Dozens of Boca Save Our Beaches volunteers removed more than 100 pounds of trash in less than two hours from the city park at the eastern end of Palmetto Park Road. The volunteer group is planning another cleanup May 19 for the beach at Spanish River Park. ABOVE: Volunteer Jim Wood.

Photo provided

Men of all ages who care about the community shared an exciting evening with the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County’s Men’s Division. The supporters gathered to hear former Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner following cocktails and dinner. ABOVE: (l-r) Co-Chairmen Chuck Lichtman, Ira Holz and Ken Lebersfeld. Photo provided by Jeffrey Tholl

Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse celebrated its 11th-annual afternoon affair, which raised money for the organization’s lifesaving services for domestic-violence victims and their children.

ABOVE: (l-r) Kathy Adkins, Amy Kazma, Dr. Anthony Dardano, committee member Dorothy MacDiarmid and Debbie Faris. 

BELOW: (l-r) Co-Chairwomen Anne Vegso, Marina Morbeck and Pam O’Brien. Photos provided

The Parkinson’s Foundation South Palm Beach County Chapter had its 20th event on the greens to raise funds for ongoing programs that help those in the local community living with the disease. Fifteen foursomes began with lunch before hitting the links in a shotgun start. The day ended with a cocktail reception and dinner. 

ABOVE: (l-r) Rita Waldorf, Jami Beere and Debbie Siegel. BELOW: (l-r) Paul Roman, Daniel Ahearn, John Ahearn and Co-Chairman Paul Kelly. Photos provided by Annette Meyer Slack

Children in Kenya will have new books to read, courtesy of a Project Humanity effort. A Delray Beach librarian is one of the volunteers who will deliver the books. Photo provided

By Lucy Lazarony

This summer, Delray Beach librarian Isabella Rowan will help deliver 60,000 donated library books to Kenya.

When she saw the headline on the Project Humanity website — with the words “Build libraries in Africa” — she knew she had to volunteer.

“It just felt like it was meant to be,”  Rowan recalls. “I’ve always been interested in Africa. I found out about Project Humanity in a book that I was reading.”

Faraway journeys are nothing new to Rowan, the educational programs and volunteer manager at Delray Beach Public Library. The only child of a missionary, she had traveled to 11 countries before her 16th birthday.

“I grew up with parents who taught me to not be afraid to touch the world,” Rowan says. “Becoming a librarian was a natural progression for me because I believe it is a calling. And I wholeheartedly believe that books bring light and have the power to transform lives.”

Rowan is the first librarian to volunteer with Project Humanity,  a nonprofit organization out of Key West, whose projects include building libraries and literacy in African nations.

Project Humanity distributes library books to school and community libraries in Africa with help from volunteers like Rowan. The African Library Project, another nonprofit, provides the books.

Rowan is eager to pitch in and do her part in Kenya. 

“I want to utilize my expertise in helping to train librarians,” says Rowan, who has a master’s degree in library and information science from Wayne State University in Detroit. 

She’ll also be doing story times with kids.

The plan is to deliver books to help set up 30 libraries. The books will arrive by sea after a three-month journey.

“The rest of the time will be evaluating potential sites for more libraries,” Rowan says. 

She leaves for Nairobi on June 8 and it will be a busy three weeks, setting up school and community libraries in remote areas of Kenya, training library staff and scouting other places.

The communities where Rowan will deliver the books are without reliable, if any, electricity and running water. Schools have dirt floors, no indoor plumbing and no books. 

To understand the need for books in Kenya, Rowan gave this example: 

“Kenya has a population of 48.46 million people with only 62 registered public libraries.  In Florida with our population of 20.61 million people we have 557 public library branches and 20 mobile library units,” she says.

“Here we have libraries, bookstores, paperbacks for a quarter at neighborhood garage sales and the Little Free Libraries initiative,” Rowan says. “With the abundance of books we have in America, it is very hard for me to comprehend that there are places in the world with no books.”

The Delray Beach Public Library hopes to connect its teen patrons with teens in Kenya.

“We hope to connect our patrons, especially the youth, with their African peers,” says Karen Ronald, executive director of the Delray Beach Public Library. “This is a wonderful opportunity for new friendships and greater understanding of different ways of life.”

Ronald would like to have the Delray Beach Public Library become a sister library to a library in Kenya as a result of Rowan’s visit. 

This is, she says, an opportunity to develop an international partnership with another library in order to promote books, libraries and literacy and build cross-cultural relationships.

Impact 100 Palm Beach County’s 547 members donated $547,000 to 10 South County charities during the Grand Awards Celebration that wrapped up the 2017-18 season.

Since the first Grand Awards Celebration in 2011, members have given $2,765,000 to effect positive change in the community.

The winners are: Boca Raton Philharmonic Symphonia’s Building a String Orchestra and Self-Esteem, in the arts and culture category; Lake Worth West Resident Planning Group’s Steps to Success (education category); Delray Beach Children’s Garden’s Expanding Our Nature education programming (environmental); Place of Hope’s Leighan and David Rinker Campus’ Transitional Independent Living Neighborhood (family); and Genesis Community Health’s Genesis Smiles (health and wellness). 

Each organization received $100,000. In addition, Fishing for Families in Need, Flaming Clay Studio, Habitat for Humanity of South Palm Beach County, T. Leroy Jefferson Medical Society and Urban League of Palm Beach County were awarded $9,400 each.

Challenge grant raises $466,632 for JARC 

JARC Florida, a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization that provides programs and services to educate and empower those with developmental disabilities, raised $466,632 as part of its $100,000 challenge grant in partnership with Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots.

All funds raised will be used to support JARC’s Community Works program, which provides clients with job training and employment opportunities, and its residential program, which provides group homes and apartments for clients to live independently.

“I am so inspired by the JARC community coming out in full force in response to the challenge grant,” Kraft said. “I could not be any happier to match $100,000 worth of the new and increased donations that were made during the challenge.”

Alzheimer’s luncheon

raises more than $210,000

The fourth-annual Alzheimer’s luncheon at Boca West Country Club benefited the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s Community Care and the Louis and Anne Green Memory and Wellness Center at FAU’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing.

It was the first event in which all three organizations combined forces to raise funds — more than $210,000 — and awareness about dementia and Alzheimer’s in the community. “This is one of the best fundraising events for Alzheimer’s that I have ever been involved with,” sponsor Candy Cohn said. “They each play a different role in helping and supporting people with Alzheimer’s and those who love them.”

Rotary Astros get boost

from Delray Beach club

Last month, the Rotary Club of Delray Beach gave $600 to the Miracle League Palm Beach County, a baseball organization for children with special needs.

The team the club sponsored is the Rotary Astros.

“We are now able to help 125 children and eight cheerleaders,” said Julia Kadel, co-founder of the league. “This whole operation could not have been successful without the cooperation of the Delray Beach City Commission and the Palm Beach County Commission.”

Theatre Lab’s Inner Circle

adds Wick as corporate donor

Theatre Lab, Florida Atlantic University’s professional theater company, has welcomed the Wick Theatre as the second corporate donor to join the Inner Circle. SunTrust Bank was the first.

The Inner Circle, created to raise private support for the new school endeavor, comprises those committed to cultural excellence.

