Parking for the county’s proposed Milani Park would be in the grassy area west of A1A (upper left). Photo provided

By Rich Pollack

For more than 30 years, Highland Beach and residents of the Boca Highland Beach Club and Marina have fought county plans to develop a beachside park in the south end of town.

At the same time, Palm Beach County leaders have dug their heels in the sand, saying there will be a Cam D. Milani Park in Highland Beach.

Now a compromise may be in the early stages, with Boca Highland leaders saying they’re open to having a park on the 5.6-acre parcel that straddles State Road A1A as long as there are significantly fewer than the 120 parking spaces that are in the county plans.

In response, Palm Beach County’s head of Parks and Recreation says the county might be open to revising its plans as long as there’s beach access at the site.

“I think we can look at public access that is less intensive than the original plan,” said parks director Eric Call, who can make recommendations regarding a compromise to the County Commission, which will have the final say. “With some compromises on both sides we might be able to provide public access and a park for local residents as well.”

Last month, Call met with Highland Beach Town Manager Marshall Labadie and Town Attorney Glen Torcivia to discuss the property.

“It was a very productive meeting and a great first step toward a potential solution,” Torcivia said.

During that meeting, Call asked if Highland Beach would be willing to compromise on some of the more than 45 restrictions placed on the county as part of a 2010 settlement of a lawsuit brought by the town.

That meeting followed a presentation to the Town Commission early last month in which representatives of Boca Highland presented possible alternatives to the county plan. That plan has a large parking lot on the west side of A1A and a path to the beach on the east side of the road.

Mayor-elect Doug Hillman — who is also Boca Highland president — said the community recognizes that at some point the property will be developed and that the community wanted to have a say in the process.

“Our goal is to get the county thinking about something other than the current plan,” said Hillman, who made it clear that he was representing the condo association and not the town during the presentation. “We hope to expand the County Commission’s thinking and get them to consider other options and look at other potential uses of the land.”

While speaking in front of the Town Commission, Hillman outlined three potential uses. One concept would be a relatively passive park with benches and walking areas. A second concept would be a park hosting additional activities, including a children’s play area and maybe volleyball courts.

Both plans have parking, drainage mitigation, pet walking areas and places for bicyclists to rest, Hillman said.

A third and more extensive concept would be the creation of a Cam D. Milani Environmental Education Center that would include history of the site, history of the Yamato Colony whose farmers used the area, as well as explanation of how the land was used by Native Americans. There could also be information about sea turtles, coastal reefs and beach erosion.

Call said an education center would probably be too intensive for the site but said the county could instead put up kiosks along the pathway to the beach that would cover much of the same material.

Hillman said that he and other Boca Highland representatives also ran their concepts past County Commissioner Robert Weinroth, who has been a strong proponent of developing the site.

“What we’re looking for is something that can be mutually beneficial to all the stakeholders and that includes the Milani family,” Weinroth said.

In 1987, developer Cam D. Milani’s wife, Lucia, sold the property to the county for $3.9 million after his death with the caveat that it be used as a park and be named after him.
Legal wrangling, including the town’s lawsuit, blocked development. The settlement of the suit in 2010 delayed construction of the park for 10 years, with two five-year extensions available to the county.

Last year, county commissioners voted 4-3 to follow a staff recommendation to extend a legal agreement and delay breaking ground on the county-owned parcel until 2025. At the same time, they instructed the county Parks and Recreation Department to begin legwork that would make it easier for the park to come out of the ground quickly once the extension expires.

That decision may have been a contributing factor in a willingness on both sides to seek a compromise. 

By Steve Plunkett

Along with naming their preference for U.S. president next month, city voters will choose either incumbent Mayor Scott Singer or one of the men he defeated by a more than 20-to-1 margin just 17 months ago.

Qualifying for the March 17 ballot ended Jan. 10. Andrea O’Rourke and Andy Thomson will keep their seats on the Boca Raton City Council after no one filed to challenge them.

Bernard Korn, who opened his 2020 mayoral campaign account one week after losing the Aug. 28, 2018, special election, has lent his campaign $3,600 but spent none of it, according to his most recent finance report. Korn received 579 votes in the election while Singer got 11,887 and a third candidate, Al Zucaro, got 6,278.

Singer welcomed the renewed rivalry.

“I’m happy as always to tell my story to the residents and highlight why I believe I’m the best choice to keep leading the city of Boca Raton,” he said.

Singer, who was instrumental in bringing a new elementary school and a Brightline/Virgin Trains station to the city, reported $116,156 in campaign contributions as of Nov. 30 with $23,417 in expenses.

Questions about where Korn lives are sure to come up this year as they did in 2018. For that election Korn registered to vote giving an address of 720 Marble Way on the barrier island, a home owned by fellow real estate broker Richard Vecchio.

But he also gave Palm Beach County’s supervisor of elections a mailing address of 19078 Skyridge Circle, a house far west of the city that he and his wife, Kathy, bought in 2000. He and his wife had a homestead exemption there in 2018; he said they had separated but he was hopeful of reconciling. The exemption for both co-owners renewed in 2019 and again for 2020 this Jan. 1.

Homeowners can make changes to their homestead status until March 1.

Also in the previous election, Korn listed a post office box close to Skyridge Circle — at Pak Mail of West Boca — on his city campaign documents; this time he is using a P.O. box at Boca Raton’s downtown post office.

Korn did not return a phone call seeking details of his residency but did send nine emails of campaign talking points.

City Clerk Susan Saxton said Singer and Korn each signed an affidavit “stating that they have lived in the city for 30 days” prior to Jan. 2, the first day of qualifying.

Boca Raton will pay for publishing the notice of municipal election and the sample ballot as it does for any city election, she said.

“There will be some costs charged by the supervisor of elections, but they will be minimal in comparison to an election that is not piggybacking on one that the supervisor must conduct,” Saxton said.

Singer, a lawyer, was first elected to the City Council in 2014 and re-elected in 2017. He was chosen mayor in the 2018 special election to fill out Mayor Susan Haynie’s term when she was charged with felony ethics violations and suspended. This is Singer’s first run for a full three-year term as mayor.

The Federation of Boca Raton Homeowner Associations will host a forum “for any and all candidates” in early March, said Craig Fox, its chairman. 

The heavily traveled  ‘free flow’ lane at the southeast corner of Federal Highway and Southeast Mizner Boulevard will be replaced this summer with a squared-off right-turn lane. Pedestrian crosswalks at the intersection will be improved. Photo provided/Google Maps

By Mary Hladky

A busy downtown intersection soon will be redesigned with the intent of making it safer and pedestrian-friendly.

The city plans to eliminate a “free flow” lane that allows drivers northbound on Federal Highway to use the lane to turn east onto Southeast Mizner Boulevard, bypassing the intersection of Federal and Mizner.

The new interchange configuration will have drivers turning east onto Mizner from a right-turn lane at the intersection. Pedestrian crosswalks across Mizner and Federal also will be improved.

