Her priorities are developing a new comprehensive plan for the city, helping businesses hurt by the pandemic regain strength and working to improve sustainability.
“A lot of residents don’t feel heard about the projects being developed in our neighborhoods,” she said. “There is a disconnect between what people want and what the city wants.”
In the Seat D race, Mayotte and Stenberg are financing a large portion of their campaigns. Mayotte loaned her campaign $50,000, while Stenberg loaned $52,000.
As of Feb. 19, Mayotte had $100,375 in contributions and the loan, and Stenberg had $75,077.
For Seat C, Drucker had raised $89,184 and Scott had $70,678. Korn had loaned his campaign $12,100. Machovec had raised $6,491, notably including a $3,500 contribution from the Republican Party of Palm Beach County.

By Mary Hladky

Two proposed City Charter amendments on the March 9 ballot would change requirements for those seeking election to the City Council.
One would lengthen the time a person must have lived in the city from 30 days to one year before he or she could qualify to run, and would disqualify from running people who have homestead exemptions on property outside the city limits.
Candidates also would have to provide proof of residency.
The second amendment would eliminate a requirement that candidates pay a $25 qualifying fee. It instead requires them to submit a petition with the signatures of at least 200 registered city voters.
The main impetus for the homestead exemption change is the candidacy of Bernard Korn, who has lost two elections to Mayor Scott Singer and now is one of four candidates vying to replace term-limited Jeremy Rodgers on the City Council in the upcoming election.
Korn gives his address as 720 Marble Way on the barrier island, a home owned by real estate broker Richard Vecchio. But county property records show that Korn and his wife own a homesteaded home at 19078 Skyridge Circle, which is outside the city limits. The property appraiser’s office says homestead exemptions are granted only “if your property is your permanent residence.”
Korn said he has lived with Vecchio, whom he described as his friend and business partner, for about 10 years. He and his wife have been legally separated for about 20 years. She and their two children live in the Skyridge Circle house, he said.
The amendments are “targeted to Bernie Korn,” he said. The Marble Way address, he said, is “my real home” and he recently renewed his lease.
He says it is unfair to disqualify candidates who have homesteaded property outside the city because he thinks it likely that many people share his situation. “They do everything in their power to suppress candidates from running,” he said of city officials.
The amendments would take effect on April 1.

By Mary Hladky

Boca Raton City Manager Leif Ahnell plans to stay in his job until 2024.
Ahnell, who has held the city’s top position for 22 years after joining the city staff nine years earlier, had been expected to retire in 2022. But the City Council in January extended Boca Raton’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan for city employees from five to seven years.
For Ahnell, who entered the DROP program in 2017, that means he can stay on the job until 2024.
Ahnell, 57, has been held in high regard by City Council members for many years. He consistently receives top marks in annual evaluations for how he runs the city.
“I would like to see him continue,” Mayor Scott Singer said.
The state and many cities have DROP programs. Employees who enter the program are considered retired but they continue to work.
Their retirement benefits are put into a special account and earn interest. They must actually retire at the end of the DROP period, and then can receive a lump sum payment or roll it over into a qualified instrument.
The program is seen as a great benefit for employees, adding to their retirement income. But it also benefits employers because employees’ additional years of service are not included in future benefit calculations, which saves money.
The changes to DROP “lower costs for taxpayers and enable long-serving, experienced employees to continue their service,” Singer said.

By Mary Hladky

At long last, Brightline is about to start preliminary work on its Boca Raton station.
The company is planning to begin constructing a temporary parking lot in March, Ali Soule, Brightline chief of staff, said in an email.
The parking lot will be located immediately south of the Downtown Library.
The work also means the Junior League of Boca Raton’s Community Garden will begin relocating to Meadows Park, a site that satisfied the Junior League and gardeners. Brightline agreed to spend up to $300,000 on this project.
The garden was located along the FEC railway tracks east of the library.
Soule did not respond to a question on when station construction would begin. The city has leased 1.8 city-owned acres east of the library to the upscale rail company for the station and garage.
Although Brightline halted rail service between Miami and West Palm Beach last March because of the coronavirus pandemic, it has moved forward on constructing stations in Boca Raton, Aventura and PortMiami.
It also is moving at full speed to build track from West Palm Beach to Orlando. That work is nearly halfway complete.
In January, Brightline said it is likely to resume rail service at the end of this year.
City leaders and business groups are thrilled to have the station, saying it will be a game-changer for Boca Raton. Brightline officials said last year that the station would be completed in 2022. Ú