“Theatre Lab and FAU are thrilled to have Wick Theatre as a part of our artistic family,” artistic director Lou Tyrrell said. “Marilynn Wick is a giant in the theater community in South Florida, and we are so very grateful to have her support.”

Wick said it was an honor to support Tyrrell and his team for the work they have done to build out FAU’s Theatre Lab and the opportunities they present to FAU students. “The reviews of their productions have been amazing,” she said. “They are making their mark as a must-see on the list of theatergoers in Boca Raton.”

In other FAU news, the Association of Performing Arts of India has made a contribution to the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters for the purpose of creating a legacy fund.

The fund will be used to promote and showcase the dance and music of India.

“We are delighted and honored to be chosen to steward this important work of preserving and promoting India’s rich music and dance tradition here in South Florida,” Dean Michael Horswell said. “This effort fits perfectly into our university’s mission to be a hub for the diverse cultures and arts of the world that make our community such a vibrant and exciting place to live and study.”

The association chose FAU because of a long relationship with James Cunningham, associate professor of music, and Clarence Brooks, associate professor and director of dance.

“I have shared their dream of incorporating Hindustani and Karnatak classical traditions from North and South India into the curriculum of the department of music at FAU,” Cunningham said. “That dream has at last come to fruition.”

Send news and notes to Amy Woods at flamywoods@bellsouth.net.

By Thom Smith

In 1974, with much fanfare, the Boca Raton Mall opened on Federal Highway. With two big-box department stores as bookends, the middle consisted of chain stores, a multiplex cinema and a few restaurants. 

The euphoria was brief, as Town Center opened in 1980. 

Even as the mall’s last store closed in 1989, Boca developer Tom Crocker was already hatching plans to replace it.

Among those Crocker approached was restaurateur Dennis Max. With partner Burt Rapoport, Max had introduced California-flavored dining at Raffles in Miami in 1979 and more significant, Cafe Max in Pompano Beach in 1984. Come a few more miles north, Crocker urged. 

Max’s Grille opened in 1991.

“That was 27 years ago,” Patti Max recalled of riding on a tractor with Crocker over the dirt that would be the main thoroughfare of Mizner Park. "Nothing was there. He said, ‘Which corner do you want?’ I said, ‘Where will the valet stand be?’ He said, ‘Right there.’ I said, ‘OK, I want that corner right there!’ ”

Much has happened since, including an acrimonious divorce in 1999, but Max’s remains. Patti retains 28 percent ownership, but Dennis is out.  

To finance additional restaurants, he used his equity in Max’s Grille for loans to finance other restaurants that opened and closed. He couldn’t pay off the loan and lost the restaurant to BankAtlantic, which was sold to BB&T, and then BBX Capital, a Fort Lauderdale-based holding company, assumed Max’s debt. 

“It’s very sad,” Patti said, “but I think Dennis may be relieved because he no longer has this debt hanging over his head.”

The new boss is Jack Abdo, who Patti says is a “brilliant businessman” with a “great reputation.” Managing the restaurant is Rapoport, who also runs Deck 84 in Delray Beach and Burt & Max’s out west in Delray Marketplace. He’ll keep the chef and staff, and he’s already talking about refreshing the place.

That pleases Patti, who believes her little company, Patti Max Designs, is perfectly suited to the task — retaining the casual elegance but with a bit cleaner look, a la the new Restoration Hardware in West Palm Beach.     

“I’m kind of excited about having this opportunity,” Patti said, “to remind my staff how special they are and about being a staple in Boca.”

Three cheers for James Patterson. The Palm Beacher who transitioned from a successful career as an advertising executive to novelist and philanthropic champion of literacy is expanding into …television. Children’s television. 

Kid Stew premiered April 15 with four-episode marathons on South Florida’s Public Television Channels 2 and 42 before going nationwide on stations served by American Public Television.

Patterson supervises almost everything about the series, from script to final approval, but he does not host. That’s handled by a group of nine preteen performers who lead the targeted elementary-age viewers through sketches and mock newscasts.

A second group of four will be produced this summer and Patterson is encouraged that funding can be obtained to enlarge the Kid Stew pot. 

Though Kid Stew is TV-based, it’s about reading, and Patterson knows that each year many children start school unable to read at grade level. Furthermore, many teachers are ill-equipped to assist their struggling students. So, teaming with the University of Florida Literacy Initiative, he’s kicked in $3 million to launch the James Patterson Literacy Challenge. 

The money will expand support for low-performing schools, provide online assistance and education scholarships to teachers and foster more individualized instruction to students. Patterson also is donating $1 million in books to cash-strapped schools and youth programs.

The University of Florida also figured in Patterson’s January No. 1 bestseller, All American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, the Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderers’ Row. Before heading off to pro football, Hernandez starred in Gainesville. 

Two months earlier, the 25th Alex Cross thriller hit the stands, but buzz is building for perhaps his most anticipated collaboration in June. The President Is Missing was co-written by former President Bill Clinton, of whom Patterson said, “It’s been a blast to work with President Clinton. He kind of knows everything about everything.”

Randi Emerman was back in town a few weeks ago, but her visit had nothing to do with the Palm Beach International Film Festival, which she shepherded for more than two decades. Now vice president of programming for Silverspot Cinema in Coconut Creek, the former Boca Raton resident was promoting a documentary … about Venezuela.

Amid conflicts around the globe, the chaos in Venezuela has received bottom billing. Women of the Venezuelan Chaos follows five women as they struggle for health care, food, employment and justice. Often filming surreptitiously, Venezuela-born director Margarita Cardenas, who attended the screening, risked her life to tell their stories.                                                               

Proceeds from the screenings in Coconut Creek and Silverspot theaters in Naples and Raleigh, N.C., where Emerman now lives, went to the Saludos Connection, a Venezuelan charity.

Screenings in Europe, including at the European Parliament and several human rights film festivals, have created international acclaim. Though the film can never be shown in Venezuela under the present government, Emerman still hopes it can have a positive, if indirect, effect.  “Black Panther was awesome and Avengers is coming up, but how important is it to see a film like this on the big screen,” she said. “Especially here in North America where we’re so close to what’s happening, but we’re not talking about it.” 

In past years, Cardenas might have been among the filmmakers and celebrities at the Palm Beach film festival, but its only activity this year was the Student Showcase of Films honoring Florida’s student filmmakers, with Burt Reynolds and Rob “Vanilla Ice” Van Winkle helping to present $12,500 in scholarships and awards.              

After last year’s event, festival President and CEO Jeff Davis, who had taken over in 2015, abruptly resigned without explanation. The festival board voted to cancel the 2018 event. 

Davis, who has some film production credits, had been brought onto the board by Emerman. He, in turn, orchestrated her departure, brought in new management and promised to improve the festival. It never happened. 

Emerman sued the festival for the unpaid portion of her salary and won, but to date she said she hasn’t received a cent.

School’s out for summer. Maybe it was for Alice Cooper in 1972 (46 years ago) but today a college education is a year-round endeavor. Just look at Florida Atlantic University, a beehive of studying, teaching, performing, practicing and donating. 