The change has been discussed for at least five years, but Boca Raton officials were spurred to take action because traffic on Mizner is increasing with new development in the area — especially the construction of the 384-unit Alina Residences luxury condominiums at 300 SE Mizner Blvd. The first phase of the project is expected to be completed late this year.

Residents of Townsend Place condominiums at 500 SE Mizner Blvd. have long complained about fast traffic on the street and the lack of crosswalks to allow pedestrians to safely cross to Royal Palm Place.

Negotiations between the city and Alina developer El-Ad National Properties resulted in an agreement that El-Ad provide a crosswalk across Mizner.

City Council members, sitting as Community Redevelopment Agency commissioners, unanimously approved the new design on Jan. 27, and the City Council did the same on Jan. 28. The Planning and Zoning Board unanimously approved the change on Jan. 9.

“It is a clear win for everyone,” said Deputy Mayor Jeremy Rodgers.

Because Federal Highway is a state road, the Florida Department of Transportation weighed in on the change. A department road safety audit concluded the current intersection design is unsafe for drivers and pedestrians, and one of its recommendations was to eliminate the “free flow” lane.

Kimley-Horn and Associates, the city’s engineering consultant, also analyzed the change and concluded it would improve safety.

Architect Derek Vander Ploeg, a member of the Downtown Advisory Committee, told Planning and Zoning Board members that the change “is long overdue.”

Construction is expected to begin in June and be completed by the end of September.  

By Steve Plunkett

The names are in — 294 suggestions for what to call Boca Raton’s soon-to-be integrated Wildflower property and Silver Palm Park on the Intracoastal Waterway.

And the winner is: Wildflower Park and Silver Palm Park.

“I had a feeling that’s the way it would end up,” council member Andrea O’Rourke said. “I think the public has spoken.”

Mayor Scott Singer reviewed the submissions, which were collected online in November and December, at the City Council’s Jan. 13 workshop.

“Far and away, and I don’t know if it’s a majority because not everything was logged exactly, but the furthest plurality was to keep things named as the Wildflower Silver Palm Park,” Singer said.

Variants included Wild Palm Park and Silver Flower Park. The People’s Park, Bridge Park and Camino Love Park also were proposed.

“The other names that were offered — there didn’t seem to be any sort of consensus for a variety of names,” Singer said, concluding that the city should keep the names as is.

Council member Andy Thomson agreed with Singer’s assessment, “with the understanding that if a very generous donor came into the city and offered to name it, a suitable name, that we would be willing to consider that.”

And council member Monica Mayotte was “perfectly fine” with keeping the names but said, “We need some wildflowers, we need some landscaping at the park so the name is appropriate.”

Work on the $6.8 million waterfront park project is scheduled to begin next fall.

Council members also discussed the wall that straddles the east property line of a private parcel at the northeast corner of Palmetto Park Road and Northeast Fifth Avenue next to the Wildflower site. The corner held Maxwell’s Chophouse until the restaurant was razed in 2007.

“The wall is unsightly. Something needs to be done,” O’Rourke said.

City staff will contact the property’s owner seeking permission to at least paint the wall.

In other business, Singer said he would give a State of the City address at the Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center, tentatively set for Feb. 18, to highlight Boca Raton’s  last year.  

The new interchange will eliminate left-hand turns in front of oncoming traffic, the key safety feature. Drivers on Glades Road will switch sides of the road as they cross I-95 and then switch back. Traffic signals will control the crossovers. Rendering provided

By Steve Plunkett

Work will begin in earnest this month on the state’s four-year, $148 million plan to add express lanes to Interstate 95 through Boca Raton and into Delray Beach and to replace the Glades Road cloverleaf with a “diverging diamond interchange.”

“The primary benefit of the DDI is the seamless ingress and egress to and from the interstate,” the Florida Department of Transportation said in a video presentation to interested residents Jan. 15 at the Spanish River Library.

The diamond design shifts traffic to the left side through the interchange, eliminating left turns against oncoming vehicles and “reducing the more serious accidents typically associated with turning points,” the FDOT said.

Drivers switch sides of the road at multilane X crossings guarded by traffic signals at either end of the diamond. The synchronized signals “facilitate the smooth flow of traffic, reducing delay times and minimizing conflict points,” the agency continued. The DDI will decrease travel time, increase safety and improve mobility at the interchange and handle expected increasing traffic through 2040, it said.

The department’s video, which gives a behind-the-steering-wheel view of the diamond crossing, is posted at www.d4fdot.com/pbfdot/95_express_phase_3b2.asp

The agency’s original plan for the Glades Road interchange was to widen and resurface the existing ramps, widen the bridges over I-95 and Military Trail, and build a flyover ramp for westbound vehicles to turn north or south on the interstate. But, the diamond design was seen as a better solution for decreasing travel time, improving mobility and providing safety.

Also part of the project, an extra lane will be added from south of Glades to south of Linton Boulevard; it and the existing HOV lane will become express toll lanes. Scott Passmore, the senior project engineer, said the FDOT uses gasoline taxes to pay for maintenance of interstates and finances construction such as this with express tolls.

Express lanes in Miami-Dade County charge tolls of 50 cents to $10.50, depending on distance, time of day and congestion. Hybrid and electric vehicles travel free.

Construction crews have been working since 2018 to build express lanes from south of Southwest 10th Street in Deerfield Beach to south of Glades Road. That segment is scheduled to open in spring 2022. 

Dozens of private jets are parked at the north end of Boca Raton Airport on Jan. 18 during President Donald Trump’s visit. With Trump likely to visit for Super Bowl and Presidents Day weekends, the airport expects more overflow this month. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Think parking your SUV at the mall during the holidays was a challenge?

Try parking your airplane at Boca Raton Airport during the week between Christmas and New Year’s when President Donald Trump is in town and flight restrictions are in place at airports close to Mar-a-Lago.

And if the president is in town because of a special event — such as the Feb. 2 Super Bowl in Miami Gardens — don’t even think about finding a place to put your jet without first making reservations, maybe even a few weeks in advance.

Because Boca Raton Airport is relatively small — only about 200 acres — jet and airplane parking can be at a premium even when no flight restrictions exist.

For example, a typical three-day Presidents Day weekend, even before restrictions became common, often prompted airport officials to institute a “drop and go” policy, preventing planes from parking overnight.

“The real estate here is small, the demand is high and we’re seeing bigger jets,” says Clara Bennett, the Boca Raton Airport Authority’s executive director.

Throw in a long presidential visit that forces small planes from Lantana or Palm Beach International Airport to fly in and out of Boca instead, and parking can be an issue.

“During temporary flight restrictions, everything just doubles — except for the size of the facility,” Bennett said.

Parking was at such a premium during the Christmas holidays when Trump was in Palm Beach that the Federal Aviation Administration issued a rare “ground stop” notice, preventing planes from landing at the airport for a few hours on Dec. 28 until spots became available.

In all, the Boca airport had a total of 6,505 takeoffs and landings in December — an increase of about 1,000 operations from the previous year, when the president stayed in Washington and flight restrictions were not imposed.