By Mary Hladky

The legal battle is over for Crocker Partners’ ambitious plan to redevelop Midtown into a $1 billion live-work-play area where people would have lived in up to 1,274 residential units and walked or taken shuttles to their jobs, shopping and restaurants.
The state’s 4th District Court of Appeal on Feb. 3 upheld a lower court ruling that Crocker Partners is not entitled to $137.6 million in damages it claimed it was owed because the city illegally prevented the redevelopment.
City zoning allows commercial, office and retail development in the 300-acre area located east of the Town Center mall, but not residential.
Crocker Partners and other landowners contended that they reasonably expected to be able to build residential units because of changes to the city’s comprehensive plan in 2010 that allowed the City Council to permit residential projects in Midtown.
But the City Council never made a decision to do so despite a lengthy persuasion effort led by Crocker Partners.
Crocker Partners sued in 2018 under the Bert Harris Act, which is intended to protect the rights of property owners when a government restricts or limits their private property rights.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Howard Coates Jr. threw out the suit in 2019, holding that the Bert Harris Act provides compensation to property owners who lose existing or vested zoning rights but not to property owners who do not receive new development rights.
The 4th DCA agreed, saying that the Bert Harris Act protects against governmental action, but not inaction that maintained existing zoning.
Shortly after Coates’ ruling, Crocker Partners dropped a previous lawsuit that sought to compel the city to allow residential development and a third suit that claimed the city made misleading statements in public documents and violated the state’s Sunshine Law to prevent residential development.
The company opted only to continue its effort to seek damages. That decision clearly signaled that Crocker Partners was abandoning its revitalization push.
But by then, the Midtown project was already dead. Other landowners who had joined with Crocker Partners drifted away, pursuing other plans for their properties.
Angelo Bianco, Crocker Partners’ managing partner, said at the time that it would be a waste of time and money to pursue legal action when it was clear that Midtown was not going to happen.
“The city killed Midtown several years ago. It was unfortunate we were not compensated for our losses, but we have moved on to other projects,” a Crocker Partners spokesperson said about the 4th DCA ruling.
Chief among those projects is the Boca Raton Innovation Campus at the former IBM campus, where the first personal computer was made.
Crocker Partners acquired the 1.7-million-square-foot office building, the largest in the state, in 2018 with a vision of transforming it into a science and technology hub.
City spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson described the ruling as “very favorable” for the city.
“The court also reaffirmed, clarified and improved the state of the law for local governments throughout Florida by embracing the city’s position that property owners cannot state a claim under the Harris Act based on their development expectations, “ she said. Ú

By Mary Hladky

Challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic and the city’s efforts to overcome them dominated Mayor Scott Singer’s State of the City address to residents.
“None of us could have imagined what this year would bring,” Singer said during the 43-minute virtual program on Feb. 17.
“But the challenges of the pandemic have revealed the character and the heart of the people of Boca Raton. I am pleased to report the last year has shown more than ever that the state of our city is strong, united and resilient.”
After COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, the city declared a state of emergency, ordered the wearing of masks and urged people to stay safe at home, Singer recounted.
Boca Raton also took steps to help hard-hit restaurants, relaxing rules so that they could post signs saying they offered takeout and allowing them to seat more people outside.
The city used federal CARES Act funds and $500,000 drawn from city coffers to make available mortgage and rent relief to residents and to help small businesses stay afloat.
With city offices shuttered because of the pandemic, department heads offered more services online. City meetings became virtual, with the technology experiencing very few hiccups.
“In many ways the pandemic has forced rapid adaptive changes in our technology and services,” Singer said.
Department heads recounted some of the year’s successes.
Fire Chief Tom Wood noted that fire-rescue personnel set up a COVID-19 vaccination site overnight at a city-owned building on Congress Avenue when the city received word it would get 200 vaccine doses to administer. Those doses went into arms on Jan. 16.
In a notable achievement for his department, Fire Station 6 was demolished last year and a new station is being built at 1901 Clint Moore Road.
Police Chief Michele Miuccio said the department opened a real-time command center. Singer said that the city’s crime rate dropped by 7% last year, the fourth straight year of declines.
The Development Services department continued efforts to streamline operations, making it easier for residents to do business with the city.
The city opened Hillsboro El Rio Park South last year and has begun construction of the Wildflower/Silver Palm parks.
Possibly the biggest piece of good news for the city last year was the Boca Raton Resort & Club’s decision to donate the 167-acre Boca Golf and Tennis Country Club to the city. It will begin operating as a city amenity in the fall.
Looking ahead, Singer said Brightline is expected to begin construction of its Boca Raton station this year.
The city is working to capitalize on an exodus of technology and financial firms from the Northeast and California to low-tax Florida. An added impetus is the new understanding that people no longer need to work in corporate offices to be productive.
“When you can work from anywhere, why not work from paradise,” Singer said.

Town connecting with Maryland counterpart

By Rich Pollack

William Sanders III was traveling from his home in Maryland to a conference in Boca Raton more than a decade ago when he was caught off guard by a sign for Highland Beach.
“I was surprised because I didn’t know there was another Highland Beach,” said Sanders, who has been the mayor of the tiny town of Highland Beach, Maryland, for the past 14 years. “This was well before the time when we began to Google everything.”