The donating first: 

Since he arrived in January 2014, President John Kelly has diligently worked to improve fundraising, public and private. The most recent announcements  — $1 million each — will support new programs at FAU’s Henderson University School and provide financial assistance for low-income, first-generation college students who otherwise might not be able to attend college.

The Henderson million came from Daniel and Debra Cane to establish the Cane Institute for Advanced Technologies, which will attempt to develop a world-class model for science, technology, engineering and math. Daniel Cane, a Lake Worth native and Cornell graduate and former co-chair of FAU’s board of trustees, co-founded Modernizing Medicine in 2010 to revolutionize the creation, distribution and utilization of health care information. 

In 1997, while still at Cornell, he co-founded CourseInfo and a year later merged it with Blackboard Inc., to create e-learning products. In 2011 Providence Equity Partners bought Blackboard for $1.6 billion.  

The second grant, from Aubrey and Sally Strul, will anchor the Kelly/Strul Emerging Scholars Program. With the initial investment, the couple hopes to provide on-campus mentors and summer job assistance for 20 students, who in their second year will become peer mentors at their former high schools. 

Aubrey Strul, an industrialist, investor and budding bridge player, and his wife live in Boca West, where they are active in the community’s children’s foundation. It has pledged an additional $50,000 to the Scholars Program for four years.

Of course, what good would a college education be without a little controversy? Enter, or rather re-enter, James Tracy. The former tenured communications professor returned to the FAU campus April 5 to speak to a political science class about CIA attempts to influence major media. 

Tracy ran into trouble more than two years ago after blogging that some mass shootings and the Boston Marathon bombing were hoaxes. He also allegedly contacted the parents of a Sandy Hook victim and demanded proof of the child’s death. 

The university, however, sacked Tracy for repeatedly failing to properly disclose activities outside his job that might create conflicts of interest. He sued in federal court on First Amendment grounds, but after only three hours of deliberation, a federal jury upheld his dismissal. 

Tracy, who has been unable to find a job, was invited to speak by political science professor Marshall DeRosa, a controversial Civil War scholar. Critics claim he supports white nationalism. His writings include essays that claim the Confederacy was acting legally, according to the Constitution, while ignoring its support of slavery. 

DeRosa runs a prison education program, the Inmate Civics Education Enhancement Project at South Bay Correctional Facility, a private facility run by Boca-based GEO Group. The program was launched in 2013 with a $5,000 grant (up to $32,000 in 2016) from the ultraconservative Charles Koch Institute.

Mark Walter Braswell is a lawyer. He also plays a mean piano, and 20 years ago he realized that songwriting didn’t require a degree in music. Drawn to “poignant ballads,” he began writing in earnest, performing at cabarets, even performing at weddings in New York-D.C. corridor, before taking a stab at musical theater. 

Paying the Price, workshopped at the Kennedy Center, chronicled his father’s plight as a World War II tailgunner who is shot down, held as a POW in Romania and nursed to health by Princess Catherine of the royal family. 

His latest, Cuban Courage, will have its world premiere at Theatre Lab, FAU’s professional resident company, on May 11 and 12. The story was inspired by a friend who came to the United States in the early ’60s through Operation Pedro Pan. The program, devised by the Catholic Welfare Bureau in Miami after Fidel Castro assumed power, relocated more than 14,000 Cuban children to the United States. About half remained in South Florida, some with relatives, some with foster parents. Braswell’s protagonist, Carlos, settled in Iowa. (Tickets at www.fauevents.com or 297-6124.)

Up in Palm Beach, Charley’s Crab, a venerable restaurant with an ocean view since 1980, has abruptly closed. The last meal was served April 1, no April Fool’s joke.

It’s choice real estate. Palm Beach-based Frisbie Group paid $26.3 million for the 1.15 acres and plans to replace the restaurant with five townhouses and build a house on an adjacent lot included in the purchase from BCD Investors of Dunnellon. 

Originally opened as Wert’s in the mid-1920s, it was bought by Palm Beach restaurateur Chuck Muer in 1980 and named Charley’s Crab. But in 1993, as a winter storm approached, Muer, his wife, Betty, and two friends tried to make it back to Palm Beach from the Bahamas. They and the boat disappeared without a trace. The surviving family members sold to BCD. It hired Landry’s to run the restaurant.  Landry’s owns more than 600 properties, including 60-plus restaurant brands such as Morton’s and McCormick & Schmick’s.

Reuben Hale, a low-key but important force in the local arts community and beyond, died March 23. He was 90. Born in rural Mississippi, he served in the Navy in World War II, then headed to the Art Institute of Chicago. There he met Marie Stoner. They married and opened their first ballet school in Greenwood, Miss., and after Reuben earned an MFA degree at Southern Illinois University, the couple headed to Palm Beach County. Beginning as an art instructor at Palm Beach State College (then Palm Beach Community College), he advanced to chairman of the Fine Arts department, during which he acquired the Lannan Art Museum and transformed the auditorium into the Duncan Theatre. 

Throughout, he continued to paint and sculpt, exhibiting his work internationally. His work included stage scenery, residential design, book jackets and movie posters, much of it focused on “the changing status of the female in society.” He was buried in Greenwood. Donations may be made to the Reuben Hale Endowed Scholarship Fund at Palm Beach State. 

Thom Smith can be reached at thomsmith@ymail.com.

Death or Glory celebrated its first anniversary with a cake made to look like Delray Beach’s historic Falcon House, where the restaurant and bar is located. ABOVE: (l-r) Death or Glory owners April DeVona and Isaac Grillo with Ayme Harrison and Annie Blake. Photo provided

The Plate: Empanadas

The Place: 50 Ocean, 50 S. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach; 278-3364 or www.50ocean.com.

The Price: $12

The Skinny:  It’s funny that I’d be writing about a dish that’s loaded with duck that came from a restaurant noted for its seafood.

But these empanadas, on a recently revamped menu by chef Tom Op’tHolt, make a hearty starter that complements the shrimp, swordfish and other seafare.

The pastry was crispy, with a slightly sweet corn flavor. 

Inside, it was packed with tender bits of duck confit, golden raisins and port shallots, and drizzled with a spicy aji amarillo sauce — a flavor that’s ubiquitous in Peruvian cuisine. It made for a perfect combination of sweet and heat.

— Scott Simmons

Butch Johnson pauses outside his Delray Beach restaurant, 32 East, as he nears the end of a 22-year run on Atlantic Avenue. The buyers will make the site a Louie Bossi’s. Thom Smith/The Coastal Star

By Thom Smith

Sometime after Mother’s Day — 22 years after helping to launch the revolution that transformed Delray Beach from quaint beach town into international destination — 32 East will close doors for good. 

Once all the papers are signed, all the permits pulled, the “big timers” on Atlantic Avenue — Big Time Restaurant Group — will turn it into the third Louie Bossi’s. 

32 East owner Butch Johnson will look for another challenge.

Back in the ’90s, life was much simpler. The mom-and-pops still lined Atlantic Avenue. Bacon and eggs for breakfast at the Green Owl. Key lime and white chocolate cheesecake with raspberry sauce for a mid-afternoon treat at Splendid Blended. Close out the night with blues from Junior Drinkwater at the Back Room. 