“It just felt like it was our busiest month,” Bennett said.

That actually may have been in March, which had more than 7,000 takeoffs and landings, while Trump was here and flight restrictions were in place.

About 200 of the planes that flew into Boca Raton Airport in December came from outside the country, up from 148 the previous year. A majority of the flights, 116, came from the Bahamas, while 36 originated in Canada.

Flights from England, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal and several South American and Caribbean countries also landed at Boca Raton Airport in December.

One record the airport did set in December, Bennett said, was the gallons of jet fuel delivered to the companies that service aircraft and provide the parking space.

More than 1 million gallons were delivered, a 50% increase over the same time in 2018, when 722,500 gallons were delivered.

That’s good for the airport, which receives money from the two companies that service aircraft — fixed base operators — based on a percentage of the company’s fuel sales.

But Bennett called it “sort of a mixed blessing. It’s good in terms of revenue that is reinvested in facilities at the airport, but it is also a concern in terms of being able to meet the increased demand.”

Bennett said that during December, both Signature Flight Support and Atlantic Aviation were able to gear up and meet the increased demand.

“We have world-class FBOs and they’re experts at dealing with this,” she said. 

By Mary Hladky

Seven weeks after Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District commissioners reluctantly gave in to City Council pressure to allow the city to build the Boca National golf course, they have decided to take back control.

Commissioners remained firm on this decision during a Jan. 27 joint meeting between the two bodies, saying they could build the course and pay for it without city help or a tax rate increase.

The meeting was marred by distrust on both sides, with City Council members doubting the district could finance the golf course, and commissioners accusing the city of not negotiating in good faith.

Asked by City Council member Andrea O’Rourke why the district did not want the city to manage the project, district Commissioner Robert Rollins said, “Because I have greater faith in the district to do the job on time. …”

The district has asked the city to approve the golf course design so the project can be put out for bids. City Manager Leif Ahnell said city staff received the district’s request days before the joint meeting and had not had a chance to analyze it, but would do so shortly.

District Executive Director Briann Harms included with the request a five-year plan to pay for the golf course and five options for phasing it in over the five years. Those options will be reviewed by the National Golf Foundation, which will recommend what it considers the most financially viable of the choices.

“It is a conservative budget,” Harms said. “We can make it work.”

All five options peg the cost of Boca National at about $13.9 million, well below the original $28 million cost that has since been whittled down at the city’s insistence.

The fragile deal between the city and district, forged at a Nov. 12 joint meeting, imploded on Jan. 6 after commissioners saw the city’s draft of an amended agreement between the city and district that spelled out the city’s responsibilities for golf course design, construction and operation.

Commissioners cried foul, contending the draft agreement was one-sided and financially ruinous for the district. They voted unanimously to reject the agreement, cease negotiations with the city and build the golf course themselves, garnering applause from golfers in the audience.

“I could never support the district entering into this kind of agreement that would be so financially harmful to the community,” said Commissioner Craig Ehrnst.

“I am very happy we have a 5-0 vote,” said Chairwoman Susan Vogelgesang. “Now I really have hope. I have confidence we can do it.”

The vote came after golf teaching professional Rick Heard listed problems he saw with the draft agreement, urged commissioners to take back control of the golf course project and suggested ways the district could finance the project on its own.

His long list of objections included the city’s intention to request proposals from golf course architects with the aim of seeing if the city can get a better price or design, even though the district had already spent nearly $1 million on its design after selecting the Nick Price-Tom Fazio team as the best.

But his biggest concern, shared by Harms, was that the city would be able to terminate the agreement for any reason after the golf course construction was completed, after which the costs of operating and maintaining the golf course would be borne by the district.

Harms saw that as very problematic, especially since the city might pick a new golf course architect and design with the district having no veto power over the decision.

The district’s decision to reject the draft agreement surprised city officials, who saw the draft as a starting point for continued negotiations.

“We thought that the district would review the draft document and provide comments and suggested revisions, not simply reject the entire draft document,” Deputy City Manager Mike Woika wrote to Harms.

But the district’s decision to take back the project was reinforced after Harms gave a list of her concerns about the draft agreement to the city at a Jan. 13 meeting. Harms said the district might reconsider its rejection of the draft agreement if the city responded to the concerns.

Woika sent back the draft to the district, but made only one change in a section that he said was not clearly written. The draft was annotated with numerous comments intended to explain or clarify the city’s intentions.

“We did give them a list of our concerns,” Commissioner Steven Engel said at a Jan. 21 district meeting. “Those concerns were basically ignored.”

City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser disputed that at the joint meeting, saying that the district had not said how it wanted to amend the draft agreement. That made it impossible for the city to offer a fuller response, she said.

A key reason the city wanted to take over the project was that district officials told council members at a joint Nov. 12 meeting that they did not have enough money to do the project on their own.

But they now think they can do so without raising the tax rate, provided the course is built over five years and the district postpones some planned park projects to free up money. Golfers told commissioners they did not mind waiting longer for golf course completion.

City officials believe they could complete the course in 18 months to two years.

Although the district will need more time to complete the project, Harms has said a course will be playable within a few years.

The district’s financial position improved after the city returned to the district $2.4 million it had given to the city for park projects, but the city didn’t spend. That boosted the district’s reserve fund to $5.5 million — enough to start the project, Harms said.

The district also could boost its finances if it gets approval to stop making payments to the city to pay off bond debt that financed the construction of Mizner Park. It has asked the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency to relieve it of its payment obligations, which totaled $1.4 million for the 2019-20 fiscal year.

Frieser has told City Council members, who also sit as CRA commissioners, that is possible, but only after completing a process that includes financial reviews, a public hearing and the signing of a new agreement between the city and district.

The City Council also can deny the request. 

By Mary Hladky

After more than two years of debate, the City Council is poised to decide whether to allow medical marijuana dispensaries to open in Boca Raton.

A majority of those speaking on Jan. 28 at the first public hearing on a proposed ordinance, including two representatives of medical marijuana dispensary companies, urged the council to allow them.

Eric Sevell noted that 76 percent of Boca Raton residents voted in favor of a state constitutional amendment in 2016 that legalized medical use of marijuana.

“I think you have arrived at a proper ordinance,” he said.

Another speaker said he has worked for a medical marijuana doctor and has seen how much it helps patients.

“To see them alive and well today, that convinced me to be able to continue to work,” he said.

Lauren Niehaus, a government relations specialist for Harvest Health and Recreation, which has six dispensaries in Florida, said the dispensaries want to be part of the fabric of the city.

“The goal is not to be the best dispensaries … but to be one of the best business partners,” she said.

But she and other company representatives urged council members to reduce the proposed size of dispensaries from 5,000 square feet to about 2,000, which is more in line with the size of existing dispensaries.

Two people spoke against the ordinance. Glenn Gromann, who has served on city boards, said they would bring crime to the city.

