Kraken, an adult loggerhead turtle with only one eye, returned to the sea after six months of recuperation. She was rescued last June after being hit by a boat propeller and needed emergency surgery. ABOVE: A crowd wishes Kraken bon voyage. BELOW: Gumbo Limbo Nature Center staffers carry her to the surf. The turtle wears a satellite transmitter so she can be tracked. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

ABOVE: Joan and David Genser are co-chairing the Palm Beach Opera’s annual gala.  Photos provided

By Amy Woods

A star soprano from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City will headline the Palm Beach Opera’s annual gala and command its $1,000 ticket price.

Sondra Radvanovsky, who opened the Met’s season in the title role of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, will perform a one-hour concert Feb. 15 during an intimate show at The Breakers.

“She is the diva at the Metropolitan Opera right now,” said Joan Genser, who with her husband, David Genser, is co-chairing “An Evening With Sondra Radvanovsky.” 

“We don’t know what she’s going to sing, but whatever it is, it’ll be good.”

The gala — the largest fundraiser of the year for the company — is expected to attract 300 guests for a formal evening of drinks and hors d’oeuvres, the concert and dinner and dancing afterward. 

“Our goal is to have a full house, and I think we’re just about there,” David Genser said. “It’s a very desirable ticket.”

Proceeds will support the three-show, six-performance season of the Palm Beach Opera, which kicked off in January with Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, features Leonard Bernstein’s Candide this month and concludes in March with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.

“Palm Beach Opera can boast being one of the very few opera companies in the world that operates in the black,” David Genser said. “Most opera companies operate in the red. We are incredibly well-managed.”

His goal includes attracting new people to the gala to expose them to the beloved and enchanting art form.

“We’ve been successful in doing that,” he said. “Opera appeals to so many more people today.”

Philanthropists Henry and Marsha Laufer of Manalapan are major sponsors of the gala.

Founded in 1961, the Palm Beach Opera stages its shows at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach.

“There’s no question the Palm Beach Opera has made quite a mark on the community,” David Genser said. “It’s amazing.”

 Sondra Radvanovsky opened the New York City Metropolitan Opera’s season in the title role of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma.

If You Go

What: ‘An Evening With Sondra Radvanovsky’

When: 6 p.m. Feb. 15

Where: The Breakers,
1 S. County Road, Palm Beach

Cost: $1,000

Information: Call 835-7550 or visit www.pbopera.org

Volunteers work in the Briny Breezes Library in 1972. It looks much the same today. Photos from Overdue in Paradise

By Ron Hayes

The libraries are big and small, public and private. Academic, deeply religious or passionate about medicine. They’re Finnish, Jewish and gay.

One hides a water tank. One is neighbor to a shuffleboard court. One was suspected of hosting a ghost.

Overdue in Paradise: The Library History of Palm Beach County is a book about books, filled with stories of those pioneers who filled a meager shelf or two with donated books a century ago, and how those bookshelves grew.

“Don’t you just love the title?” exclaims Donna Clarke, volunteer librarian at the tiny Briny Breezes library, who wrote the chapter about her collection. “It’s so clever.”

In 1958, a few shelves were constructed at the east end of the mobile home park’s community room, and a library was born. Six decades later, the library is still there, only feet from the shuffleboard courts, but it’s grown.

In the early days, a $5 hardcover book was kept under lock and key in glass cupboards. Today, the town provides a $1,250 annual budget, and the books, DVDs, CDs and audio books are checked out to residents on the honor system — 365 days a year.

And it’s all run by 23 dedicated, unpaid volunteers, including Clarke.

“We do have a library club with dues of $3 a year,” she adds. “We were debating upping it to $4 or $5, but I decided not to because people are so generous. Just since Thanksgiving we’ve had $600 in donations.”

Overdue in Paradise was the brainchild of Janet DeVries, a local historian, librarian and associate professor at Palm Beach State College, who realized the project with co-authors Graham Brunk, Ginger L. Pedersen and Shellie A. Labell.

“One day, Janet and I were texting back and forth and she came up with this idea that we could do together,” recalls Brunk, technology librarian at the Joseph and Gioconda King Library at the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach.

“I had written some histories of libraries I had worked for as graduate school work on the county library system, and Janet had done something similar at the Boynton Beach City Library.”

Reaching out to other librarians, they found that many had already written their own histories.

“It just came together so quickly,” Brunk said.

Conceived in June 2016, the book went on sale in November 2017 at a cost of $14.95, with all profits to be split between the Palm Beach County Library Association and the Lake Worth Little Free Libraries.

In 30 short chapters, the contributors — most, but not all, librarians — recount a surprisingly wide variety of collections.

We’ve got public libraries, from the sprawling county library system to the more modest independent municipal collections in Manalapan and Highland Beach.

The atrium of the Highland Beach Library faces the Intracoastal Waterway.

Lois Albertson remembers visiting the Highland Beach Library in the early 2000s, when it occupied a too-small space in Town Hall.

Today, the library has its own 11,000-square-foot building, and Albertson is the director.

“I learned a lot writing my chapter,” she says. “One of the things that was fun for me was going back and doing the research using our little collection of materials we have here, old newspaper articles. It was a fun way for me to learn more about the library’s history.”

Specialty libraries

Not surprisingly, we’ve got academic libraries at FAU and Florida State College, but did you know there’s a theological collection at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, where some titles date to the 1500s?

Most unusual and least known are the “special libraries”— collections either off-limits to the public or serving a specialized readership.

Finlandia House in Lantana houses 4,000 titles of Finnish history and culture. 

The Jewish Genealogical Society Library at Temple Shaarei Shalom in Boynton Beach and the Strier Library at Temple Beth Tikvah in Greenacres chronicle thousands of years of Jewish history.

At Compass, the county’s LGBTQ community center in Lake Worth, the Joel M. Starkey Library offers more than 1,500 volumes of fiction, nonfiction, history and memoir.

Old stories that never die

At Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach, the medical library was paid for with S&H Green Stamps.

Well, sort of.

The Richard S. Beinecke Medical Library, dedicated in 1968, was a gift from the Beinecke family in memory of Richard Sperry Beinecke (1917-1966), director of the Sperry and Hutchinson Co., the “S&H” of S&H Green Stamps. 

Once upon a time, a newspaper library was affectionately known as “the morgue,” where old news stories go to die — until some intrepid reporter needs to check a fact from the past. So perhaps it’s no surprise that The Palm Beach Post library was occasionally visited by the ghost of librarians past.

In the late 1970s, when the paper’s library was at the end of a long hallway, the staff would try to identify an approaching colleague by the sound of his or her footsteps.