Years passed and Sanders heard little more about Highland Beach, Florida, until a few months ago when he received an introduction letter from the southern Highland Beach’s mayor and commissioners that has now sparked a pen-pal relationship of sorts.
“It was nice and heartwarming,” Sanders said. “I was moved personally as were other members of the town’s board of commissioners.”
In response, Sanders sent a letter back along with a copy of a book that explains the rich history of the town he has lived in for more than 20 years: Highland Beach on the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland’s First African American Incorporated Town.

Founded in 1893 by Charles Douglass, the youngest son of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and incorporated in 1922, Highland Beach, Maryland, is believed to be the first African American beach resort in the country.
Two streets by four streets, the town near Annapolis has just 68 homes and around 100 full-time residents, about 75% of whom are African American.
Like its same-named community in Florida, Highland Beach, Maryland, has a seasonal population — but during opposite times of the year — and like its southern counterpart, the Maryland community is a town without a stoplight.
Sanders says the town grows to about 300 residents during the summer.
While Highland Beach, Florida, has its library as a cultural gathering point, Highland Beach, Maryland, is home to the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center, housed in a summer home built for Douglass, but one he never had a chance to live in before his death.
Among some of the well-known figures in history and entertainment to have had homes in the Maryland town were Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, singer and actor Paul Robeson, writer and poet Langston Hughes and author Alex Haley.
The idea to start a long-distance relationship between the two towns with the same name came from Highland Beach, Florida, Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman.
“I just thought it would be a feel-good idea to make contact and to have communications between two cities with the same name,” she said. “We have some broad similarities even through we’re situated on different latitudes.”
Town Manager Marshall Labadie said the Florida town is sending a book outlining some of its history to leaders in the Maryland community and that he hopes to visit the town when he is in the area.
“There’s a wealth of history there and I would love to learn more,” he said. “With all the commotion going on in the world, it’s good to share our sense of community and history.”
Both Sanders and Highland Beach, Florida, Mayor Doug Hillman say they too are interested in visiting their same-named counterpart communities and hope residents from the other Highland Beach will come and visit.
“I’m hoping that when anyone from Highland Beach, Florida, is in the area, they come to visit,” Sanders said.

By Rich Pollack

For years, Highland Beach has placed a priority on ensuring pedestrians remain safe as they cross State Road A1A, from the condominiums on the west side to the beach on the east side and back again.
In 2019, the town provided orange flags at crosswalks to improve pedestrian visibility, and late last year it installed pedestrian-activated flashing lights to let motorists know someone was entering or in the crosswalk.
However, all those efforts failed to prevent a nighttime accident last month that left a 57-year-old resident seriously injured after she was struck by a southbound car while returning from a beachfront outing with friends.
Now, the town and its police department are waging a renewed campaign to encourage residents and motorists to use extra caution when approaching one of the eight crosswalks in the 3.5 miles of A1A in Highland Beach.
“In general, people need to always be cautious when they cross the road,” Police Chief Craig Hartmann said. “Someone may not realize there’s a crosswalk there and they might not see you, especially at night.”
Hartmann said that the woman who was struck on Feb. 14 was one of several residents from the Boca Highland Beach Club and Marina community at the south end of town who were returning home at about 9 p.m.
Some in the group had already successfully crossed and a few other members were behind the injured woman when the accident occurred.
Hartmann and Town Manager Marshall Labadie said the group had activated the flashing crosswalk lights and they were working when the accident occurred.
“All our current technology was deployed,” Labadie said.
Hartmann said it appears that the driver, an 84-year-old woman from Boca Raton, did not see the flashing lights and did not stop after the accident.
Hartmann said the driver, who was later found, told investigators she was unaware she struck someone. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the accident.
The pedestrian who was struck remained in the hospital several weeks after the accident, suffering from head trauma and broken bones, Hartmann said.
He and Labadie are continuing to urge residents to double check and look both ways when crossing the road to be sure approaching vehicles are going to stop.
“You always want to be sure the driver sees you entering the highway,” Hartmann said.
The chief said that it had been several years since an accident involving a pedestrian occurred in a crosswalk, and the injuries in that case were minimal.
Since the installation of the pedestrian-activated crosswalk lights in the fall, Highland Beach police have been encouraging residents to activate the lights when they cross, even if no vehicles are approaching.
“We had a campaign to encourage people to push the button,” Hartmann said, adding that officers would stop and talk to pedestrians about the need to activate the lights. “We ask people to press the button but at the same time remind them that it shouldn’t give them a false sense of security.”
Police have also used a mobile billboard to remind motorists of the law requiring them to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk.
“We have motorists from out of state and even out of the country who may not know the law,” he said.
Although both Hartmann and Labadie say the crosswalk was fairly well lighted, the town hopes to receive $60,000 from the state to add lights to all of the pedestrian-activated flashing signals that would come on when the button is pushed and shine bright lights on the crosswalk.
That allocation request is working its way through the state legislature.