Marc Wigder, an attorney, urged council members not to allow too many.

“You can’t let it go everywhere,” he said.

Council members and city staff have long been leery of allowing dispensaries. The council approved a moratorium on them in 2014 and banned them in 2017.

But public opinion has gone the other way. In 2016, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendment and the Legislature passed implementing legislation the next year.

Since then, the medical marijuana industry has taken off in Florida. Nearly 220 dispensaries are now on operating across the state with more than 30 located in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use.

As of January, 304,445 patients have qualified to obtain medical marijuana and about 2,600 physicians have qualified to approve patients for its use.

Medical marijuana is used to help people with health conditions such as cancer, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder.

But city staff has consistently opposed allowing the dispensaries to operate in the city. Their chief concern is that the state regulates medical marijuana and the dispensaries and gives cities almost no leeway to manage them or restrict how many can open once they decide to allow them.

Staff also noted in their report to the City Council that Boca Raton residents have access to dispensaries, just not within the city limits. Six dispensaries are operating in Deerfield Beach, one is in Boynton Beach and two are in unincorporated areas west and north of the city.

Under state law, dispensaries can be located anywhere zoning laws allow pharmacies but are not allowed within 500 feet of a school.

Pharmacies can’t sell medical marijuana because it is still classified as a controlled substance by the federal government.

City Council members will vote at the final public hearing in mid-February.

Mayor Scott Singer suggested that the city place a cap on how many can open in the city.

“The concern has been to balance the access to this form of medicine and the state’s limitation on home rule ability to zone in the normal way,” he said. 

A tunnel of trees surrounds State Road A1A as it winds through the Ziff estate in Manalapan. File photo/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

For close to three decades Manalapan and the Ziff family have worked together to preserve a largely pristine, 15.6-acre parcel that has defined with its natural beauty the town’s southern entrance on A1A.
The town has been willing to allow the family exceptions to codes and building rules — variances that recognized the historic and aesthetic contributions of the property known as Gemini. In return, the Ziffs pledged to keep the family’s land as it is, in one unbroken waterfront parcel, and to resist the temptation to divide it into lots for development.
That longtime understanding between town and family came to an end on Dec. 10 when the commission unanimously voted to allow a total of four lots on the property.

William Bernard Ziff Jr. had workers remove exotic vegetation like Australian pines and assemble a world-class tropical garden. Ziff died in 2006, leaving the property to his family.

John Randolph, the family’s attorney, told the Town Commission that despite trying to find a buyer since 2016, the Ziffs have been unable to sell the property as a whole. Originally listed for $195 million, the asking price now has fallen to around $165 million, a number that still would be a record-breaker for Palm Beach County real estate.
Randolph told commissioners that for the family to sell the property, it had to be divided into smaller parcels.
“This property as you know has been on the market for about five years without us being able to obtain a purchaser,” he said. “Our purpose here is not to subdivide it for the family but to subdivide it to make it more attractive for a buyer.”
Randolph asked the town to divide the largest parcel on the northern end of the property into three separate lots.
“If we would start from scratch and level everything we would be entitled to eight lots under your zoning code,” he said. “But we feel that would not be in the interest of the town or the family. What we propose here we feel is a win-win for everybody.
“I just can’t think of a better way to preserve the property.”

The approved subdivision keeps the existing main home, but allows the removal of outdated support structures. The Ziffs hope the room for new development will entice buyers. Photo and rendering provided

Mayor Keith Waters was less enthusiastic. He said it was “a really complicated decision” for the commission because of the potentially troublesome precedent that might be set, one that could undermine the town’s code.
“We are being asked something we were told would never be asked,” Waters said.
Joining Randolph in the appeal was Dirk Ziff, 54, the eldest of three sons of billionaire publishing magnate William Bernard Ziff Jr. and an heir to the family fortune built on magazines such as Car and Driver and PC Magazine.
Dirk Ziff said he never expected to come to the town and ask for permission to break up the property — “it never occurred to us at all” — until efforts to sell it foundered.
“No one is going to feel sorry for our family,” Ziff said about the marketing failure. “We’re a very fortunate family. But it’s uncomfortable coming forward. We want clarity. We want resolution.”
Commissioner Stewart Satter, who has developed properties in Florida, reminded Ziff that the town had given the family “preferential treatment” over the years in return for the promise not to divide the land. Satter asked whether the problems selling it as a whole weren’t “all about price.” Why not drop the listing number lower?
Ziff told the commission it was difficult to find a buyer who was willing to do the preservation work, all the maintenance and pay all the taxes that Gemini demands. “We tried really hard for five years,” Ziff said.
Satter asked if the Ziffs aren’t “trying to maximize value.”
“Of course that’s true,” Ziff said. “There’s just an economic reality here that I’m not ashamed of.”
Waters said the town wants to try to preserve the canopy — the tunnel of trees reaching across State Road A1A.
“Dozens and dozens of people are asking about that canopy,” Waters said.
The commission voted 5-0 to approve the subdivision and allow four lots. As part of the approval, the town will require several structures to be torn down, golf holes to be removed and much of the land returned to its natural state. A provision that would encourage preserving the canopy was also approved, but enforcing preservation will be difficult, commissioners agreed.
Officials say demolition and development are likely at least a couple of years away.

In other business:
There will be no Manalapan election in March, but one commissioner will be replaced.
Clark Appleby is leaving because of term limits. Taking his at-large seat is former Commissioner Chauncey Johnstone, who qualified and was unopposed.
Vice Mayor Simone Bonutti and Commissioner Richard Granara also were unopposed and are returning.