Johnson was retired, content to manage his investments, run a youth soccer league in Boca Raton and catch a little live music in the evening. As fate would have it, while attending a party for parents of Gulf Stream School students at the oceanfront home of developer Tom Crocker, he met Leigh Gove.

Gove handled much of the construction work for Crocker and was building Carson’s Ribs in Boca. He asked Johnson if he’d like to supervise the project.

“Crocker’s wife owned a children’s clothing store in Crocker Center and my wife paid the rent every month with the [stuff] she bought,” Johnson recalled in 32 East’s cramped second-floor office to explain his acceptance rationale. 

Soon after, Crocker brought in Mike Bilton to finish Carson’s, and Bilton suggested that they team up to open a restaurant. About the same time, Johnson learned that the building at 32 E. Atlantic in Delray, home to the Back Room and antiques dealer Polly Noe, was for sale. 

“It was the right demographic. It was a two-lane street, plenty of commercial activity, but it was underutilized and it was just plain cheap,” Johnson said. “So it was Mike’s building expertise and Leigh’s building skill, and I did what I normally do, the hookup.”

To run the kitchen, Johnson hired Wayne Alcaide, who put 32 East on the culinary map before moving on to other ventures (now owner-chef of The Provincial in Apex, N.C., a Raleigh suburb).

Enter Nick Morfogen, an exquisitely trained New Yorker, who had come to South Florida to work in the Dennis Max empire. The relationship lasted into 2016, when Morfogen left to become executive chef at Pine Tree Golf Club in Boynton Beach.   

“Nick gave us 17 years,” Johnson said. “He still owns a piece of the restaurant, but he took the job at Pine Tree.

“You don’t work as many nights in a country club. He can take a golf cart to work. You just have to be good. And on his worst day, he’s better than any of the country club chefs around here. He’s in a good spot.”

Morfogen’s replacement, John Thomas, had worked on and off at 32 East and most recently had held forth at Tryst, the now-closed gastropub a couple of doors west.   

Thomas shouldn’t have trouble finding work, Johnson said, even though the scene along Atlantic is changing. 

“Five years ago, Nick and I could see what was happening,” Johnson said. “Places were getting more kid-oriented; more alcohol; bigger, more commercial restaurants. We didn’t fit. We were the food destination. We were in the age of the food-driven restaurant and that ain’t the way it is anymore. 

“For me, declining revenues were gonna drive us out. We thought about making it a steakhouse, maybe an Italian restaurant, but it still would have been food-driven, and once you establish who you are, then the expectation level is what you do. 

“You can’t really say, the price point is gonna drop by half and you’re gonna sell burgers and dogs. That’s not what 32 East is. We could have tried to reinvent ourselves, but I can’t get away with doing a drive-through taco stand.”

Big Time’s “Todd Herbst and Billy Watson came along and we started talking. They’re a $100 million company. We signed the deal in August. This ain’t the little village by the sea anymore.

“They’re trying to make this an urban center, like Fort Lauderdale. They’re building high rises everywhere.” 

However, should something come along, Johnson might consider it, but not on Atlantic. Maybe a couple of blocks north or south. Still easy to reach, still good quality and still comparatively easy on the tab.

Memory Road By Dick Schmidt. Landslide Publishing, 294 pp., $15.95

By Steve Pike

A lot of movies and TV shows are inspired by books. But for his second book, Boca Raton author Richard Schmidt has flipped the script, so to speak. Schmidt’s hero in Memory Road, Stewart Masterson, was inspired by the Saul Berenson character in the popular TV series Homeland.

In the show, Berenson is fired by the CIA; in Schmidt’s book, Masterson is a retired CIA senior agent in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

“While I was watching the show, I wondered what (the CIA) would do with Saul. They can’t just let him run around loose because of all he knows,’’ said Schmidt, whose first book, The Boy and The Dolphin, was published in 2016.  “I thought, what happens if he got Alzheimer’s? Then he would be a real problem.’’

That’s where Memory Road begins, as directors of various U.S. intelligence agencies try to figure out what to do with Masterson, whom they consider a clear and present danger. “We don’t know who he might be talking to,’’ one director says.

Their solution is to clandestinely obtain guardianship of Masterson and stash him in an assisted living facility in Pompano Beach where he can be supervised day and night.

But Masterson escapes the facility and steals a Mercedes — and thus the adventure begins on the back roads of U.S. Highway 1 from Pompano Beach to Silver Spring, Md.

Published by Schmidt’s Boca Raton-based Landslide Publishing, Memory Road is a fast-paced thriller with well-written characters who are easy to root for and root against. The book’s main rooting interest, of course, is Masterson, whom Schmidt created as a simple man who did his duty and wanted to retire in peace with his daughter and grandchildren.

The Alzheimer’s and the government’s threats to him and his loved ones, however, make him use every bit of training to reach the inevitable standoff with his former bosses.

Schmidt studied the organizational charts of the different U.S. intelligence agencies to gain a better understanding and help the book’s structure. He and his son, David, a playwright in Manhattan, also took the exact route along U.S. Highway 1 that Masterson uses.

“One thing we learned was that Masterson probably could not have made that trip,’’ said Schmidt, CEO of Schmidt Companies Inc. in Boca Raton. “It’s hard to get on U.S. 1 and stay there. The roads aren’t marked very well when you get into some of the cities. We were armed with Google Maps and GPS and still got lost.’’

Does Masterson triumph over the bad guys? You’ll have to read Memory Road to find out. For Schmidt, Memory Road isn’t about good versus evil as much as it is about how much one’s life is worth — even if that life is stricken with Alzheimer’s.

“When I read books about Alzheimer’s, they were all about the things that were taken away from people who suffer from the disease,’’ Schmidt said. “It just kind of made me write a book about someone’s abilities, and I think that’s what sets this book apart.

“I tried to put a positive spin on someone with Alzheimer’s and at same time show that people who are afflicted with Alzheimer’s are still human beings and have the same needs as those around them.’’

By Mary Hladky

Gov. Rick Scott on Friday suspended Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie from office days after she was arrested on seven charges related to her city votes on matters that financially benefitted the city’s largest downtown commercial landowner.

Under Florida law, Haynie is now prohibited from performing any official act, and will not receive pay during her suspension.

Haynie, who on April 16 settled a case against her by the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics on similar allegations, was arrested Tuesday on charges of three counts of official misconduct and perjury in an official proceeding, all third-degree felonies; and misuse of public office, corrupt misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflict, all first-degree misdemeanors.

The Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office’s public corruption unit filed the charges.

Haynie arrived at the jail at 7:38 p.m. Tuesday, and was released on $12,000 bail about 90 minutes later.

Haynie is scheduled for arraignment on May 24.

“Mrs. Haynie wholeheartedly and completely denies the allegations which we plan to fight in court to the fullest extent,” her attorney, Leonard Feuer, said in an email to The Coastal Star.

Haynie, a Republican, withdrew from the District 4 Palm Beach County Commission race in a two-sentence letter sent just hours after her arrest to Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher.

By Mary Hladky

Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie was booked into the Palm Beach County jail April 24 on seven charges related to her city votes on matters that financially benefitted the city’s largest downtown commercial landowner.