One set of footsteps reached the door, but never entered, so staff members liked to think it was the ghost of Lois Wilson, the head librarian, who had recently died of a severe asthma attack.

That chapter was written by Mary Kate Leming, who served as The Post’s head librarian for more than 20 years before becoming the executive editor and co-owner of The Coastal Star.

The J. Turner Moore Memorial Library in Manalapan has curved walls that hide the town’s 400,000-gallon water holding tank and provide art exhibit space.

The prize for most practical use of a library surely belongs to the J. Turner Moore Memorial Library on Hypoluxo Island.

 “My greatest experience from writing that chapter was connecting with J. Turner Moore’s daughter, Daphne, who lives in the Atlanta area,” says Hypoluxo historian Michelle Donahue. “It was an incredible experience. We talk at least three times a month on the phone.”

As Donahue tells the tale, the original library, established in 1970 in a former laundry room on the grounds of the Manalapan Club, was renamed for Moore, a former mayor, in 1977.

And then the waters rose.

In 1981, when the town of Manalapan established a direct-filtration water plant on the mainland, the water had to be pumped through a pipe under the Intracoastal Waterway to a 400,000-gallon holding tank on the island.

A very unsightly water tank. In the heart of a very upscale neighborhood.

And so, by the end of the year, the library had been rebuilt as a 2,000-square-foot Spanish style building with pink stucco walls, a barrel tile roof and a water tank cleverly concealed behind its curved interior walls.

Now residents like to boast that their library is truly a “fountain of knowledge.”

Overdue in Paradise is available at the J. Turner Moore Memorial Library in Manalapan and on Amazon, as well as from the Palm Beach County Library Association, the Lake Worth Little Free Libraries Inc., the Lake Worth Chamber of Commerce and The Book Cellar on Lake Avenue in Lake Worth. 

A view of the Delray Beach Library in 1954, when its building was on Southeast Fourth Avenue just off Atlantic Avenue.

Lantana Library Chair Ginny Spence stands at the sign for the library when it stood just west of the Ocean Avenue Bridge.

The first Boynton Beach library was on the second floor of the original Boynton Woman’s Club on the south side of Ocean Avenue, behind the sand pine tree at left. Photos from Overdue in Paradise

Chamber President and CEO Troy McLellan (left) with Boca Raton Regional Hospital President and CEO Jerry Fedele, who received the excellence award, and Ethel Isaacs Williams, who will serve a second term as Chamber chairwoman. Photo provided

The Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce celebrated its 65th annual grand gala with more than 250 professionals. They gathered for a ritzy evening that included a cocktail hour, dinner and dancing.

The Chamber recognized Ethel Isaacs Williams, who will serve a second term as chairwoman.

“Last year, we talked about moving forward with bold leadership, and under the leadership of Ethel, we did just that,” Chamber President and CEO Troy McLellan said. Also, Jerry Fedele, president and CEO of Boca Raton Regional Hospital, received the M.J. “Mike” Arts Award of Excellence.

“When we succeed, we succeed as a team,” Fedele said.

94 county charities receive Quantum Foundation funds

The Quantum Foundation provided grants totaling $750,000 during a celebratory breakfast at the Riviera Beach Marina, benefiting 94 nonprofits in Palm Beach County.

The annual Quantum in the Community initiative provides funds for operating costs in amounts up to $25,000 to qualifying charities that help meet the basic needs of the most vulnerable of residents. The grantees represent the four corners of the county, from Tequesta to Boca Raton and from Riviera Beach to Belle Glade.

“Health is our mission, but we realize that if people don’t have food, shelter or basic needs to start with, it’s impossible for them to lead healthy lives,” foundation President Eric Kelly said. 

In other foundation news, the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County received $200,000 to help lawyers assist uninsured and underinsured patients facing denial of benefits, financial hardships, immigration issues affecting access to health care and loss of coverage. The society project is called the Medical Legal Partnership and aims to break the barriers that disadvantaged populations face.

Rooney’s Golf Foundation donates to local charities

Following its fall fundraising, Rooney’s Golf Foundation recently distributed $59,000 to six local charities. Local Rooney family businesses, Palm Beach Kennel Club and Rooney’s Beer Co.’s 16th annual Rooney’s Golf Tournament raised $42,000 for Forever Greyhound adoptions, Place of Hope and Potentia Academy. The 4th annual Overcomer Luncheon raised  $17,000 for Autism Project of Palm Beach County, Catholic Charities Diocese of Palm Beach and Potentia Academy. Upcoming fundraising events include Rooney’s 5K Run/Walk on March 3 at Palm Beach Kennel Club; and RGF Spring Golf Tournament on May 3 at Abacoa Golf Club. For info, contact Theresa Hume at 683-2222, Ext. 125, or email thume@pbkennelclub.com.

Hope Bash Boca celebrates ‘A Night in Old Havana’

The fifth annual Hope Bash Boca brought the Cuban capital to life as guests enjoyed dinner, dancing and entertainment while raising funds for foster children and teens who have aged out of the state system.

Philanthropist Gary Peters was recognized with the Hero of Hope. Peters and his family foundation made the lead gift for Place of Hope’s current expansion at the Rinker Campus, which will provide eight two-bedroom apartments. The new units will allow youths in transition to have safe housing in western Boca Raton. Construction is underway.

Place of Hope is a faith-based organization that provides family-style foster care, maternity support, safety for victims of human trafficking and services for children traumatized by abuse and neglect.

Funders collaborate to help in wake of Hurricane Irma

When Hurricane Irma struck last year, area agencies stepped forward in a coordinated effort to assist Palm Beach County organizations that support the community. To date, more than $700,000 has been donated to 60 organizations providing everything from costs for roof repairs to professional mental-health counseling.

The funders include Allegany Franciscan Ministries, the Celia Lipton Farris and Victor W. Farris Foundation, the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, the Lost Tree Village Charitable Foundation, the Quantum Foundation and the United Way of Palm Beach County. Their money enabled struggling residents to pay for food, housing and support services, even as some of the agencies were dealing with impacts from the storm. For example, the Caridad Center in Boynton Beach experienced an electrical outage that caused every toilet in its clinic to overflow. The center had to hire a cleaning service and remove and replace drywall. At one point, the center rented portable bathrooms so it could open for a few hours to give patients much-needed medications. Total cost: $19,000.

The funders continue to meet to discuss how to handle future emergency requests from nonprofits as the 2018 hurricane season approaches.

Members of the winning foursome: (l-r) Jack Foley, Don Callo, Peggy Kelleher and Reeve Bright. Photo provided by Bleudog Fotography

Charity Golf Classic benefits groups that help children

The Kiwanis Club of Delray Beach raised more than $3,000 during its annual Charity Golf Classic, with all proceeds going to support local children’s programs.