By Rich Pollack

Highland Beach will get a new mayor and a new commissioner come March along with a returning vice mayor, after three candidates for commission seats ran unopposed.
In what appears to be a calm in Highland Beach elections not seen for several years, political newcomer Doug Hillman was unopposed in his bid for mayor, as was newcomer John Shoemaker, who will fill an open commission seat.
Vice Mayor Greg Babij, who was appointed to the position last year, also ran unopposed and will keep his seat at least until the term expires next year.
Hillman will take the post currently held by retiring Mayor Rhoda Zelniker, who has served on the commission for five years, while Shoemaker will fill a seat vacated by Commissioner Barry Donaldson, who was appointed last January.
“I greatly enjoyed being a commissioner, but it wasn’t a good fit for me at this time,” Donaldson said. “As things evolved I discovered I didn’t have a campaign in me.”
Because Hillman, Babij and Shoemaker were all unopposed when the deadline to file to run passed on Dec. 12, Highland Beach will not hold a municipal election. There will, however, be a Democratic Party primary election on March 17.
Without the need for an election, an estimated $10,000 that had been budgeted to cover associated costs will be returned to the town’s general budget.
While Hillman has not run for town-wide office before, he has been a familiar face in town hall for several months, serving on the financial advisory board.
The president of the Boca Highland Beach Club and Marina umbrella organization for three years and president of his own Dalton Place community going on nine years, Hillman was a finalist — along with Babij — for an appointment to the vice mayor position last year.
He said he is looking forward to working with Babij as well as with Shoemaker and remaining Commissioners Evalyn David and Peggy Gossett-Seidman.
“I think we can accomplish a great deal together,” he said.
A former president of London Fog and vice president of sales and marketing for Burlington Hosiery, Hillman, 73, and his wife were part-time residents for five years before become full-time residents in 2014.
“One of the goals is to keep Highland Beach a unique small town where residents feel and are safe and have excellent services,” he said. “We need to protect our paradise.”
Like Hillman, both Shoemaker and Babij have strong business backgrounds.
A Vietnam veteran who served as a paratrooper and infantry combat platoon leader, Shoemaker held executive leadership positions at high-tech companies for 45 years before retiring.
He came to Highland Beach as a part-time resident in 2006 and retired three years ago, although he still helps other companies as a paid consultant.
He became involved in the community during 2018 as a voice of opposition to three ballot issues that would have allowed the town to spend up to $45 million on projects in conjunction with Florida Department of Transportation improvements to State Road A1A. Those ballot initiatives were overwhelmingly defeated during the election.
Shoemaker, 73, said he decided to run for office following his involvement in the referendum.
“I’m at a point where I’m comfortable with my life and I just want to contribute to the community,” he said.
Like Hillman, Shoemaker believes the commission and the town will benefit from more community outreach by town leaders and more collaboration with residents and resident groups.
Babij, who also had not previously run for elected office, says he decided to run to complete the term he was appointed to a year ago.
“It’s only one year, so it made sense,” he said.
Considered by many to be a voice of reason on the commission, Babij, 47, brings a strong financial background to the position.
The CEO of an asset management firm, Bunkport Capital LLC, Babij got involved in the community while on the financial advisory board and was appointed to the commission in March following a structured selection process.
“I guess I’m doing OK since no one ran against me,” he said. “I think I’m contributing by helping the decision-making process.”
In his role as vice mayor, Babij often raises issues and says he enjoys having thoughtful discussions with others on the commission.
“I believe no one is smarter than all of us collectively,” he said.

Boca Raton will receive $2.6 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to defray the costs of cleaning up after Hurricane Irma.
The money will reimburse the city for collection and disposal of debris, FEMA said in a Dec. 23 release.
The city collected more than 350,000 cubic yards of vegetative debris from roads and public and private property, FEMA said.
The money is from FEMA’s Public Assistance grant program, which helps communities recover from a federally declared disaster or emergency.
Irma struck the state on Sept. 10, 2017, making landfall in the Florida Keys as a Category 4 hurricane.
—Mary Hladky

Joan Weir and her daughter, Louise Glover, stroll Highland Beach near Yamato Rock, a limestone outcropping slated to become part of Milani Park. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Louise Glover remembers when she and her friends would gather on what is now Yamato Rock for one of her childhood birthday parties.
“It was lots of fun,” she said. “When the water would come in, the waves would shoot up like geysers at Yellowstone and splash all over us.”
Back then, in the late 1960s, the Highland Beach property just west of the large outcropping was owned by Glover’s grandmother, Grace Weir. Glover, her friends and family members spent many summer days having a good time on and around the rock.
“When it was flat, it was perfect,” said Glover, who lives in Delray Beach. “You could jump off the rocks, swim around and see a lot of little fish. It was such a blast.”
Glover said that her grandmother owned the property that faces the rock from about 1955. It was sold to Canadian developer Cam Milani in the mid-1970s after Weir’s death.
When Milani died in 1986, his family and Palm Beach County began working on a sale that would turn the property into a county park.

Yamato Rock is a hidden gem that would get wider use among snorkelers and anglers once it becomes part of a county park by 2025 or so. Snorkelers can see the bright orange fire coral and angelfish and damselfish. Anglers can catch snook, tarpon and jacks. Photo provided by Rodrigo Griesi

In the decades that have since passed, the property — and by extension Yamato Rock — has been at the center of controversy and legal wrangling that could come to an end in about five years. That is, unless Highland Beach residents can lobby hard enough to put the brakes on what is to be known as the Cam D. Milani Park.
Under a 2010 agreement that came as part of a settlement with the town of Highland Beach, construction of a county park was delayed for 10 years with the county given two five-year extensions before having to either begin construction or sell the property.
In 2019, county commissioners agreed to postpone development of the park for five years but instructed the county’s parks department to begin the legwork that would make it possible for construction to begin in 2025.
Town residents, especially those in the Boca Highland Beach Club and Marina community, have promised to continue fighting the park, which they fear will create traffic and safety issues.
If and when a park is built, Yamato Rock would be an important part of the recreation area, according to people who know the area well.
“It’s a unique feature of that location,” said Eric Call, the county’s parks and recreation director. “People will enjoy it.”
What makes Yamato Rock special, Call said, is the marine life that congregates around it. “It’s great for attracting fish,” he said, adding that snorkelers and anglers both are attracted to the area.
Call said that the property, in part because of the outcropping, is unique along Palm Beach County’s coast.
“I think the rock is what gives it character,” he said.
Albert Richwagen, a longtime South Florida resident and owner of Delray Beach Water Sports, said Yamato Rock is one of the best recreational spots in the area for people who want to surf, snorkel or fish, in large part because of its geology.
“There’s nothing like it around,” he said. “There’s not many spots where there’s a rock so close to the shoreline.”
He said the rock holds the sand on the north side while the water is deeper on the south side.
“On the big swells, it’s one of the better surfing spots,” he said.
But, Richwagen said, “It’s too hard to get to and there’s no parking.”
Highland Beach has no public beach access. The only way for non-boaters to get to Yamato Rock now, he said, is to park at Spanish River Park in Boca Raton and walk a half-mile or so up the beach, staying on the public portion.
The outcropping once was called Jap Rock. Several theories exist about how it got that name, with many believing it was due to members of the Yamato Colony of Japanese pineapple farmers going there to fish in the early 1900s.
“It’s still kind of shrouded in mystery. It’s likely white pioneers named it ‘Jap Rock,’” said Susan Gillis, curator of collections at the Boca Raton Historical Society.
Gillis, who pointed out that the outcropping was not really close to the Yamato Colony, said the name was changed in 2006 to be less pejorative.

Joan Weir and daughter Louise Glover, who live in Delray Beach, return to Yamato Rock. Glover’s grandmother owned the beachfront through the 1960s. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Glover said she and her family had a different explanation for the name. “We thought it was because the rocks looked like the hats that Japanese pineapple farmers wore,” she said.
Glover said allowing Yamato Rock to be more accessible for public use makes sense and is a concept her grandmother might have supported.
Another parcel she owned on Jupiter Island is now Blowing Rocks Preserve, owned by the Nature Conservancy. It includes an educational center, native plant nursery, boardwalk, oceanside path and a butterfly garden.