By Rich Pollack

A handful of Highland Beach residents will soon have a chance to play an important role in shaping the town’s future.
Town leaders have begun the process of selecting residents to serve on a Charter Review Board, which will examine the town’s charter and make recommendations to the Town Commission on potential changes.
Following the review and acceptance by the commission, some or all of the proposed changes will be presented to the voters in a referendum.
“This is extremely important,” Town Manager Marshall Labadie said. “The charter establishes the foundation of our town government.”
A constitution of sorts for a town, a charter addresses everything from the makeup of the commission to term limits and, in Highland Beach, it addresses the controversial spending cap, which requires voter approval for most projects costing $350,000 or more.
The cap is expected to be one of many topics the Charter Review Board will discuss.
During a meeting in early March, commissioners agreed to accept applications from residents interested in being on the board. Five to seven residents will be appointed, with one named by each commissioner. Labadie and Town Attorney Glen Torcivia will work with the board.
“We’re going to put out a call for community volunteers who are registered voters and who have expressed an interest and also have some knowledge of town operations,” Labadie said
Applications will be available on the town’s website under advisory boards and committees or at Town Hall and should be returned no later than 4:30 p.m. on Friday, March 26. Those who are chosen should expect to serve from May until August.
Created in 1949 when the town was first established, the charter is required by state law to be reviewed at least every 10 years. That time is near in Highland Beach.
Torcivia told commissioners that changes to some provisions of the charter must be approved by referendum and that any changes to a provision that voters had previously approved must also be presented to voters.

Correction: A March article about a proposed cultural arts complex at Mizner Park incorrectly stated that the Boca Raton Arts District Exploratory Corp. wanted more than five years to raise money for the project. BRADEC most recently proposed raising all funds in five years with no time extensions, and will raise specified amounts at the second and third years.

By Mary Hladky

Nearly five months after the Boca Raton City Council unanimously agreed to negotiate a deal to build a performing arts complex at Mizner Park, talks have hit a roadblock.
The sticking point is that council members have not reached decisions on key matters that would be part of any final agreement.
Council members were expected to give clear directions at a Feb. 8 workshop meeting. That would have helped city staff and the Boca Raton Arts District Exploratory Corp. hammer out a final deal.
Instead, council members stalled. Each offered thoughts on some matters, but no consensus was reached.
“We are not here to negotiate all the deal points now,” said Mayor Scott Singer. He later added, “I am not ready to just say, yeah, that is great.”
City Manager Leif Ahnell added to the uncertainty when he said, “We are not prepared to draft lease terms yet.” Before that can happen, Ahnell said the city must hire an expert who would advise city staff and the council.
Asked by council member Monica Mayotte whether city staffers had identified the expert they will hire, Ahnell said they had not.
“Why wouldn’t we have experts ready to go?” council member Yvette Drucker asked.
Ahnell said staffers have been working on other projects that they had not anticipated, such as setting up a COVID-19 vaccination center, when the city unexpectedly received 200 doses to administer in January.
There also was no clarity on why the matter was on the agenda.
Ahnell said BRADEC asked him to put it there. But Deputy Mayor Andrea O’Rourke disagreed, saying that she and Mayotte wanted it on the agenda.
In the midst of the discussion, BRADEC President Andrea Virgin said that her understanding was that council members were expected to reach a consensus on major terms of the deal to help speed negotiations.
“I am sorry if there was any misunderstanding,” said City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser.
“I think there was an expectation that we have not met,” O’Rourke said, acknowledging that the council had not issued direction.
Contacted after the meeting, Virgin said, “We absolutely support the city in seeking any expert counsel on the matter.
“We just ask, in consideration of the fact we are a nonprofit that has expenses every month that are funded by resident donors, that the City Council urge staff to keep the process moving in an efficient manner.”
All five council members supported retaining an expert to protect the city’s interests, but Mayotte and O’Rourke said they wanted this to be done quickly.
“Maybe we should have had that before today,” said council member Andy Thomson.
Thomson brought up the matter again at a Feb. 22 meeting, saying that BRADEC wanted to know the scope of the expert’s work, how soon the expert would be hired, and how the project could move forward in the meantime.
Council members rehashed everything discussed two weeks earlier, but once again issued no direction to staff on terms of a final agreement with BRADEC.
They also did not reach a decision on reducing the scope of the expert’s review to speed up getting that person’s report.
But Mayotte and O’Rourke again pressed Ahnell to move quickly. “I don’t want this process of hiring a consultant to unnecessarily delay the project,” Mayotte said.
O’Rourke echoed Thomson’s comment at the previous meeting that she did not understand why the hiring of an expert wasn’t done months ago.
Under questioning by Mayotte, Ahnell said it should take no longer than four weeks to get the expert on board.
Regarding limiting the scope of the expert’s review, Ahnell said, “It doesn’t make sense to limit what the consultant looks at.” He said he would tell council members how long the review would take “as soon as possible.”
The council informally heard from one expert in October. It did not go well.
Singer had asked an economist he met while in college to offer his thoughts on the project.
Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College, delivered sharp criticisms, saying that BRADEC’s statements that the project does not pose a financial risk or cost to the city and will generate a big economic benefit “are not accurate.”
Brett Egan, president of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management and a BRADEC project consultant, responded forcefully, saying Zimbalist had made “many, many misleading and blatantly inaccurate statements.”
Singer said he had not known what Zimbalist would say and it was not his intent to torpedo the project. He apologized to Virgin, Egan and Zimbalist.
BRADEC’s proposal to build The Boca Raton Center for Arts and Innovation — which would cost $121 million, including an endowment fund and reserves — calls for completely renovating the existing 3,500-seat Mizner Park amphitheater, and building indoor and outdoor performing arts spaces, a rooftop terrace and more parking.
The project, supported in concept by the City Council, would be financed by donations from cultural arts supporters and corporations that have long wanted such a facility in the city.
BRADEC wants a ground lease on 3.6 city-owned acres in Mizner Park where the project would be built. The terms of that lease are the subject of the negotiations, and six key terms of the lease are what Deputy City Manager George Brown and BRADEC expected the council to weigh in on.
They include:
• BRADEC wants a 99-year lease. City staff wants a shorter term of between 30 and 50 years.
• BRADEC leaders most recently proposed raising all funds in five years with no time extensions, and will raise specified amounts at the second and third years.
• The amount of money that would have to be on hand to fund the endowment, working capital, and maintenance when shovels hit the ground and when the complex opens.