“This year’s tournament was one of the best, with a great turnout and lots of great prizes,” said Scott Youngberg, chairman of the tournament committee.

The event drew 36 golfers, with the foursome of Reeve Bright, Don Callo, Jack Foley and Peggy Kelleher turning in the best score. It served as a fun way to raise money for a good cause.

“The money we raised helps us provide scholarships, support Key Clubs at local high schools and has helped us establish a Reading Oasis at Orchard View Elementary School,” said Kelleher, the club president.

Send news to Amy Woods at flamywoods@bellsouth.net

Retired Maj. Gen. John Van Blois addressed the DAR monthly meeting about his years of service in the U.S. Air Force, handling the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall conflict, Vietnam, the first Iraq War, Desert Storm and national security. ABOVE: Van Blois with members of the Delray and Boca membership board (l-r) Sylvia Oliver, vice regent; Evelyn Babbitt, recording secretary; Susie Wuest, treasurer; Brenda Cavallo, corresponding secretary; Patty Years, chaplain; Barbara Palladino, regent. Photo provided

Nearly 1,000 members of the community participated in the Palm Beach County Food Bank fundraiser, enjoying a simple meal of soup donated by 38 Delray Beach restaurants and bread from Old School Bakery. Participants purchased an empty bowl to take home as a reminder of the empty bowls on the tables of hungry families in the county.  ‘We experienced a great outpouring of support from the community for Empty Bowls Delray Beach,’ said Karen Erren, the food bank’s executive director.  ‘It is a demonstration of the concern that people have for the hungry in our community and their dedication to help us address this serious issue.’ ABOVE: Leanne Adair and Brenda Medore. Photo provided by Debra Sommerville Photography

New members of the Council of Catholic Women of St. Lucy’s Church were inducted at a tea and luncheon at the church hall in Highland Beach. ABOVE: (l-r) Carol Gammage, Joan O’Leary, Pat Boden, Petra Karabelas, Marguerite Shaw, Ellen Ryan, Maura Terman and CCW President Peggy Brown.  Photo provided 

Philanthropist Jeffrey Stoops spoke at the first such event of the 2017-18 season, which took place in the Khoury Family Dance Rehearsal Hall in the Cohen Pavilion. Eileen Berman, chairwoman of the Corporate Partners executive committee, welcomed members and guests. ‘We are honored to have Mr. Stoops here with us today,’ Berman said. ‘He has accomplished so much in his career and continues to ask questions that lead to new strategies to effect change in an ever-evolving industry. He has been recognized internationally for his achievements in business and his commitment to charitable giving. The Business Speakers Series and the Kravis Center are fortunate to have his support.’  The mission of the Corporate Partners membership program is to enable the Kravis Center to continue its education and community outreach. Kenneth Himmel, president and CEO of Related Urban, will be the next speaker Feb. 23. ABOVE: Berman and Stoops. Photo provided by Capehart

The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation raised more than $145,000 for those living with digestive diseases during the annual outdoor affair — one of more than 100 that take place across the country to support the estimated 1.6 million Americans, nearly 100,000 of whom live in Florida, affected by the disorders.  ‘This year was very special for us as an organization,’ said Katie Keohane, executive director of the South Florida chapter.  ‘We celebrated 50 years of milestones and accomplishments, which put into perspective how many people we have helped along the way continue to empower and inspire to fight this disease.’  Proceeds will go toward treatment, research and patient programs. ABOVE: (l-r) Randy Schwartz, Adria Labiner, Elissa Weiss, Rachel Weiss, Stephanie Schwartz, Brandon Labiner, Steve Kahane, Arielle Labiner, Rachel Gerson and AJ Bergman. Photo provided

The Italian Cultural Society’s regional dinner was arranged by chairs Rose De Angelis and Regina Peters. They and café owners Francesco Blanco and Fabrizio Giorgi planned a typical meal with wines you would enjoy in Bologna. Entertainment was provided by Gino De Marco and Frank Todaro. The sold-out event hosted more than 135 guests. ABOVE: De Marco, Peters and De Angelis. Photo provided

More than 60 art lovers came out to celebrate the opening of ‘My Drawers,’ an exhibition by fine-art photographer Barry Seidman. The photographic exposé takes viewers on a personal journey through Seidman’s life, with large-scale images of his personal storage spaces. The drawers are juxtaposed with items of modern-day living. ‘It is an examination of my life as much as any written word,’ Seidman said.  ‘It’s a self-portrait. So many accumulated bits and pieces of my life are there to explore. It’s almost too personal to show.’ ABOVE: Cindy and Charles Beach. Photo provided by Jacek Gancarz

By Thom Smith

An estimated 5,000 revelers welcomed the new year at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, but hotel management was focused primarily on just one.

Only a couple of hours after Vitaly Zdorovetskiy checked in with a woman believed to be his girlfriend, fashion model Bri Teresi, hotel management and two police officers escorted him off the premises. The run-in wasn’t his first with Boca cops, and the hotel didn’t want to be involved in another with YouTube’s self-billed “Natural Born Prankster.”

Now based in Hollywood, Calif., where he’s working on movie and other entertainment deals, Zdorovetskiy, then 7, and his family arrived in the United States from Russia in 1999, settling first in Lake Worth. He spent two years at Park Vista High School west of Boynton Beach, where he was known as a class clown, and ultimately graduated from Boca High. 

He worked as a garbage collector, street-side sign spinner and busboy before landing a part in a porn film. He also began using a camera given to him by his grandmother to shoot “prank videos,” which have made him an internet sensation.

Inspired by a cannibal attack of a homeless man in 2012, he dressed as a zombie to scare unsuspecting bystanders. Miami Zombie Attack Prank attracted 30 million YouTube views. 

He was arrested in 2016 for climbing the Hollywood sign and again three weeks later for streaking at the NBA Finals — “LeBron 4 President” scrawled on his back, “Trump Sucks” on his chest.

Zdorovetskiy was known to Boca Raton police as early as 2012, when he staged the “Russian Hitman Prank.” In downtown Boca, he posed as a Russian in black suit and fedora, dark glasses and gloves, placing a briefcase at the feet of individuals, saying, “Your life, your choice … 60 seconds,” then leaving. Meanwhile, an accomplice positioned nearby recorded the responses. Most people hurriedly left, but one hurled the briefcase across the street. 

Another chased Zdorovetskiy and attacked him. Police arrived — with the bomb squad — and Zdorovetskiy was charged with three felonies. The case went to pretrial intervention. 

Now reportedly worth nearly $2 million and living in Hollywood, he returned to Boca during the holidays. He claimed he was there strictly to enjoy the festivities, but Boca police had been informed that a video crew was stationed nearby and that Zdorovetskiy had something in mind. That was all management needed to remove him.