Glover as a child at the rock. Kids would jump off the rock to swim and see fish. ‘It was such a blast,’ she says. Family photo

By Mary Hladky

Many Boca Raton beach-goers make it a point to help keep the beaches clean by picking up trash and plastics on the sand and disposing of them.
But now the city has made it easier to do so. They no longer need to bring trash bags with them when visiting the beaches for a stroll or swim.
The new Community Coastal Clean Up program provides metal buckets next to signs explaining the program at Red Reef, Spanish River and South Beach parks.
Simply pick up a bucket, put debris inside, dump it in green trash cans along the beach and return the bucket.
“It’s more about education and awareness,” said City Council member Monica Mayotte, who has long brought compostable bags with her on her beach visits.
“You can pick up stuff around where you are sitting. Every little bit helps.”
Ocean pollution, especially by plastics, has gained a lot of attention in recent years.
A report from the World Economic Forum and Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that 165 million tons of plastics are in the oceans. By 2050, the oceans will contain more plastics than fish by weight if nothing changes.
Much of the plastic ends up in gigantic garbage patches floating in the oceans, including one the size of Texas.
Sea birds, fish, turtles and other marine life ingest it and die. Or they get tangled up in the plastics, leaving them unable to eat or swim.
Boca Raton provided a recent example. On Oct. 1, the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center posted a photo on Facebook that went viral of a baby turtle that had washed ashore. A necropsy found that the hatchling had ingested 104 small pieces of plastic.
This incident isn’t unusual. A Gumbo Limbo staff member told Live Science that staffers see this every day.
Gumbo Limbo, along with the city’s Recreation Services Department and Ocean Rescue, created the cleanup program and the city began promoting it on its website in November.
The buckets are located by lifeguard tower 4 in South Beach Park, lifeguard tower 9 in Red Reef Park and lifeguard tower 16 in Spanish River Park.

By Mary Hladky

The Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District wants to stop making payments to the city to pay off a Mizner Park bond debt, and instead wants to redirect the money to park improvement projects.
The district asked the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency to relieve it of its payment obligations in a Sept. 20 letter, but did not receive a response, district attorney Jacob Horowitz said at a Dec. 16 meeting.
While district commissioners voted 4-0, with Commissioner Robert Rollins absent, to make a $1.4 million payment to the CRA for the 2019-20 fiscal year, they also agreed to send a second letter renewing their request to be exempted from making any more payments. That letter was delivered to the city on Dec. 23.
The City Council, whose members also sit as CRA commissioners, has the authority to exempt the district from making the payments, the most recent letter states.
If the City Council refuses, the district would seek legal advice on how to end the obligation, Executive Director Briann Harms said in an email.
The issue could become another bone of contention between the city and the district, which are now are at odds over how to build the Boca National golf course.
The CRA was created in the early 1980s to breathe new life into the then-moribund downtown. Its first major project was the development of Mizner Park, which replaced a failing mall and became an attractive downtown destination.
A 1986 interlocal agreement between the district and the city obligated the district to make payments for acquiring, operating and maintaining park and recreational facilities in the downtown.
The agreement was amended in 1989 to allow the CRA to use the district payments to pay off $68 million in bonds that financed the Mizner Park project. Mizner Park opened in 1991.
Since those bonds were paid off in March, it is an appropriate time to seek a new arrangement, the district said in the September and December letters.
The December letter includes two other reasons why the district should not have to make further payments.
Thirteen percent of the district’s tax revenue comes from residents living outside the city’s boundaries, but they have received no benefit from the payments to the CRA because they pay higher non-resident rates at recreation facilities located within the CRA, which encompasses Boca Raton’s downtown area.
The district is also strapped for money because, under pressure from the City Council, commissioners voted against raising the tax rate last year.
Exempting the district from making additional payments will “allow the district to utilize these funds in other ways that will continue to benefit the citizens and residents that we both serve,” the letter states.
City spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson said that the district’s request will be discussed at a Jan. 23 joint meeting between City Council members and district commissioners. The matter also could come up at the Jan. 13 City Council meeting.
In other business:
• Commissioners voted 4-0 to approve an employment agreement with Harms, who became executive director in October after serving as interim executive director since February.
Harms replaces veteran district official Art Koski, who was reassigned to be construction manager of the Boca National public golf course one year ago. He also served as a consultant until the commission ended his contract in October.
Harms’ annual base salary is $105,000, with a 3% cost-of- living adjustment taking effect on Jan. 1. Her monthly car allowance is $500. Her salary cannot exceed $150,000.
Her compensation is below the $120,000 Koski earned as executive director at the time he was reassigned.
“I want to thank you all for your support over the last year,” Harms said as she was applauded by commissioners and the audience.
“I think she has done a very good job,” District Chair Susan Vogelgesang said after the meeting. “She is very thorough.”
• Commissioners also voted 4-0 to approve rules governing how district meetings are conducted, similar to rules other elected bodies have.
The rules include a public decorum policy, first proposed by Commissioner Steven Engel in October, that govern conduct by commissioners and members of the pubic attending district meetings.
Engel said he decided rules were needed after a heated conversation between District Vice Chair Erin Wright and Koski in July, but his decision was reinforced by behavior of an audience member during and after a November meeting in which a commissioner felt threatened.
That incident has prompted commissioners to have a police presence at some of their meetings.
The policy states that members of the public and commissioners shall treat each other with courtesy and refrain from “rude and derogatory remarks, reflection as to integrity, abusive comments, and statements as to motives and personalities.”
Anyone who disrupts a meeting and does not heed a warning to stop will be removed by a police officer and is subject to arrest.

By Rich Pollack

In its efforts to improve visibility of crosswalks along State Road A1A, Highland Beach is going red.
Taking a page out of Delray Beach’s playbook, Highland Beach officials hope to repave the eight crosswalks within town limits with textured asphalt that would then be painted brick red.
If all goes well, the inside of the crosswalks will include white Thermoseal striping, with white Thermoseal borders on the north and south sides of the walkways.
“Everything we’re doing is designed to increase visibility,” Town Manager Marshall Labadie said.
Highland Beach is modeling the improvements after those Delray Beach made at several intersections — including some along A1A — that caught the eye of town officials.
The restriping and repaving of the crosswalks is part of Highland Beach’s multi-pronged effort to improve crosswalk safety.
For years residents, concerned that vehicles are not stopping when pedestrians are in the A1A crosswalks, have been pushing the town to take steps to improve visibility.
“All I’ve wanted was an effective system that will stop cars when a pedestrian is in the crosswalk,” said resident John Boden, who has been leading the effort.
Because A1A is a state road and falls under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Transportation, getting the green light to make improvements has required the OK of state officials, which has slowed the process.
Now it seems efforts are moving at a quicker pace.
An engineering study has been completed and preliminary approval for the projects has been granted by state officials.
Late last month, Highland Beach sent out a request for bids for construction of several crosswalk improvements.
They include:
• The two-toned pavement markings.
• New signage with pedestrian-activated rapid flashing lights.
• Embedded lighting in the crosswalks that will also be pedestrian-activated.
Labadie said the bids will be opened in early February and work on some pieces of the project could begin as early as March.
Funding for the project is estimated to be around $400,000, with the town having budgeted only about $200,000.
While the state’s Department of Transportation has said it will not help with the funding, town officials have enlisted the aid of state Rep. Mike Caruso, R-Delray Beach, and state Sen. Kevin Rader, D-Boca Raton, and are hoping to get about $200,000 directly allocated by the Legislature.
Two bills — one that would include funding for crosswalk improvements and another that would help the town pay for drainage improvements — are winding their way through the Legislature.
To further improve pedestrian visibility and make crosswalks safer, Highland Beach last year unveiled crosswalk flags at a test location in the south end of town.
Those flags have received a positive reaction from residents, and have since been added to the crosswalk near the Regency Highland condominium, Labadie said.