Haynie, who on April 16 settled a case against her by the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics on similar allegations, was charged with three counts of official misconduct, a third degree felony; perjury in an official proceeding, a third degree felony; misuse of public office, a first degree misdemeanor; corrupt misuse of public office, a first degree misdemeanor; and failure to disclose voting conflict, a first degree misdemeanor.

The charges were brought by the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office public corruption unit.

Haynie arrived at the jail at 7:38 p.m. April 24, and was released on $12,000 bail about 90 minutes later.

“Mrs. Haynie wholeheartedly and completely denies the allegations which we plan to fight in court to the fullest extent,” her attorney, Leonard Feuer, said in an email to The Coastal Star.

Haynie, a Republican, withdrew from the District 4 county commission race in a two-sentence letter received by Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher the same day she was charged.

The remaining candidates to replace term-limited Steven Abrams are Democrat Robert Weinroth, who recently resigned from the Boca Raton city commission to run, and Republican William Vale, a Boca Del Mar Improvement Association board member.

News of the arrest, first reported by The Palm Beach Post, stunned her fellow city commissioners who were in the midst of a regular meeting when they got the word.

They had expected her to comment at the meeting on the county ethics case. That same morning, she said in an email to The Coastal Star that she would do so.

“I have no intention of resigning,” she wrote.

But she did not show up for the meeting, and City Manager Leif Ahnell said he had heard that Haynie was ill.

“I find news of this as I sit up here as beyond upsetting,” said council member Andrea O’Rourke.

Council members Monica Mayotte described the arrest as an “awful situation”, adding that it was “deeply disturbing.”

“We are all surprised, flabbergasted… and processing this,” said Deputy Mayor Scott Singer.

The investigation began in March 2017 when the State Attorney’s Office received complaints that Haynie used her position on the city council to vote on issues having a favorable financial impact on commercial landowner James Batmasian, the probable cause affidavit states.

The state investigation found that Haynie failed to report $335,000 in income, including $84,000 from Batmasian or from his company Investments Limited, from 2014 through 2017.

Of the total, $45,000 came from rent paid to Haynie for a property she owns in Key Largo.

Haynie and her husband, Neil, formed Community Reliance, a property management company, in 2007 which managed Tivoli Park, a 1,600 unit apartment complex in Deerfield Beach. Batmasian and his wife, Marta, own 80 percent of the Tivoli Park Units, and five of the six Tivoli board members work for Investments Limited, the Post has reported.

Community Reliance earned between $10,057 and $16,490 between 2014 and 2017 from Tivoli Park's master association, according to the affidavit.

"This amount is well below the expected income for managing a property of this size, which would normally command an income of nearly $150,000 to $200,000 per year," the affidavit states.

Haynie told investigators that she had no involvement in running Community Reliance and another company she and her husband started,  Computer Golf Software of Nevada, Inc., and derived no income from them.

But bank records revealed she wrote two checks to herself from the Community Reliance account totaling $5,300 and received $72,600 from Computer Golf Software.

During 2016 and 2017, Hayne cast four votes that benefitted Batmasian, the affidavit states.

Haynie left Community Reliance in 2016 and announced in December that her husband had ended his business relationship with Tivoli Park master association.

On April 16, Haynie admitted to violating the county's ethics code and agreed to pay a $500 fine for voting on matters that financially benefitted Batmasian.

In the settlement between Haynie and the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics, she agreed to accept a letter of reprimand and pay the stiffest fine the commission could levy for failing to disclose a conflict of interest. The ethics commission dismissed its second allegation that Haynie misused her public office.

The ethics commission launched its investigation of Haynie in November, one day before the Post reported  that Community Reliance had been paid by the Tivoli Park master association.

The article raised the question of whether Haynie had a conflict of interest in voting on matters involving Batmasian and should have recused herself.

The ethics commission investigation corroborated the Post’s key findings, but also unearthed an additional, and more direct, financial link between the Haynies and Batmasian.

Community Reliance was paid at least $64,000 in 2016 and 2017 for installing security cameras at several properties owned by Batmasian, including at Royal Palm Place in downtown Boca Raton, according to the commission’s investigation file which was made public on April 17. Investments Limited made the payments to Community Reliance.

Haynie has denied that she acted improperly and said she had requested in 2013 an opinion from the ethics commission, which advised her she could vote.

But the opinion was narrowly written and was based on a specific instance in which Batmasian was neither the applicant or the developer of a project coming to the city council for approval. In other instances, he was the applicant or developer.

Mark Bannon, the ethics commission’s executive director, said Haynie should have understood the opinion to mean that she should not vote in such circumstances.

“The advisory opinion said (Batmasian) was not the developer or applicant, which tells you when he is the developer or applicant, you can’t do that (vote)”, Bannon said.

On the dismissed misuse of office count, the ethics commission found that probable cause existed, but determined the violations were unintentional because, based on the 2013 advisory opinion, City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser told Haynie she did not have a conflict of interest that prevented her from voting.

On the conflict of interest count, the commission at its April 16 meeting did not determine whether or not Haynie’s actions were intentional.

Ethics commissioners were tied 2-2 on that, with one member absent. The settlement was reached before commissioners held a full hearing on the case, and several commissioners said they did not have enough information to decide this issue. As a result, they made no finding.

The settlement states that Haynie “believes it to be in her best interest to resolve the issues contained in the complaint and avoid the expense and time of litigation in this matter. Accordingly, (Haynie) admits to participating in and voting on matters that gave a special financial benefit to a customer or client of her outside business and she accepts a letter of reprimand.”

In a statement after the settlement, Haynie said: “I have accepted a letter of instruction, a letter of reprimand and fine as part of the dismissal of all complaints and conclusion of this matter. I am glad the issue is resolved, as I believed it would be, with a fair process by the Commission on Ethics.”

Al Zucaro, a Haynie adversary who was defeated by her in last year’s mayoral race, filed complaints last year with both the county ethics commission and State Commission on Ethics. The state ethics investigation is ongoing.

Since Haynie settled the county ethics case, Zucaro has repeatedly called on Haynie to resign.

“We have an elected official who has admitted to violating the code of ethics,” he told The Coastal Star. “The bottom line is she should resign now.”

Ron Heavyside’s sons, Ronnie (left) and Ryan, run the Nomad Surf Shop he started in 1968. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

On a breezy Friday evening not long ago, Ron Heavyside sat in an old wooden porch chair in front of his Nomad Surf Shop, nursing a Coors Light and squinting west over North Ocean Boulevard at the fat orange sun sliding down toward the long yawn into dusk.

Can it really be 50 years since he opened the shop?

Heavyside was 19 then. He’s 69 now. The young man who surfed is an old man who sits, with half a century of triumph and tragedy behind him. But he’s still here, and so is the shop.

“It seems like yesterday,” Heavyside said, and sipped the beer. “But it’s going to feel like 50 years in about 15 minutes when that sun hits my chair.”

Ronald Richard Heavyside was born in Montreal, moved to Los Angeles at 2, and arrived in Ocean Ridge in 1962, just turning 14. He never left.

“My father knew a guy in Briny Breezes,” he remembered. “That’s how we wound up here.”

His father, Richard, opened a TV repair shop across the road from Briny, beside a Pure Oil gas station that later became a real estate office. The TV shop was south of the station, with the Capri Lounge, which later became Dante’s Den, to the north.