“The safety and security of our guests, club and team members is our No. 1 priority,” management said in a written statement. “The club welcomed approximately 5,000 guests and members on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the holiday.” 

Given the heightened security measures in place globally on New Year’s Eve, a guest who was known to local police for previous pranks that threatened public safety was escorted from the property after online posts were discovered about a potential New Year’s Eve prank.

Indeed, Zdorovetskiy is known for his stunts. Soccer fans watching the TV broadcast of the World Cup final between Germany and Argentina in 2014 were puzzled when action suddenly was interrupted by a still photo of Rio’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue. They didn’t see Zdorovetskiy, in white sneakers, blue stockings, colorful shorts and “Natural Born Prankster” felt-tipped on his abdomen, streaking onto the field and attempting to kiss a German player before being tackled by security guards and police. Among those recording the incident on their mobile phones was LeBron James. 

Within an hour of his check-in, the resort began actions to remove Zdorovetskiy from the premises. He hung up on management when they first called his room, then slammed the door on a staffer who came to the room. Two members of management returned with two Boca Raton police officers, forced their way in (Zdorovetskiy later claimed Teresi was naked on the bed) and informed him that he was being expelled because of reports — online and from police — of a possible prank.

Throughout the process, Zdorovetskiy kept his cellphone camera running. “I feel sorry for what’s going to happen to your hotel,” he told them. “You dug your own grave. … In one hour this is gonna be on YouTube.”

As the couple was escorted through the lobby, Zdorovetskiy stopped to chat with groups of young hotel guests who instantly recognized him. He later superimposed the resort’s phone number on the video that ran on YouTube and urged viewers to call and complain. “Destroy them for me,” he concluded.

                             ***    

Speaking of “bad boys” — with at least some redeeming social value — John McEnroe returns to the Delray Beach Open tennis tournament (Feb. 16-25) for the first time in five years. In the opening three-day ATP Champions Tour event, Johnny Mac will captain the U.S. team of Mardy Fish and Jan-Michael Gambill, both former Delray champions, against an international team of Fernando Gonzalez, Greg Rusedski and Jesse Levine. 

A week of ATP World Tour action follows (Feb. 19-25), with Jack Sock hoping to defend his title against four previous singles winners. Also in the lineup: doubles twins Bob and Mike Bryan and Kevin Anderson, a 2017 U.S. Open finalist. He won’t even need a hotel: The South African recently moved to Gulf Stream. 

For information, go to www.yellowtennisball.com.

                            ***     

I last wrote about Brittany Bowe four years ago when she competed as a speed skater at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The U.S. team performed poorly, failing to win a single medal, but Bowe stuck with it and when her competition begins Feb. 12 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, she hopes to turn the tables.

A gifted athlete, Bowe played a record-setting four years of basketball at Florida Atlantic University, graduating in 2010. She also competed in inline rollerskating, which led to the ice and national titles but no Olympic hardware. 

Rededicating herself after Sochi, she set a world record and won six medals in six events at the 2015 and 2016 world championships. But during a training session in the summer of 2016, she collided with a teammate and suffered a concussion. An anticipated short recovery lingered for months, forcing her out of the 2017 nationals.

The recovery has been slow but promising, as she qualified first or second for her three sprints, the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 meters, at Milwaukee in January. In Korea, the times will really tell.

***                                 

What goes around comes around.

After finishing college at Florida International University in Miami in the early ’80s, Mark Militello set out to find a suitable kitchen. He met up with restaurateur Dennis Max, a Californian who was just dipping his toes in South Florida waters, and signed on at Cafe Maxx in Pompano Beach.        

A few years later, Max was pairing up with another restaurateur, Burt Rapoport, to open new restaurants and Militello was transforming a Max restaurant in North Miami Beach into Mark’s Place. That led to the formation of the “Mango Gang,” a group of five chefs who revolutionized South Florida dining with Floribbean cuisine, a celebration of Latin, Caribbean, Asian, African and American flavors and techniques. Militello’s efforts led to a James Beard Award as the best chef in the Southeast.

While Militello was opening restaurants in Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach and Boca Raton, Max and Rapoport paired for several ventures. In 1989 the first Prezzo, in a small Boca Raton shopping center just east of the turnpike interchange, introduced wood-burning pizza ovens to South Florida. A decade later, they sold the three Prezzos and its concept to a speculator who later abandoned it.

Restaurant people are close-knit. Militello stayed in touch. He even consulted with Rapoport on his Deck 84 project in Delray Beach before heading to Long Island for a stretch and then returning to Josie’s in Boynton Beach to mentor owner Steve Setticasi’s son and chef, Sebastiano.

“He’s doing well,” Militello said of his protege. “I spent two years with him. I hope he learned something, picked up a trick or two.”

But the phone call signaled time to move on.

It was from Rapoport. He and Max were reviving Prezzo; would Militello run the kitchen — much like the old Prezzo, even the pizza oven, but with modern twists, such as the mozzarella bar?

“The response has been overwhelming,” Militello said. “It’s been almost too much really. It’s been at the point where you can’t even step back. You’ve just got to do it.”

Down the road … who knows? Prezzo, on Military Trail north of Yamato in Boca, should keep him busy for a while. At 61, Militello has done just about everything.

“I have one goal left and that is to open a really small fish act,” he confessed. “It’s the only thing I haven’t done. Nothing but fish. I want it to be very small and very hands-on. And I don’t care what the market wants. I just want to do what I want.”

  ***                              

Cannoli Kitchen. Biergarten Boca Raton, Trattoria Romano, La Nouvelle Maison.

Arturo Gismondi has certainly made his mark on Boca’s restaurant scene. However, his latest project had city code enforcers seeing not red, but sea-foam green. For a city with a color code that leans heavily on the legacy of its original developer, Addison Mizner, Luff’s Fish House was just too Key West.

Luff's Fish House restaurant, located in a historic bungalow, was cited by Boca Raton for its Key West color scheme.

The bungalow at 390 E. Palmetto Park Road was built in the Roaring Twenties by city pioneers Ted and Harriet Luff. Over the years it had served as residence and home to jewelry, antiques and dress shops, but as high-rises sprang up on every side, its future looked dim. 

The Boca Raton Historical Society proposed moving it, but those plans never received much support. Demolition seemed likely until Gismondi stepped forward and the City Council jumped at his proposal to develop a Key West-style fish house. Everything went swimmingly until the exterior wall was painted.

After initially agreeing to paint the wall reddish brown, an approved color in the city code, Gismondi changed his mind and painted it a Key West-ish sea-foam green. He opened the restaurant Dec. 27. 