The print version of this article incorrectly stated that BRADEC wanted more than five years to raise money for the project.

By Mary Hladky

The Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District is soliciting ideas for what to do with the former Ocean Breeze golf course property.
The 212-acre site was slated to become the Boca National golf course. But that plan was scuttled when the Boca Raton Resort & Club donated the Boca Golf and Tennis County Club to the city, eliminating the need for another golf course.
District commissioners unanimously voted Feb. 1 to issue a request for information intended to garner ideas on the best uses for Ocean Breeze. Responses are due by April 9.
Commissioners want Ocean Breeze to be a recreational facility. The only commercial development that would be allowed would be ancillary to recreation, such as a snack bar.
But the RFI wording does not rule out some type of golf activity, although much more limited in scope than the Boca National grand plans.
Proposals would serve as a starting point for discussions between the district and the City Council on how to best make use of the land. The results of a needs assessment survey also would be considered.
“The concept is to gather ideas,” Commissioner Craig Ehrnst said.
Even before the vote, residents were weighing in at district meetings. Ideas included a 9-hole executive golf course, croquet courts, and, of course, pickleball courts.
“We are getting a lot of response,” Executive Director Briann Harms said at the Feb. 16 district meeting.
In a related matter, commissioners voted unanimously March 1 to contract with CSR Athletic Construction to clean up the Ocean Breeze property. CSR’s bid of $520,000 was the lowest of four submitted.
The company will demolish buildings and parking lots and plant sod on cleared land. Trees will be trimmed or removed if they are unhealthy, and underbrush, vines and invasive plants removed.
While the district is moving forward on Ocean Breeze planning, what appeared to be shaping up as a major battle between the city and the district has been averted. They have reached an accord on amending an interlocal agreement on how the two bodies will work together on Ocean Breeze.
The agreement initially was written when the city and district intended to build Boca National. The aim, district officials said, was to eliminate wording that Ocean Breeze would be transformed into a major golf course.
City staff took exception to some of the district’s proposed wording, and amended the district’s revisions. Staffers said they could not accept certain changes that disadvantaged the city. That angered district commissioners, who said the city changes prevented them from making plans for Ocean Breeze and hiring a consultant to create a master plan.
“The agreement we got back was even more encumbering than before,” Ehrnst said at the Feb. 1 meeting.
“I am so disheartened by this whole thing,” said Commissioner Erin Wright.
The commission unanimously passed a motion rejecting the city’s changes.
Harms attended the council’s Feb. 8 workshop to tell members about the RFI and to request a joint meeting of the two bodies.
All five council members supported a joint meeting, which has not been held in the past year because of the pandemic. It will be in April.
“I think it is imperative” to have one, said council member Monica Mayotte. She wanted the dispute over the interlocal agreement “ironed out.”
Deputy City Manager Mike Woika said he would meet with Harms that week to clarify the issues, and later said he thought an agreement could be worked out in a matter of weeks.
Two weeks later, a deal had been reached. Harms will bring it to commissioners on March 15 for their approval.
“It is certainly a step in the right direction for the relationship between our two bodies,” Commissioner Robert Rollins said at the March 1 meeting.
The revision is “a far cry from earlier drafts that were less honorable,” said Sam Goren, the district’s attorney. Ú