While his father sold and repaired TVs, young Ron rode surfboards. And pretty soon he was building them.

At 15, still a student at Seacrest High School, Heavyside went to work for the Caribbean Surfboard Co. on East Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach.

“Val Giersdorf hired me and I worked there through 12th grade,” he recalled.

Heavyside was building surfboards before he built Nomad surfboards, and there were Nomad surfboards before there was a Nomad Surf Shop.

“It all began with five guys and $250 each,” he explained.

Pooling their money, he and his friends rented a small industrial workshop on Hypoluxo Road, bought 12 foam surfboard forms and a drum of polyurethane resin and went to work.

“We always referred to it as a surfboard factory,” Heavyside  said. “I rented it from a guy named Ralph McKeral, and he told me, ‘You’ve got a good business because there’s always going to be a new generation of kids coming along.’”

The boards were 10 feet long at first, then the fashion changed. They shrank to 8 feet, 7 feet.

“Those were easier to make,” Heavyside said.

He and his friends dubbed them “Nomad” boards because the name evoked all those passionate surfers who wander the world in search of the perfect wave.

“And then one day my old man said, ‘You can have part of the shop.’ My shop was 12-by-16 feet at first, just a little corner of the TV store that my dad gave me.”

This was early in 1968. Heavyside put a wall in the middle to separate the surfboards from the TV sets, bought some paneling at Lindsley Lumber, and traded a board for some shag carpeting.

“You’d be surprised what people will do for a surfboard,” he said, and the setting sun put a twinkle in his eye — or maybe it was the memory. “I’ve traded boards for a lot of things….”

Heavyside sold the Nomad boards for about $175 each and the Nomad T-shirts for $3. The business flourished.

At one time, he had shops in Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Cocoa.

“Spring and summer we made a lot of money,” he said, “but if there’s no surf it was like a ski area. No snow, no skiing.”

Eventually, Heavyside started selling wholesale, loading 125 boards into a U-Haul trailer he pulled up and down the East Coast behind a green-paneled Dodge Tradesman van.

“I had a dealer in every damn town,” he remembered. Cocoa; Daytona; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Ocean City, Maryland — all the way up to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. 

“I pulled into a Red Carpet Inn off I-95 outside St. Augustine one night and thieves took my truck and trailer,” he said.

The truck and U-Haul were found the next morning, stuck in the sand and abandoned with the surfboards still inside.

He climbed in and kept driving.

Nomad Surf Shop owner Ron Heavyside rides in a vintage car during a parade last month marking the 60th anniversary of Briny Breezes.  Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Family ups and downs

    In 1974, Heavyside married the former Beth Walsh, whose sales savvy helped the business grow. She brought bikinis and other beachwear into the shop, and by 1984 Nomad had taken over both the former gas station and lounge. The tiny corner of a TV shop had grown to a sprawling business of 8,000 square feet and annual sales nearing $1 million.

The couple had two boys, Ronnie, born in 1979, and Ryan in 1984, but the 1990s brought conflict and tragedy.

Beth Heavyside filed for divorce three times between 1987 and 1993, but the two always reconciled.

In January 1996, the tension erupted when Heavyside changed the locks on the store.

According to a 1996 report in The Palm Beach Post, the couple battled over ownership of the business and Beth Heavyside’s behavior became increasingly erratic.

In May 1996, she was charged with trying to set fire to a house where she thought Ron was sleeping with his girlfriend. The following January, Beth Heavyside died. She was 47.

“I just got drunk every day after my wife died,” Heavyside said. The sun had slipped lower, ready to sink beneath the former gas station’s overhanging roof and reach his chair. “I used to drink Jack Daniel’s like it was water.”

After his mother’s death and his father’s dalliance with Jack Daniel’s, Ronnie Heavyside found himself running the business, which was already 29 years old.

“I was 18, and I had no choice,” he said. “When we were younger, we lived down the street in Ocean Ridge, and when I took over I moved back to the County Pocket. It was pretty much upside down when I took over, and I got it all built back up.”

He’s 38 now, and still runs the business most days.

“I played a lot of baseball when I was younger,” he remembered, “but I had no choice. I could have gone places and played ball, but I was a surfer for sure.”

Ryan Heavyside was 12 when his mother died, but he’d been surfing since the age of 5, and was ranked 11th in the boys division of the Surf America team in 1996. 

“When your dad builds surfboards, you surf,” he said.

Today, both sons share the daily demands of running the shop. 

The millennium turned, the business continued to grow, and all the local kids who took up surfing as teenagers grew, too.

A photograph of Ron Heavyside’s elder son, Ronnie, as a child hangs on a wall at Nomad.

Generational changes

Jeremy Stewart was born and raised in Lake Worth.

“I’ve been surfing since fifth grade, and I’m 38 now, so I’ve been coming here at least 30 years,” he said. “I love this place. They’ve got the best surfboards. No lemons. It’s a family spot. It’s the roots — you know what I mean?”

Today, the surfboards that sold for $175 in 1969 will cost you anywhere from $595 to $1,500, and the $3 T-shirts with the Nomad logo sell for $20.

Somewhere along the way, the Nomad Surf Shop went from being a shop that sold mostly surfboards to a shop that sells mostly everything else.

“T-shirts are our No. 1- selling item,” Ryan Heavyside said.

Wander the labyrinth of aisles nowadays and you’ll find surfboards, yes, but mostly you’ll find sunglasses, sandals and watches, skateboards and paddle boards, bikinis, baggies, skirts, tops — and T-shirts, of course, a whole wall of T-shirts with more than a dozen Nomad designs to choose from.

The shop hosts a food truck, parked outside every Wednesday through Sunday for healthy smoothies and juices.

On St. Patrick’s Day, the store hosted a promotional “Volcom Event” out front, sponsored by the popular surfing sportswear company, with live music by the Mother Gooses, a trio from Jacksonville that travels for Volcom.

“Surfing used to be a lifestyle,” Ryan said. “Now it’s almost a fashion statement.”

Ryan Heavyside knows fashion.

In 1999, while he attended a surfing expo at the Orlando Convention Center, a modeling agent handed Ryan a business card. He was 15.

“I didn’t take it seriously at first,” he said, “but then I decided to check it out.”
He’s 33 now and travels the world to model. He’s been on the cover of the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, and L’Uomo, a former menswear edition of Vogue. His work for Valentino, the high-end designer, was displayed on oversized photographs in the Milan airport. And when his six agents send him to London, Paris, Rome or Thailand for jobs every couple of months, surfing often goes, too.

“If I fly halfway around the world for a modeling job and there are waves, I take my board,” he said. But rather than move to a place like New York to help his career, somehow Ryan always comes home to the Nomad.

All the Heavysides seem to come back to the shop.

Fifty years on, Ron Heavyside will turn 70 in October, and the years have proved that old Ralph McKeral, the man who rented him that first surfboard factory on Hypoluxo Road, was right: It’s been a good business because there’s always a new generation of young surfers coming along.

“It was the right place, the right time, and a lot of luck,” he explained.

But now the sun had dropped so low its evening fire reached his chair, the beer was gone, and he needed to go inside.