A day later, Gismondi’s request for an exception was ruled a “substantial violation” by special magistrate Harry Hipler: Paint the wall reddish brown by Jan. 5 or face a fine of $1,000 a day.

The wall is now reddish brown, but a restaurant employee said Gismondi still plans to appeal.

                                 ***

On the subject of restaurants, Delray has one new spot and one on the way. The latest Italianate eatery to occupy the house at 9 SE Seventh Ave. is Osteria Salina, which follows in the footsteps of Trattoria D’Angelo and Cena.

Timothy and Cinzia Gaglio first spread their culinary wings in New York, then in Florida with Coho Grille and Trattoria Coco Lezzone in Boca Raton and Polo Grille in Palm Beach. 

Osteria Salina is named for a dormant volcanic island off the coast of Sicily, not far from the toe of Italy’s boot. It offers traditional Sicilian dishes with a generous helping of seafood from the waters surrounding the Mediterranean islands west of Sicily.

Smoke BBQ is gone from Atlantic Avenue, but it’ll be replaced this spring or early summer by another with Southern roots. Tin Roof out of Nashville will offer a Southern menu and — surprise, surprise! — live music at the 6,500-square-foot indoor-outdoor site. The company already has 15 Tin Roofs around the nation, including one in Orlando, and each offers a wide range of music — country, pop, rock — whatever the local scene has to offer.

                                ***

Finally, Lake Worth, a town that was born for craft beer, has a craft brewery. Mathews Brewing Company opened in January in the city’s Artisanal Industrial District on H Street just west of Dixie, offering such typical local brewery features as brewhouse, taproom and a patio with a stage for live music, plus a less common service — a cask ale program.

Homebrewer Dave Mathews, who sold his engineering business to brew full-time, offers cask ales. Known as “real ale” back in England, cask ales are unfiltered and unpasteurized and drawn at a warmer 50 degrees by hand pump. 

By eliminating the carbonation, Mathews says, the beer is served as it was for centuries and allows the malt and hops flavoring to shine.

Mathews chose Lake Worth over West Palm Beach because of its “funky, cool vibe” and business-friendly atmosphere. He doesn’t serve food, but he has arrangements with the growing force of food trucks and menus from restaurants that deliver.

Thom Smith is a freelance writer who can be reached at thomsmith@ymail.com.

ABOVE:  Despite the cool weather, the event was a family affair with the Schneider family — Mark and Jessica with  children Joey and Nathan (in stroller)  — in attendance. 

BELOW:  Erica Falls — touring with New Orleans funk and jazz jam band Galactic — warmed up the crowd with hot vocals and on-stage antics. Other groups at the all-day festival included Medeski Martin & Wood, Hot Tuna and the headliner Tedeschi Trucks Band.

Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

The Plate: Breakfast Burrito

The Place: East Ocean Café, 412 E. Ocean Ave., Boynton Beach; 200-6006 or www.eastoceancafe.com.

The Price: $8

The Skinny: When I was a young man living in Delray Beach, my dad and mother would drive over to visit from Fort Myers. We’d go to breakfast at Ken & Hazel’s, on Atlantic Avenue just west of the tracks. 

My dad loved the place because it’s where the local folks dined — plumbers, lawyers and accountants all stopped off for a cup of joe and camaraderie before heading out for the day.

That’s how this tiny corner of lunch and breakfast comfort feels. Mayor Steven Grant was holding court with a constituent on the sidewalk outside this place, where the burrito was packed with fluffy scrambled eggs and chunks of sausage. It was good, if not good for you, and a treat to visit someplace where everyone would know your name the next time you came to dine.

— Scott Simmons

The Chinese Association of Science, Education and Culture of South Florida will sponsor dancers at the Boca celebration Feb. 18.  Photo provided by wangweijiang

(This is the second in an occasional series on how various cultures celebrate the new year.)

By Janis Fontaine

In American culture, we worship the sun. Our calendar is based on how quickly our planet revolves around our life-giving star. The new year comes when we return to (pretty much) where we started. 

In many Asian countries, the new year is based on the lunar calendar, which has about two fewer days in its cycle than the typical month. The date of the new year can vary as much as a month on our solar calendar, usually from Jan. 21 to Feb. 20. 

Where the common zodiac is based on the day and month of your birth, the Chinese zodiac is based on the year. There are 12 years in a zodiac cycle, and each year has an associated animal, chosen for its attributes. This is the Year of the Dog. 

The Chinese New Year, and other lunar new year celebrations, take place Feb. 16 this year. In China, New Year’s is the most important holiday of the year. It’s so culturally significant that businesses close for a week so everyone can travel home to see the family.    “New Year’s means a new start, a new life,” Jennifer Jia of Delray Beach said. She moved to Boca Raton from China in 1996 to get her master’s degree at Florida Atlantic University. “Chinese are very family-oriented. Everyone gets together for New Year’s dinner. That’s why it’s a week long, to give people time to travel.”

Jia is the vice president of the Chinese Association of Science, Education and Culture of South Florida, which is planning its fifth annual Chinese New Year’s Festival in Mizner Park in Boca Raton on Feb. 18. (The association moved the festival to the closest Sunday to the new year, for obvious reasons.)

CASEC has 10,000 members spread across Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. The association rotates the venue every two years between Boca Raton and Miami. 

The first year in Boca, the festival packed the amphitheater with more than 2,700 guests. “I think we broke some attendance records,” she said. The next year, it was “freezing” and attendance fell to 2,000. If the weather is good, Jia thinks the festival might break another record because “the Chinese community is growing.”

Jia, who owns a Delray Beach software company, says Boca Raton’s mayor, City Council and Mizner Park have always been enthusiastic about the festival, which introduces Chinese culture, customs and costumes and incorporates Chinese traditions like the vibrant, athletic lion dance, the precision of Chinese calligraphy demonstrations and diverse and unusual art. Traditional food is served, including spring rolls, fish, greens, rice cakes and sweet rice balls. 

Another popular custom in China is giving red envelopes to children. “It’s very important,” Jia says. Parents and grandparents give unmarried children envelopes of cash “for being well-behaved all year.”

People traditionally dress in bright colors, with at least a little bit of red, she says. 

Jia keeps in touch with her father and others in China at the New Year via Skype.  

At the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, the fourth annual Chinese New Year Celebration be Feb. 17.  This free event features lectures, tours, a calligraphy demonstration and workshop; dancers from Lee Koon Hung Kung Fu will perform the lion dance and the dragon dance. 

New Year’s celebrations 

Chinese New Year

The Spring Festival or Lunar New Year celebrates the change from one zodiac year to the next in a 12-year repeating cycle. Chinese zodiac signs are determined by year of birth; each sign is named for an animal: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig.  