Generoso Pope Jr., the paper’s founder, holds a copy of a 1977 issue showing Elvis Presley in his casket. It’s an image from the film Scandalous: the Untold Story of the National Enquirer.

By Mary Thurwachter

Two years ago, a California acupuncturist took her parents, visiting from Florida, along to meet friends for dinner at a trendy L.A. restaurant. The acupuncturist, well-known in Hollywood circles, had a client list that included famous folks such as Kim Kardashian.
The TV reality star wasn’t part of this small gathering, but film producer and director Mark Landsman was, and he couldn’t get over the entertaining stories his friend’s father told.
But who was the charming, chatty daddy? Enquiring minds wanted to know.
He was Lantana’s vice mayor, Malcolm Balfour, former articles editor at the National Enquirer. The acupuncturist was his daughter, Antonia.
“Malcolm was regaling us with stories from his former career and had been a reporter from the earliest days of the National Enquirer,” Landsman said. “Naturally my ears perked up because I’m fascinated with that. He told these crazy stories and offered to introduce me to some of his former tabloid trench mates, and it just went from there.”

Hypoluxo Island resident and former Enquirer staffer Malcolm Balfour is featured in the film.
Photos provided by Magnolia Pictures

What “went from there” was production of a documentary called Scandalous, a look at the history of the National Enquirer, an influential tabloid that covers everything from alien landings and psychic predictions to celebrity breakups and medical oddities. No expense was spared to get a story. Sources were paid handsomely, a practice that continued after the 1988 death of owner Generoso Pope Jr.
“The great thing about working for the Enquirer was there was unlimited money to get a story,” said David Wright, an investigative reporter for the tabloid from 1976 to 2010. “If you were on a story and you wanted to hire a boat or plane, or someone to help you climb a mountain, you just did it. But that was starting to dry up in the last year I was there and I was more confined to doing stories on the phone. I like traveling and I like knocking on doors.” 
The film, which debuted in November at select theaters, including a short run at the Lake Worth Playhouse, examines “how this publication came into being and, on a larger level, looks at the impact it had on journalism and our political landscape,” Landsman said.
He pitched the documentary to people at CNN Films, and they went for it. In August before the Nov. 15 theatrical release, distributor Magnolia Pictures acquired the North American rights to Scandalous.
The movie uses current-day interviews with former staffers and others to examine why the paper has thrived, the effect of its sharp turn into partisan politics, and why a tabloid marketed to “Missy Smith in Kansas City” began acquiring exclusive rights to stories about powerful people and then killing the stories to protect them.
From its coverage of Elvis Presley’s death to Monica Lewinsky’s affair with Bill Clinton to O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, the tabloid shook the foundations of American culture and politics, sometimes allegedly using payoffs and blackmail to get its scoops.

Finding a home in Lantana
The National Enquirer moved its headquarters from New York to Lantana in 1971. It remained there until 2000, when it moved to Boca Raton. Pope in 1952 had used money supplied by his godfather, reputed mob boss Frank Costello, to buy and remake the old New York Enquirer from a racing and sporting newspaper into a grocery store tabloid.
While in Lantana, the paper’s headquarters became known for having the “World’s Largest Christmas Tree,” but the holiday display also ended after Pope died. Pope’s widow, Lois Pope, lives in Manalapan and is a well-known philanthropist.
Balfour was working as a bureau chief for Reuters in Miami in 1971 when he got a call from a photographer who persuaded him to take a freelance assignment for the Enquirer. He joined a team of reporters (most, like Balfour, who was born in South Africa, had British accents) in covering the Red Cross Ball at The Breakers in Palm Beach. The ballroom was packed with society’s finest, including members of the Kennedy family.
“I asked Rose Kennedy for a dance, but it only lasted for about three seconds before a Secret Service guy tapped me on the shoulder,” Balfour said. “I noticed that the Marine escorts weren’t able to sit down and eat with other attendees and I didn’t think that seemed right.”
Balfour turned this observation into a story about how the Marines, who escorted socialites at the gala, were good enough to die for their country in Vietnam but weren’t good enough to have dinner with the social elite at the ball. The story was a huge hit at the tabloid.
“I was quite a little favorite with Pope from then on,” Balfour said.
Balfour, who worked for Pope from 1971 to 1980, is one of the stars of Scandalous, as are others from South Palm Beach County — including Ocean Ridge Mayor Steve Coz, once the tabloid’s editor and senior vice president; his wife, Val Coz, a real estate agent with Douglas Elliman and former photo editor at the Enquirer; and British investigative reporter Wright, who lives in Atlantis.

Steve Coz (in chair) and David Perel are former executive editors at the Enquirer. Photo provided by Magnolia Pictures

Former employees like film
Not surprisingly, Balfour and his tabloid “trench mates” give the film two thumbs up.
“Mark Landsman did a fantastic job capturing the energy of the newsroom, the craziness of the Enquirer during its heyday and the incredible stress everyone was under,” said Steve Coz, who was at the paper from 1981 to 2003. “In Generoso Pope’s Enquirer you had a job for the week and could be fired on any given Friday for any random reason. 
“The most important takeaway from the movie for me was the transformation of the Enquirer into a powerful political propaganda machine under the ownership of David Pecker after Pope died.”
Coz and his wife left the tabloid in a nasty battle with Pecker over content and the editorial direction of the Enquirer.
Val Coz started working there in 1977 when she was 22. She took it as a temporary job, thinking she’d be there six months and move on. But she remained for 26 years and met her husband there.
“The movie made me happy because it’s a legacy for our kids to understand what we did because they were so little,” she said. “We left in 2003, so they were relatively young. It’s kind of nice because it does explain what happened.”
Wright and Balfour both agreed Scandalous was well done. They were relieved to find that the film made a very clear distinction at the end between the old Enquirer, which was breaking big stories and selling 5 million to 6 million copies a week, and what Wright calls “the pathetic publication it is now.”