“I like it here,” Heavyside  said, rising. “I’m not looking forward to going anywhere.” 

Nomad displays a painting of the front of the store, at A1A and Briny Breezes Boulevard

Nomad has used a variety of logo designs, this one from the 1960s

Now that Easter has passed, winter visitors are beginning their journeys back to northern homes. As they prepare to leave, other visitors are getting ready to come. These visitors are just off shore and in an amorous mood. Soon, sea turtles will be crawling up our beaches to lay their eggs. Some have already arrived. They’ve been coming to our beaches each year from March to November for as long as anyone can recall. They are our seasonal summer residents, and we welcome the return of these endangered reptiles.

If you’re born a sea turtle, the odds are never in your favor. Ocean plastic pollution is choking and drowning turtles, and human development is destroying their habitat. The result is only one out of 1,000 baby sea turtles survives to adulthood, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That is, if they even get to hatch and make it out to sea. On some beaches, only 10 out of 100 eggs laid by a sea turtle will hatch. Hatchlings face many obstacles, including predation by birds and other animals, as well as humans. 

Plus, our beaches — where sea turtles lay their eggs — continue to lose sand to erosion, and the warmer temperatures we’ve had in recent years are skewing gender ratios, as hotter temperatures result in more female hatchlings, according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy. 

Recent research suggests that sea turtles can be critical components in the marine environment. If the species perishes, the ecosystem around it may collapse. Our efforts to help save sea turtles may ultimately help save the entire ocean. Think about it.

Those of us who live on or near the beach have a responsibility to help our summer visitors survive. Here are a few things we can all do:

• Turn off the lights at night. If you’re in a condo, talk to your managers and make sure they have a summertime plan for reduced lighting. If you’re directly on the beach, close your drapes or blinds at night to keep light from hitting the beach. Even if you’re not on the beach, the combined “urban glow” from lights can disorient both adult and hatchling turtles. Dim the lights and enjoy the stars.

• Remove your beach chairs, kayaks, boats and other recreational items from the sand at night. These become obstacles for nesting and hatchling turtles. You can haul them back out in the morning.

• Fill holes in the sand. Unfilled holes can trap adult and baby turtles.

• Don’t celebrate with balloons. Pick up plastic. Our beaches are littered with plastic, and these pieces and shreds look just like food to a turtle but end up fatally clogging its digestive system or keeping a turtle from swimming by wrapping around its neck or a flipper. 

These are just a few suggestions. There are many sources for additional information on what you can do to help our visitors, but I’d suggest visiting your neighbors at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton. Find them online at www.gumbolimbo.org.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

Gail Milhous, at her home in Boca Raton’s Sanctuary, will be honored along with her husband, Robert, for her advocacy on behalf of Parkinson’s patients. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Gail Milhous knows firsthand the toll Parkinson’s disease can take on a family as well as on those stricken with the neurological disease. For 30 years she watched her mother battle Parkinson’s, with her symptoms getting worse as the disease progressed. 

“The last 15 years were the worst,” says Milhous, whose mother died in 2006. 

Out of her experience as a daughter and caregiver, Milhous has emerged as a relentless patient advocate and a tireless ambassador on a national level for the Parkinson’s Foundation and its local chapter. 

“I’m still very passionate about helping the people who have the disease and making their lives better,” she says. 

A resident of east Boca Raton, Milhous has served eight years on the foundation’s national board of directors and is an active supporter of the organization’s South Palm Beach County chapter. She and her husband, Robert, who made his living in real estate and printing, will be honored during the local chapter’s inaugural Sequins and Sparkle gala, April 14 at the Woodfield Country Club in Boca Raton.

“Our chapter is very lucky to have Gail,” said Robin Miller, executive director of the South County chapter. “Her personality, passion and generosity and love of community are amazing.”

In her role as an ambassador for both the national and local groups, Milhous helps get the word out about the work being done on behalf of people diagnosed with Parkinson’s. 

She also helps with fundraising and volunteer recruitment efforts, connecting others in the community to the local chapter. 

“She has opened up many doors connecting us to people who are just so helpful,” Miller says.

Milhous is also a strong supporter of the chapter’s annual fashion show, helping to recruit sponsors and other guests. 

“She and her friends are like little sparkles in the community,” Miller said.

As a member of the national Parkinson’s Foundation board, Milhous provides leadership to help determine the direction of efforts to improve quality of life for patients and to assist with research into ways to better treat and manage the disease. 

Her own years as a caregiver gave Milhaus, 73, a rare perspective.

“She is a national board member who really gets it,” Miller said. 

That wasn’t always the case. Before her mother was diagnosed, Milhous knew little about the disease. Her mother was in her early 50s when Milhous and other family members began to suspect something wasn’t quite right. 

“I noticed she was shuffling when she walked and her speech was softer,” she said.

A doctor’s visit later confirmed that her mother had Parkinson’s, but Milhous didn’t really understand the extent of the impact it would have on her and her family.

“I didn’t know enough at the time to say, ‘Oh no,’ ” she said. 

From that point on, however, she set out to learn as much as she could and to get a better understanding of the disease. The information she gathered and her experience as a caregiver to a loved one help her when she talks to other people who are either living with Parkinson’s or caring for someone. She is always willing to talk with families or patients to share advice that comes from her experience. 

Milhous reminds them that people with Parkinson’s — a degenerative disease of the central nervous system that usually impairs the motor system — still have good cognitive abilities even though their bodies betray them.

“The person with Parkinson’s gets easily dismissed because of their appearance,” she said.

Patience and understanding, she said, are critical.

Thanks in part to the Parkinson’s Foundation’s efforts, awareness of the disease is growing, as are the services and resources available to patients and caregivers.

“I’m so excited about how much we’ve accomplished and how much we’ve learned,” Milhous said. “To me, if you’re making a difference, there’s nothing better.” 

To find out more visit www.Parkinson.org. ;

If You Go

What: Sequins and Sparkle

When:  7-11 p.m. April 14

Where: Woodfield Country Club, Boca Raton 

Honoring: Gail and Robert Milhous

Benefiting: Parkinson’s Foundation South Palm Beach County chapter

Tickets: $225

Info:  962-1702  or www.parkinson.org/southpalmbeachcounty

More than 1,000 participants marched from Old School Square to the ocean in Delray Beach on March 24 to call for an end to gun violence. Michele Quigley/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

Three Village Academy students came to the Delray Beach City Commission meeting in early March to plead with elected officials to help them. 

“You have a moral obligation to keep us safe,” said Taniyah Evans, 14. 

They talked about walking past crime-scene tape on the way to school and waking to the sound of gunshots. 

Now, they worry about a possible mass shooting at their school. On Valentine’s Day in nearby Parkland, a former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High student used an assault weapon to kill 17 students and teachers at the school.

“It’s very difficult for us to focus because we are worried if our school is going to be next,” said Rebecca Joseph, a ninth-grader.

The students spoke to a like-minded group of city leaders.

On Feb. 19, Presidents Day, Mayor Cary Glickstein allowed a gun reform rally to be held in front of City Hall. The following Friday, he found himself walking with Atlantic High School students east to Old School Square to support the Stoneman Douglas students. 