When: Feb. 16

Who celebrates: The Spring Festival is also celebrated in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mauritius, Australia and the Philippines— more than 1.5 billion people. 

How they celebrate: The New Year is a time to honor one’s ancestors with family gatherings and traditional foods. Fireworks, invented in China, are a huge part of the celebrations. Lion dancing, believed to bring good luck, is part of the celebrations. 

Korean New Year

Some Koreans celebrate our solar new year, called Sinjeong, but most celebrate Seollal. 

When: Feb. 16

Who celebrates: It’s a national holiday and most Koreans celebrate.  

How they celebrate: This three-day celebration is one of the most significant holidays of the Korean calendar. Not only is it a time for paying respect to ancestors, but it is also an opportunity to catch up with family members. During Seollal, Koreans usually wear hanbok (traditional clothes), perform ancestral rites, play folk games, eat traditional foods, listen to stories and talk well into the night. 

Vietnamese New Year

This is the most important holiday in Vietnam. Its name, Tet Nguyen Dan, means “Feast of the First Morning of the First Day.”

When: Feb. 16

Who celebrates: Young and old throughout Vietnam. 

How they celebrate: One custom is housecleaning before the new year — except for sweeping, which is not allowed during Tet because it would sweep out good luck. 

Family reunions with traditional foods are popular, as is giving money to children and the elderly. Custom dictates that the first person to visit a home in the new year will set the tone for the coming months. 

If You Go

What: Chinese New Year's Festival 

When: 3:30-9 p.m. Feb. 18

Where: Mizner Park Amphitheater, 960 Plaza Real, Boca Raton 

Features: Entertainment, food, art, lion dancers 

Admission: Free 

Info: www.floridachinese.org

What: Chinese New Year Celebration

When: Noon-8 p.m. Feb. 17

Where: Norton Museum of Art, 1451 S. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach

Features: Music, lectures, tours, a Chinese calligraphy demonstration and workshop, and a performance of both the lion dance and the dragon dance

Admission: Free

Info: 832-5196; www.

norton.org

Palm Beach: The Essential­ Guide to America’s Legendary­ Resort Town, by Rick Rose; Globe Pequot,

170 pp.; $19.95

By Steve Pike

Rick Rose is passionate about Palm Beach culture and society. Those things sort of go with the territory (pardon the pun), as Rose is co-owner of Grandview Gardens Bed & Breakfast and Palm Beach Vacation Rentals in West Palm Beach. So Rose — a second-generation Floridian — has a vested interest in writing a book that features what he views as “essential’’ information for visitors, be they tourists or snowbirds.

“We have a lot of guests who don’t know anything about Palm Beach,’’ Rose said. “They think it’s Palm Springs’’ in California.

Nevertheless, in many ways, Rose’s book, Palm Beach: The Essential Guide to America’s Legendary Resort Town, published by Globe Pequot, is exactly as its title indicates — a guide to Palm Beach, including its culture, high society and “must visit’’ destinations such as Worth Avenue, The Breakers and Flagler Museum. 

Just published in November and already in its third printing, Palm Beach is available at local bookstores, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

Rose is the official historian and tour guide for the Worth Avenue Association, so not surprisingly the 170-page book is filled with many pictures and information about Palm Beach island and its boutique shops, social life, fashion, mansions and restaurants. 

The book’s introduction provides solid information on the history of Palm Beach and how to navigate the island (and Palm Beach County) by private and public transportation.

Rose’s knowledge and enthusiasm for Palm Beach show up as profound in the book’s first 56 pages (Chapter 1). That’s when the reader gets the most details about places such The Breakers, Worth Avenue and The Everglades Club, along with homes including President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, La Guerida (the former Kennedy estate) and El Solano, which was a favorite hideout of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. 

In addition, Rose’s detailing of the back streets and piazzas and architectural history of Palm Beach is outstanding.

But for all of its insights into Palm Beach, the book comes somewhat unraveled when Rose leaves the island. 

For example, Rose covers a lot of the “off island’’ highlights, including the Kravis Center and CityPlace in West Palm Beach, the Jupiter Lighthouse, the Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach and the Boca Raton Resort and Spa. But familiar places such as the Sandoway Discovery Center in Delray Beach and Nomad Surf Shop in the County Pocket aren’t mentioned.

There are also no mentions of Briny Breezes, Ocean Ridge and Gulf Stream. Delray Beach is relegated to three paragraphs 20 pages apart.

Rose details the equestrian scene in Wellington, scuba and snorkeling around Riviera Beach and provides a sentence or two on restaurants and nightlife in West Palm Beach.

The new Bricktops restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens gets a mention, but Rose ignores such restaurant staples as The Old Key Lime House in Lantana, Two Georges in Boynton Beach and Boston’s on the Beach on Delray Beach — each closer to Palm Beach than Bricktops.

Let's hope Rose will correct those omissions in the next edition. But even with those flaws, tourists and snowbirds (and locals) can learn a lot from Chapter 1, and that in itself makes the book worth the price. 

By Steve Plunkett

The public records war between the town and Martin O’Boyle rages on; a proposed settlement signed by Gulf Stream’s litigious resident was withdrawn before town commissioners could consider it.

The proposal would have dismissed nine of 11 court cases between O’Boyle and Gulf Stream. A lawsuit over police radio transmissions that an appellate court recently upheld in O’Boyle’s favor was excluded, as was an O’Boyle lawsuit seeking “all communications and public records” former Vice Mayor Robert Ganger sent or received over a 15-month period. Commissioners were scheduled to discuss the offer at their Jan. 12 meeting.

Mayor Scott Morgan, who has negotiated with O’Boyle for months, said he was not impressed with the terms.

“I was not inclined to approve it anyway,” Morgan said. “Why he withdrew it I do not know.”

Two days before the meeting, O’Boyle, who was celebrating the new year at his home in West Virginia, said he was not aware the document was on the commission’s agenda.

“To settle this thing with Gulf Stream would be the greatest gift a man could have. It’s gone on way too far,” O’Boyle said then.

Like last June’s deal with resident Chris O’Hare dismissing 36 legal actions, neither side would have paid the other’s attorney’s fees in the nine cases. Also similarly, the proposed settlement would have required O’Boyle and related parties such as his Citizens Awareness Foundation Inc. to withdraw all pending requests for public records and to pay a $250 “facilitation fee” upfront with any future requests.

But Morgan said the proposal left out other litigation by Citizens Awareness Foundation and also would have limited legal challenges the town could make.

Meanwhile, the 4^th District Court of Appeal changed its Nov. 2 opinion awarding appellate attorney’s fees to O’Boyle in the police records case. His attorney can claim only the fees authorized by the state’s Public Records Act and not extra fees as a sanction against the town, the District Court said.