One year after the start of a global pandemic, I realize I’ve gone feral. No pedicures or facials, haircuts only on a friend’s patio, stuck at home paralyzed by fear of getting and spreading the disease to someone who might not survive.
I do venture after groceries and takeout, but otherwise have been content to stick close to home — safe in my comfortable little cave.
It wasn’t until the vaccine became locally available that I realized just how feral I’d become.
Now that there’s light glimmering at the mouth of my cave, I’ve decided it’s time to shift out of survival mode. It’s a little self-centered, after all, to focus only on my own security. It’s hard to be a productive member of a community while sitting in a cave.
This has become increasingly obvious as I watch the feral nature of the upcoming March 9 municipal elections. Isn’t it time we all drop our survivalist focus and shelve the partisan personality battles?
Baring teeth and pouncing on competitors may provide some stimulation to residents still hiding out from COVID-19, but it’s counterproductive to building a better community.
There are big issues aimed at our South County communities that can’t be ignored: extreme weather, sea-level rise, aging infrastructure, and the increasing cost of public safety, to name a few.
We elect our government officials to deal with these complex issues by looking beyond their own self-interest to what’s best for the community.
Increasing the tax base with larger homes, more density and urban infill seems attractive until fire-rescue vehicles can’t pass through flooded streets during a summer thunderstorm. Protecting individual property rights sounds righteous until my neighbor’s decisions block the sunlight on my home power source or create a permanent wetland in my once-dry yard.
There has to be a balance between the outcry of an organized, vocal few demanding the immediate right to increase their own property values and the long-term negative impact on overall quality of life or the value of neighboring properties.
There has to be give and take. No individual is going to have all the answers.
We elect local officials to make laws that benefit the community as a whole. They are, after all, our Home Rule. Without them we’d be legislated by state or federal governments — and no one in our libertarian-minded coastal communities wants that to happen.
As we see a glimmer of hope for a return to “normal” life after this horrible, deadly pandemic, it’s time to shake off our feral tendencies, come out of our pandemic hibernation and gain a less self-focused understanding of the complex process of planning for an equitable future.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

Eric Shaw served on the board of directors of Boca Helping Hands for 18 years. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Sallie James

Eric Shaw’s life has been one of service.
The 77-year-old is the longest-serving board member for the nonprofit Boca Helping Hands and a career-long academic with nearly 40 years teaching and mentoring students at Florida Atlantic University.
“I have always believed my purpose is to give back to other people in life in every way you can,” said Shaw, who recently stepped down from the Helping Hands board after 18 years but will remain a board member emeritus. “I have had a wonderful career. There are so many people who are underprivileged and lack opportunities. It makes me feel good.”
The Boca Raton resident and FAU emeritus professor of business decided years ago to split his time between Boca Helping Hands and FAU. His involvement at both organizations changed lives.
Shaw, who is single, joined Boca Helping Hands nearly 20 years ago when it operated from the small Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. Today it has its own building at 1500 NW First Court in Boca.
“At that time we were feeding a couple dozen people a day and now we do about 80,000 hot meals a year and about 80,000 pantry bags,” Shaw noted.
Shaw fell in love with Helping Hands after he spent time volunteering for the organization so he could get an up-close look at its programs. He worked in the kitchen, the pantry bag line and everywhere else possible to find out more. He liked what he saw, so he joined the board, staying for 18 years.
“I was so impressed with it. It was an opportunity to do good,” Shaw said.
The nonprofit gave Shaw the chance to enact his motto of giving back: Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can for everyone, as long as you can.
He is especially proud of the jobs programs he helped coordinate during his tenure at Boca Helping Hands.
“We made a big decision to not only be a soup kitchen but to also help people get jobs. We wanted to be a bridge to get them into the workforce,” Shaw said. “We also started teaching them life skills. It was wonderful to see some of them get off aid, become independent and then return to become a volunteer to help others.
“It gives meaning to your life. You are making a contribution. We showed them they could do something,” Shaw said.
Board President Gary Peters said Shaw’s determination to serve and enduring kindness will be missed. However, in mid-February, the organization made Shaw a board member emeritus, which means he will still attend board meetings, he just won’t be a voting member.
“Eric has been a steadfast, proactive supporter of BHH from the very beginning, and I am confident that our close relationship will continue. We are greatly indebted to his service and wish him all the very best,” Peters said.
Shaw’s busy career at FAU was in full swing at the same time he was so involved at Boca Helping Hands.
Shaw has completed scores of teaching appointments, had numerous leadership roles and advisory positions, such as chair of a department, acting director of a school, associate dean of a college, and president of the FAU faculty. He has also published nearly 100 papers, engaged in consulting jobs and served as an expert witness.
As an undergraduate FAU student, Shaw still holds the all-time top spot on the President’s List for quality points, having completed 24 credit hours with a 4.0 GPA in the spring term of 1972. His Ph.D. dissertation involved efficiency, and he has continued to publish academic papers on the topic.
Shaw is currently mentoring graduate students via video-conferencing.
“When you can see someone’s eyes light up when they get something, seeing people get connected when they weren’t connected. It never gets old,” Shaw said.