“We walked 17 times around the football field and they/we just kept walking. It was fun,” he said. “No one knew, including the Police Department, that we were heading to Old School Square. It was a bit dicey crossing Congress and I-95 off and on ramps. I was glad I was there to assist with that.”  

He said the walk was “a highlight of my term being around that energy.”

In Florida, city and county elected officials face a 2011 law that forbids them from passing gun laws or risk being removed and fined $5,000.

That’s why Delray Beach and Boynton Beach commissioners unanimously passed resolutions on March 6 asking that the “draconian law” be repealed. 

Glickstein crafted the resolution with help from Assistant City Attorney Janice Rustin. 

Both resolutions ask for an “outright ban on assault weapons.” They also support raising the age requirement to buy an assault weapon to 21, having universal background checks and a mandatory three-day waiting period, and passing “Red Flag Laws” that allow police to take guns from people who show signs of violence.

Boca Raton passed a resolution “encouraging the United States Congress and Florida Legislature to enact measures to protect school children and our communities from gun violence … which may include enacting reasonable firearms regulations.”

The resolutions were sent to elected officials and delegations on the state and federal levels.

After the Florida legislative session ended, Gov. Rick Scott signed into law the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which does all the Delray Beach and Boynton Beach resolutions ask except ban the sale of assault rifles. 

Hours after Scott signed the law, the National Rifle Association sued, saying the law infringes on the Second Amendment rights of young adults between 18 and 21.

Glickstein, whose term ended March 29, asked fellow commissioners to consider joining the city of Weston when it sues the state to overturn the gun law.

After the Stoneman Douglas massacre, Weston residents wanted action, said City Attorney Jamie Cole, “but it’s too risky for elected officials.”

When the law passed in 2011, the city of Tallahassee sued the state because it had gun regulations it was not enforcing. Miramar and Weston joined in the suit because of the personal penalties against elected officials, Cole said. But the judge ruled only on the Tallahassee gun regulations and not on the penalties. 

This time, Cole said, they would seek to remove the “draconian penalty that deters cities from passing their own laws.” 

The City of Weston sued the state, the governor and the attorney general on April 2 in Leon County, a state court home to Florida’s capital city, Cole said. Nine cities, but none in Palm Beach County, joined Weston in the lawsuit, he said. 

He hopes that Boca Raton and Delray Beach will want to be part of the suit. 

By Dan Moffett

Manalapan town commissioners say they’re looking forward to Publix’s opening a supermarket at Plaza del Mar this summer.

But they’re not so excited about that long-awaiting arrival that they’re willing to allow Publix to open a wine and liquor store next door.

On March 27 the commission denied a request by the supermarket chain and Plaza del Mar landlord Kitson & Partners to sell liquor and wine in a 1,500-square-foot unit roughly 30 feet west of the Publix building.

“I’m on the record supporting a Publix as long as there was no liquor store,” Vice Mayor Peter Isaac said. “It would be 200 yards from the public beach and that gives me great concern.”

Isaac said he would be willing to support a store that sold only fine wines. But spirits? “I would be absolutely against hard liquor.”

The commission agreed. Commissioners Clark Appleby and Jack Doyle voted with Isaac in denying the Publix request. Commissioner Hank Siemon dissented, saying he believed “it was a little bit early” to make the decision and that it would be better if the commission waited until the supermarket gets established.The new Publix will carry beer and wine.

Mayor Pro Tem Simone Bonutti and Commissioner Monica Oberting were absent.

The issue of the liquor store first arose two years ago when Publix made its initial pitch to the town. However, commissioners essentially tabled the proposal to concentrate on getting the supermarket’s construction issues resolved.

Representatives of the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa and residents of La Coquille Villas also oppose the liquor store.

Mayor Keith Waters argued that the commission should hold off voting until it had more information and more input from constituents. The mayor noted that the Eau and two restaurants in the plaza currently serve wine and liquor. 

“We fight a difficult fight here in that it is an approved use for this space,” Waters said.

State law prohibits any alcohol consumption on the beach, and violations of that statute are what opponents fear most — that spring breakers, tourists and partygoers from across the bridge will show up on the beach with vodka bottles in brown bags.

Appleby argued that there is a proven statistical correlation between higher availability of alcohol in an area and higher crime rates. He said the liquor store proposal does not satisfy requirements that special zoning exceptions protect “public health, safety, morals and general welfare” of the town.

“A liquor store invites a certain crowd,” Appleby said. “You’re asking for trouble, and it doesn’t fit in with the morals of our town.”

Town Attorney Keith Davis said it’s up to Publix and Kitson now to decide whether they want to contest the commission’s denial.

In other business, Town Manager Linda Stumpf said architect Mark Marsh is finishing plans for redesigning the Town Hall chambers. The plan is to reconfigure the room with an expanded dais that allows commissioners and officials to sit at the same level and more easily engage each other.

Stumpf said the renovation, which is expected to begin this summer, would force the commission to hold one or two of its meeting in the Town Library. 

By Steve Plunkett

The Gumbo Limbo Nature Center would be replaced by a twice-as-big facility with sweeping cantilever roofs built over a ground-level parking garage in a proposal by waterfront parks consultant EDSA Inc.

The parking garage would have 140 spaces, twice the current capacity, in part to handle up to 500,000 visitors a year, also twice the current rate.

EDSA’s Kona Gray said his design team brainstormed to combine a “porch concept” (“We know how welcoming a front porch is,” he said) and a “village concept” clustering the center’s education, conservation and research elements.

“The process is really kind of, I think it was pretty magical, because when we finished with it we realized that this is a very good start,” said Gray, who presented his plan to the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District on March 5.

The proposal calls for a winding entrance road going to the “arrival court” with “big steps” leading to the front porch. The popular, unpaved Ashley Trail would become a boardwalk, its butterfly garden bisected by a service road with a portion turned into a “running space” for children.

Other additions include a kayak launch on the Intracoastal Waterway at the southern end of the grounds and two more overlook piers extending into the waterway.

The enlarged buildings would feature sheltered and shaded structures for outdoor programming with a covered “event terrace” on the roof.  

“Right now if it rains at the center everyone has to come inside,” Gray said. “There’s not a lot of covered area.”

Beach & Park District commissioners were enthusiastic.

“I think it’s fantastic. The parking [underneath] makes so much sense,” Commissioner Erin Wright said. “I love the idea of more nature-focused playgrounds … rather than the plastic type of playgrounds that we kind of have been having.”

District Chairman Robert Rollins said Gray’s vision was more than he expected.

“It’s a wonderful plan,” Rollins said. “It looks to me like a marvelous project.”

Michele Peel, president of the Friends of Gumbo Limbo, said the proposal “is definitely headed in the right direction.”

Visits to the nature center have pretty much doubled in the last decade, Peel said.

“Cruise ships are sending people, TripAdvisor ranks us as a top activity in the area, and locals bring their house guests and family here,” she said. “If we’re smart about our planning, it will be both easier to visit, and offer more interesting things to do.”

The city owns Gumbo Limbo, but the Beach & Park District pays for all its upkeep and capital improvements.

Gray said construction would take about 3½ years and be in three phases, so the center never has to close. He said he would return with cost estimates after some fine-tuning of the plan.