O’Boyle’s lawyers have filed documents with the Circuit Court seeking more than $575,000. The town argues they should get perhaps $20,000 because most of their work was done after Gulf Stream gave O’Boyle the records.

O’Boyle and O’Hare flooded Gulf Stream with requests for public records starting in August 2013. In the following six months, the town received more than 700 requests, court documents show.

In July 2013, before the current war began, Gulf Stream paid O’Boyle $180,000 to settle approximately 16 lawsuits and about 400 requests for public records he filed after he was denied variances for projects at his home on Hidden Harbour Drive.

Village atmosphere giving way to high-rise future

Related stories: Boca Raton's downtown nears limits of city’s redevelopment plan, projects underway viewed as last big wave | Map | Editor's Note

By Jane Smith

Folks in Boynton Beach once envisioned their town’s future as that of a Florida fishing village with a Caribbean theme. Today, that future is high-rises, condos and apartments.

Residents had long favored buildings with a height limit of four stories. The change to allow more height began in the fall of 2015 when a previous City Commission removed two volunteer members from the Community Redevelopment Agency board, allowing the board to consist only of commission members. 

Then, in August 2016, the newly elected commission approved the CRA’s updated plans for the eastern part of Boynton Beach. These plans will shape the city’s down-town area for the next 20 years. They call for a wedding-cake tier effect along Ocean Avenue with three stories nearest the street and the potential to build up to seven stories. They also allow for increased height and density at the foot of the city’s two bridges spanning the Intracoastal Waterway.

Longtime residents had expressed support for aspects of the plan such as wider sidewalks, shade trees and better lighting. But they did not support the allowable height increases. The most contentious project approved involved the 10 stories and 326 apartments planned for Riverwalk Plaza at Woolbright Road and Federal Highway. 

Advisory board ‘disregarded’

In addition to the proposed Riverwalk Plaza and the existing One Boynton with nearly 500 apartments at Woolbright and Federal, several apartment projects have been approved near Boynton Beach Boulevard, about a mile north. 

The Villages at East Ocean located along the FEC railroad tracks has been approved to build 366 apartments, and the Ocean One project east of Federal Highway can add 231 rental units, with both projects topping out at eight stories. They’ll join the existing 15-story Marina Village with 338 condos and Casa Costa with 14 stories and 395 condos. 

Just one block south, the six-story 500 Ocean project recently received another six months to finish. It will have 341 apartments at its scheduled June 30 completion. 

“I feel very much like the Riverwalk project was the thumb in the eye,” said Harry Woodworth, 68, former president of the Inlet Communities Association and frequent critic of the growth explosion.

At the raucous August 2016 CRA meeting, supporters of the four-story limit packed the room, wearing white shirts and carrying small signs with the numeral 4 in red. When the plans for east Boynton were discussed, Woodworth said his 500-member group supported everything except the height increases at certain intersections. 

“Should our community determine the character of our development or let developers determine the character of our community?” he asked.

Under the old city plan, Riverwalk Plaza (which includes an abandoned Winn-Dixie grocery store) could have sought four stories for an apartment building. Another three stories would have required a special request to the City Commission. 

The new plan gives the project 10 stories, which the owners claim they need to rent the upper stories with promises of an ocean view from the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway.

“They totally changed the codes, not just for Riverwalk,” Woodworth said. “It all started in the fall of 2015 when [the previous commission] booted two citizens off the CRA board.” 

Buck Buchanan remembers that time and also when the city wanted to create a “Floribbean” fishing village theme. He and former Mayor Woodrow Hay were the two citizen CRA board members whom the City Commission removed under the theory that residents want elected officials to make the decisions. 

But the City Commission then faced an outcry and created a public, seven-member CRA advisory board to appease residents who felt their voices weren’t being heard.

CRAs exist to reinvigorate areas that have been blighted or neglected by reinvesting tax dollars back into the area.

Retired accountant Linda Cross chairs the advisory board. 

“We spent a lot of time reviewing what got other CRAs into trouble, but the commission disregarded what we presented,” Cross said. She believes projects should be customized to Boynton Beach and include more green space and parking garages. 

“What will we do in 10 years when the sea level rises and we haven’t planned for it?” she said. “A median and some little plants are not enough.”

CRA advisory board member James DeVoursney sees his service as a way to be involved in the process. At times he has been the lone vote for the public on the normally developer-friendly board, such as in July 2016 when he voted against allowing 10 stories at the Woolbright and Federal intersection. Simultaneously, the Riverwalk Plaza owners sought the same height allowance. 

“I wanted to let them go through the proper channels,” DeVoursney said. “It could have been a give-and-take situation, instead of just a give.” 

When the CRA plan came to the commission in August 2016, newly elected Mayor Steven Grant and Commissioner Christina Romelus voted against allowing three extra stories at Woolbright and Federal. They lost the vote to Joe Casello, Justin Katz and Mack McCray, who supported the extra height.

Grant, though, supports adding density through an urban-planning concept called transit-oriented development. In Boynton, one goal is getting a commuter train station. 

“After the Brightline high-speed passenger train comes through [on the FEC tracks], then Tri-Rail Coastal Link will start,” Grant said. He’d like to see a station built south of Boynton Beach Boulevard.

“There isn’t a magic number of new residents” for getting a Coastal Link stop, said Kim DeLaney, strategic development and policy director for the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. The number varies by city and, of course, the more residents you have, the better for commuter rail and nearby businesses, she said.

Extra density would also allow developers to build more affordable apartments, Grant said. 

Concern on barrier island

Even more residents will come with the Town Square development, a public-private partnership planned for western downtown between Boynton Beach Boulevard on the north and Southeast Second Avenue on the south. 

It will add about 460 units with an estimated additional 820 residents to an area with roads already congested during the season. Combined with the apartments planned, under construction or already built, that will be an additional 2,134 units with potentially double the residents going over the Ocean Avenue bridge.

That increase troubles those who live on the barrier island, particularly the 1,900 residents of Ocean Ridge. 

They worry about traffic congestion on the bridges across the Intracoastal Waterway, the effects on the beaches and emergency response times.

“You can’t add that many people and expect response times to stay the same,” said Kristine de Haseth, executive director of the Florida Coalition for Preservation, which promotes responsible development.

The coalition is hosting meetings for communities on the barrier island to explore options of contracting for emergency services. Building a fixed fire-rescue station on the island failed to attract support because of the cost of fire trucks and land, she said.

Boynton Beach, which provides fire-rescue services to Ocean Ridge, has added six people to the staff at Fire Station No. 1, the closest responding station to the north end of Ocean Ridge, said Glenn Joseph, the fire chief. 