Admiring, fearing Pope
Pope’s former employees had both good and bad things to say about working for him.
“It was stressful, certainly,” Val Coz said. “I had great admiration for Pope. All the stories are true about him. The one thing I never experienced from him was any kind of misogyny. He was equally mean and horrible to everybody — and equally rewarding if you produced. He didn’t have a thing ‘oh, she’s a girl don’t promote her,’ which was unusual back in those days.”
Wright, who specialized in covering high-profile crimes, said Pope was a terrifying man.
“You never knew when he was going to cast a dark eye on you and fire you,” he said. “But he was a genius in terms of how he set up the Enquirer, not only in the marketing in supermarkets, but he had a knack for getting a terrific mix of stories from show business to how-to stories to medical stories. The paper had something for everyone — and Pope OK’d every story that went in the paper, even the tiny 1-inch stories.”
Wright, who currently writes for a running and health website called TakeTheMagicStep.com, was the kind of ace reporter for the Enquirer who would do whatever it took to get the story. He once posed as a florist’s messenger, delivering roses to Megan Marshack, the staffer who had been with Nelson Rockefeller when he died in her arms. She was holed up in her apartment, trying to avoid reporters.
“I nearly had to buy the truck to get the setup right,” Wright recalled.
The stories of which he is most proud, though, are of the JonBenét Ramsey murder. He led a team of Enquirer reporters who spent two years covering the case, and he has a strong suspicion about who killed the young beauty queen.
“I have to think it was the mother, Patsy,” Wright said. “If you look at the ransom note, no kidnapper is going to come in and sit down at the kitchen table without the materials to write a ransom note in the first place, not knowing when the family is coming back. … And then the details of the ransom note had things that only Patsy and her husband would know. We really explored every one of the theories for all intruders. I never believed it could have been an intruder.”
But he can’t imagine what motive Patsy, who died in 2006, could have had.

The good, bad and ugly
One of Steve Coz’s favorite stories, from a journalism standpoint, was publishing the photo of O.J. Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes. A bloody shoe print from size 12 Bruno Maglis was found near the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson, his ex-wife, and her friend Ron Goldman.
O.J. had, during his trial, denied ever wearing “those ugly ass shoes.”
“Unfortunately, we didn’t find it during the criminal trial, but at least they had it (photo of O.J. wearing the shoes) for the civil trial,” Val Coz said of the photo.
“When the Enquirer trained its focus on legitimate news stories versus gossip, there was a cleanness to the Enquirer newsroom and we were quite good at it,” said Steve Coz, a Harvard graduate who has a management and communications company that specializes in media relations and brand growth.
From a gossip standpoint, Steve Coz said, the ongoing saga of Roseanne Barr during the 1990s was his favorite story. “She would call cursing me out one day and then love me the next. At one point she hired thugs who punched me out in my Beverly Hills hotel. Then later she had me co-host her daytime TV show with her. Crazy times.”
There were terrifying times for the Coz family as well. One of them came after Princess Diana’s fatal car accident in 1997. The Enquirer — and Steve Coz as editor — came under fire from George Clooney and other celebs who blamed the tabloid and Coz for her death because of the paparazzi chasing her. But none of them was from the Enquirer.
“Look, celebrities court publicity in the tabloids to start their careers, and then when they become full-fledged stars, they scream that the press is invading their privacy,” Coz said. “I was used to celebs screaming at me on the phone, but when Princess Di died, it got real ugly. She died at the hands of a drunken driver while French paparazzi were following her car. Hollywood celebrities immediately trained the focus on the paparazzi, the tabloids and me. It served their goal — to stop the tabloids from publishing stories that tarnished their public images.”
The Coz family was on edge after Diana’s death and threats from celebrities.
“The Ocean Ridge police chief then, Ed Hillery, put officers on our perimeter, and the Enquirer put security details at our house and on Val, the kids and me,” Steve Coz said. “We had our own three young children plus we were caring for two other kids while their parents were in Ireland. Those parents called when they heard the celebrity threats against me on the BBC.
“It was a trying time for us. It taught us not to sweat the small stuff. That large ficus hedge and fortified fence you see around our property were installed by the Enquirer to safeguard us.”
Another trying time for the Coz family came after photojournalist Bob Stevens was killed in the 2001 anthrax attack on the tabloid’s headquarters in Boca Raton.
“It was terrifying,” Val Coz said. “What people don’t really know is there were several people in the office that were taken ill during the ordeal and hospitalized and have had long-term results. We all had to be on prophylactic antibiotics for six or eight weeks.
“For Steve and me, it was even a little more frightening because our 11-year-old son had been in the office during the incubation time, before we knew about it. He had to go on antibiotics, as well as one of his friends who had been with him. We went in on a Saturday, they were running around the office while we were doing something on our way to a birthday party. Just one of those crazy things, you know.”

When can you see the film?
If you missed the showing at the Lake Worth Playhouse in November, you can see the film on CNN in April. If you don’t want to wait, go to www.scandalousfilm.com and click the button that says “watch at home.”
Scandalous is available on many streaming services.

The seventh annual Place of Hope event recognized Kelly Fleming and NCCI Holdings as Jay DiPietro Hero of Hope honorees and benefited programs at the charity’s Leighan and David Rinker Campus. ‘Under the Palms’ was the theme, and live and silent auctions, music and dancing were featured. ABOVE: Jeannine and Leland Morris.
Photo provided by Coastal Click Photography

With literary-themed cocktails such as Gin Eye, Huckleberry Sin and The Postman Always Brings Ice, the sipping, snacking and shopping event raised more than $10,000 for library programs. More than 200 attended and enjoyed light bites from local restaurants and merchandise from local vendors.
ABOVE: (l-r) Nancy Dockerty, Brenda Medore and Leanne Adair.

CENTER: (l-r) Chiara Clark, Leigh Martini and Jenny Nelson.
BELOW: Carrie and Doug Young.

Photos provided

The Kravis Center event celebrating the upcoming Palm Beach Wine Auction, set for Jan. 20, included four courses of fine Italian cuisine paired with select wines, all underwritten by Ed and Jen Dudnyk. ‘We’re here because of the more than 80,000 children the Kravis Center reaches with its arts-education programs every year,’ auction Chairman Ted Mandes said to the 80 guests. ‘Over the last 27 years, the Kravis Center has reached more than 2.6 million local students, and the Palm Beach Wine Auction has raised more than $4 million in proceeds to date toward this mission. We are committed to the future of the children in our community.’ ABOVE: Craig and Shelley Menin. BELOW: Stephanie and Peter Lamelas. Photos provided by CAPEHART

A 28-foot Christmas tree and a 15-foot menorah were lighted as the crowd sang along with Boynton Beach High School’s acclaimed Dimensional Harmony choral group during the annual holiday celebration. The Boca Raton High School ROTC presented the colors of the flag prior to the ‘National Anthem.’ State Rep. Mike Caruso led a prayer and resident Harry Adwar recited a Hanukkah reading. The town also celebrated its 70th anniversary with an enormous cake that fed the entire 250-person crowd.
ABOVE: (l-r) Highland Beach Vice Mayor Greg Babij, Town Manager Marshall Labadie, Santa, Police Chief Craig Hartmann, Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman, Mayor Rhoda Zelniker and Commissioner Barry Donaldson. Photo provided