Clarification: A story about the city of Delray Beach limiting rooftop uses in single-family neighborhoods might have been unclear. The new height limit does not include the 7-foot-tall foundation required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Florida Building Code for barrier island residences. 

By Jane Smith

After more than a year, the Delray Beach City Commission unanimously approved limiting rooftop uses in single-family neighborhoods citywide. On the barrier island, architects had been creating outdoor living rooms on the roofs of new construction.
Homes and duplexes are now limited to 35 feet in height and allowed to have only air- conditioning equipment and other mechanical devices on the roof, according to the ordinance approved March 2. The height does not include the 7-foot-tall foundation required by the Federal Emergency Managment Agency and the Florida Building Code for barrier island residences.
The equipment must be screened by a 4-foot-high wall and can take up a maximum of 10% of the roof space.
Rooftop walls between 4 and 10 feet high must be approved by a city board.
Commercial buildings, including hotels, in the central business district can have rooftop uses, including bars, restaurants and the like.
No members of the public spoke concerning the limits on rooftop uses in residential districts. Commissioners also did not make comments or ask questions after the Development Services director said the ordinance had no changes from the first reading in February.
The commission first imposed a six-month moratorium in January 2020 while staff researched the issue of what can be allowed on residential rooftops. The moratorium was extended again in June and December.
The moratorium came about after a new duplex at 100 Gleason St. received Site Plan and Appearance Review Board approval on Dec. 11, 2019, when the architect agreed to reduce massing on the roof. The duplex was approved to build 10 feet above the 35-foot height limit to put an elevator shaft, a grill and a wet bar on the roof.
“The neighbors are upset because their ocean views will be blocked by my developed property,” John DeLeonibus, who owns the duplex with his wife, Sally, said at the December 2019 board meeting. “They all want to be the last man in paradise.”
He said referring to the neighbors who spoke against his duplex’s height.
The DeLeonibus couple sued the city in November 2020, asking a judge to allow them to finish the duplex according to their July 2019 building permit. That lawsuit is still open in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
Some residences on the barrier island have outdoor living rooms on the roof, equipped with fixed grills, hot tubs, sinks and large-screen TVs. The increased height is out of character with the barrier island neighborhood, two residents who live near the Gleason duplex said at the December 2019 board meeting.
The Beach Property Owners Association appealed to the City Commission in March 2020 to stick to the 35-foot height limits.
“Our conclusion is that these allowances have led to the equivalent of a fourth floor on these buildings,” Bob Victorin, BPOA president, wrote.
Rooftop amenities, such as fixed grills and big-screen TVs, can be accommodated below the 35-foot height limit, Victorin wrote.

The new ordinance did not affect residences already built and the ones under construction.

By Dan Moffett

South Palm Beach Town Council members unanimously approved an interlocal agreement with Palm Beach on Feb. 9, clearing the last administrative hurdle in the way of their long-awaited dune restoration project.
The approval effectively turns control of executing the beach plan over to Palm Beach.
“They are in charge, so we have to wait and let it play out,” said Mayor Bonnie Fischer. “We in South Palm Beach need to stay in our lane and go with the flow. We are the recipients of the project.”
Palm Beach officials have assured the council they have everything that’s needed to begin hauling dredged sand to South Palm Beach’s eroding dunes.
“The town of Palm Beach is responsible for securing all access,” South Palm Beach Town Attorney Glen Torcivia said. “They’ve told us they’ve got this covered.”
That is the good news for the town’s beachfront condo owners.
The not-so-good news is that work on the project is likely to run well behind schedule.
South Palm Beach’s restoration is a spin-off of a large, ongoing beach renourishment program in Palm Beach. Fischer told the council that in recent weeks dredging and sand-stockpiling problems have occurred, forcing delays to the master project.
The mayor had said she hoped work could begin on the town’s beaches by Feb. 1. That target has come and gone, and she now says the new start date for the project is April 1.
Fischer said Palm Beach officials have gotten clearance from the state Department of Environmental Protection to work through April but would need permission from Tallahassee to continue into May.
The concern for environmental officials is too much disruption to the turtle nesting season if the work drags on.
“We’ve been waiting for this for 10 or 11 years now,” Fischer said. “So we’ll wait some more.”
The partnership with Palm Beach is the replacement project for a plan to team with Palm Beach County to install groins on the beach. That ambitious initiative, more than a decade in the making, fell apart two years ago because of soaring costs and opposition from neighboring communities.
The new strategy calls for spending between $700,000 to $900,000 to buy sand from Palm Beach and install it with erosion-resistant plants along South Palm’s dune line. Palm Beach intends to stockpile dredged sand at Phipps Ocean Park, then truck it to South Palm Beach.
Town Manager Robert Kellogg said one benefit from the efforts to make the groin plan happen was that easement agreements for beach access with the condos were already in place.
“The easements were directly transferred from the county to the town of South Palm Beach,” Kellogg said.
Fischer said she hopes that the restoration will provide some cushion between the condos and the relentless ocean incursion that has damaged seawalls and stairways.
“It’s the only option we have left,” she said.
In other business, town officials say they’re satisfied with the warnings that went out when a broken water main in West Palm Beach forced a boil-water order for residents from Feb. 5 to 7.
The city sent out text messages and emails to all its customers, and South Palm Beach also sent alerts.
“We were in contact with them all weekend and kept residents informed,” Kellogg said.

Andrew Abbott’s Beach Bucket Foundation is providing trash pickup buckets at Boynton Inlet (above), Ocean Inlet Park in Ocean Ridge, South Inlet Park in Boca Raton, Gulfstream Park, Ocean Ridge Hammock Park and 11 other Palm Beach County coastal parks. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Larry Keller

One bucket at a time, Andrew Abbott is making county-owned beaches cleaner. The Loxahatchee resident formed a nonprofit last year, Beach Bucket Foundation, to place plastic buckets in wooden containers or stations for beachgoers to use and collect trash on the sand.
“I have them installed in all of the Palm Beach County coastal parks from Tequesta down to Boca,” Abbott said.
In all, he has buckets in 15 parks with 25 stations, including at South County beaches: South Inlet Park in Boca Raton, Boynton Inlet and Ocean Inlet Park in Ocean Ridge, Gulfstream Park and Ocean Ridge Hammock Park.
Boynton Beach Oceanfront Park is the sole municipal beach on which Abbott has buckets. He’s hoping to add more.
The process is simple: A beachgoer takes a bucket, places trash in it, empties the contents in the nearest trash can and returns the bucket to the station from which it was borrowed.
“We have been getting phenomenal response from the public,” said Jimmy Davis, Palm Beach County director of aquatics. “It’s so simple, but it’s perfect. What a great concept.”
Abbott personally constructs the shelved wooden stations where the buckets are stored. Their size varies depending on the beach.
“People are using them. They are cleaning up the beaches on their own. It is working,” he said.
How does he know? Lifeguards tell him so. Some buckets are stolen, and Abbott replaces them. But, he said, “I am very surprised at how many haven’t gone missing. I’ve been very humbled by the honor system.”
Abbott buys the pails about 50 at a time from Home Depot. None of this costs the county a cent. That’s because he also finds sponsors.
“I’m a one-man operation, basically,” he said. “I reach out to the local businesses and ask them if they want to get involved. If they do, they send me their logo and I send it to my printer. I put my sticker on [a bucket] and their stickers on, and I place the bucket in a station.
“Without those guys, this wouldn’t be possible. When you get the businesses involved, you start building awareness in the community.”
Some cities have created their own beach bucket programs, or plan to. Boca Raton’s Community Coastal Cleanup provides metal buckets next to signs explaining the program at Red Reef, Spanish River and South Beach parks.
In the coming months Highland Beach plans to buy 40 to 50 buckets and place them at four sites along the beach. The buckets will have the town’s logo and a slogan on them.
Picking up trash addresses, in a small way, the enormous global problem of beach and ocean pollution, especially from plastics.
The nonprofit Ocean Conservancy has mobilized an annual international coastal cleanup for more than three decades. In 2018, 891,255 items were collected from Florida beaches, weighing nearly a half-million pounds, the group says.
The most common types of beach trash contain plastic. The most numerous items collected on U.S. beaches are cigarette butts. Even cigarette filters contain plastic, the conservancy says. Among the other most common litter picked up: bottle caps, beverage bottles, and straws and stirrers, all made of plastic.
Plastic ends up in oceans, and it doesn’t fully degrade. Marine animals, like sea turtles and fish, mistake small pieces for food. That can sicken and kill them, and be passed up the food chain.
And so, Abbott continues leaving buckets for beach visitors to do their small part to help.
“Usually, I’ll stop at a beach and do a little beach cleanup myself,” he said.
Mary Hladky and Rich Pollack contributed to this story.