The city also is looking into purchasing traffic signal preemption devices that would turn the lights green in the path of an emergency vehicle, Joseph said. That could help reduce response times, he said.

The city’s station on South Federal Highway responds to calls to the south part of Ocean Ridge and to Briny Breezes going over the Woolbright Bridge. Because Riverwalk’s apartments will vary in size from studios to three-bedroom units, it’s feared the bridge could see an impact of an additional 1,460 residents. 

Ocean Ridge residents also worry about their quality of life with increased traffic to the beaches.

“It could have a negative impact,” said James Bonfiglio, Ocean Ridge vice mayor. “We’ll have to police the traffic to direct them to Boynton’s Oceanfront Park and the county’s Ocean Inlet Park, keeping them away from the private beaches.”

Meanwhile, west of the Intracoastal, Woodworth is attending fewer Boynton Beach meetings — partly because he is no longer INCA president.

“What’s the point of going to the meetings,” he said. “Where’s the part that the citizens get their say?”  

By Rich Pollack  

When the state Legislature begins its 60-day regular session this month, lawmakers will consider a wide range of proposed bills, many of which have already drawn the attention of concerned local government leaders.  

Among the bills proposed so far is one that would prevent a local government from prohibiting back-in parking in parking garages.  

Another bill would require local governments to respond to public questions at their meetings or provide written responses within 10 days as well as to incorporate the responses into the meeting minutes. Yet another would limit local governments’ ability to regulate tree trimming on private property.

Two bills already introduced, one in the Florida House of Representatives and another in the Senate, could place the authority to create Community Redevelopment Agencies in the hands of the Legislature rather than local government and prevent CRAs from providing funding to nonprofit organizations. 

While the bills have different degrees of impact, each is seen by local government leaders as eroding their ability to govern their communities.  

It is, they say, an erosion of the concept of home rule, where elected officials on the local level make policies that affect the people they represent. These new bills, they say, are a continuation of a trend that has many in Palm Beach County concerned.

“We’ve seen this go in cycles before, but nothing like this,” said Richard Radcliffe, executive director of the Palm Beach County League of Cities. “This is unprecedented.” 

Overcorrecting for problems  

What has many on the local front worried is what they believe is an overreach by state legislators, who introduce bills that address specific problems but have statewide implications.  

“When there’s a problem, you go after correcting the specific problem at hand,” says Ocean Ridge Town Manager Jamie Titcomb, who is also vice chairman of the Florida City & County Management Association’s legislative subcommittee. “You don’t use a saber to correct a problem when a small scalpel will do.” 

The bills aimed at restricting actions of community redevelopment agencies are the perfect case in point, say those hoping to stem the flow of what they call preemptive bills by state lawmakers.   

Under a bill proposed in the Senate, new community redevelopment agencies could be created only by a special act of the Legislature, while existing CRAs would have to be recertified by a supermajority of the bodies that created them or otherwise be phased out. 

Under a bill in the House, administrative spending would be capped at 18 percent and an agency would be prohibited from spending money on festivals, street parties, grants to promote tourism, and grants to socially beneficial programs. 

That could have a negative ripple effect on nonprofit and cultural organizations such as the Delray Beach Public Library, Old School Square, the Spady Museum and the Arts Garage in Delray Beach, all of which receive CRA funding.  

Delray Beach CRA Executive Director Jeff Costello said the provision in the Senate bill to cap administrative spending could hinder his agency’s ability to support the community.  

“The imposition of the 18  percent limitation unduly micromanages and restricts the CRA in its ability to be responsive to the needs of the community, businesses and CRA partners,” he said.  

The proposed CRA legislation, according to David Cruz, assistant general counsel for the Florida League of Cities, came about at least partially as a result of problems some CRAs experienced.  

“We’ve seen a number of reports that saw deficiencies in accountability and transparency,” he said. 

Those concerned about the erosion of home rule admit that there have been problems but they argue that a one-size-fits-all solution is not the answer.

“Are there abuses?” the Palm Beach County League’s Radcliffe asks rhetorically. “Without a doubt, but you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”  

What concerns many about what they see as a trend toward the state Legislature eroding home rule is that decisions are being made for local municipalities by legislators who are not accountable to the people who live in those communities. In some cases, the legislation is the result of lobbying of elected officials on behalf of special industries or special interests.

Todd Bonlarron, an assistant Palm Beach County administrator and former legislative affairs director, says that because Florida is so diverse and what works in one county may not work in another, many decisions should be left to local governments.  

“When you’re dealing with governments closest to the people, you’re ensuring the greatest number of voices are heard and taken into consideration,” he said. 

Bonlarron said that preemptive legislation often frustrates local elected officials who want to address a resident’s concerns but cannot because their hands are tied.  

“You go to your elected official and they say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you because I’m not allowed to,’ ” he said.

State Rep. and former Boca Raton Councilman Bill Hager, whose district includes much of Palm Beach County’s coastal communities, has largely been supportive of home rule but says he looks at each bill individually before casting a vote.

“For the most part, the legislation that we consider at the state level passes the test of good public policy,” he said. “Every now and then, I see proposed legislation that is adverse and hostile to local government. As in the past, when such legislation arises, I will work to either amend it for the good, or will vote against it  if that’s not possible.”

Hager points to a proposed bill that would prohibit local governments from creating ordinances regulating vacation rentals as an instance where he believes decisions should be left up to local governments.

“I believe each local government, as to issues that can be resolved in ways that make imminent sense for that particular community, should be granted that right,” he said.

‘Unfunded mandates’ 

While many of the bills being introduced this year, including the one concerning vacation rentals, are aimed at reducing regulation, there are others that have financial implications.  

Several are what are referred to as unfunded mandates, bills that require local governments to spend money that is not reimbursed. Couple that with bills that reduce revenues for a municipality, and that can put local governments in a bind.  

Proposed this year is legislation that would, for example, require municipalities to provide two copies of all meeting materials at public meetings for inspection by residents. Also proposed is legislation that would require local governments to post property tax and voting-record information on their websites. 

While fulfilling those obligations might be easy for a large city, it could be a challenge for small towns with small staffs, which might have to bring in additional help to meet the mandate.  

At the same time, munici­palities could see their tax revenue shrink if voters approve an increase in the property tax homestead exemption from $50,000 in assessed value to $75,000 for homes assessed at over $100,000. The issue will come before voters in November and is of deep concern to many local elected officials, who fear significant decline in property tax revenue.  

“Our revenues are being challenged by the state,” Titcomb said.  

While organizations such as the state and county leagues of cities are working through lobbying efforts in Tallahassee to defeat bills they see as pre-emptive, there is also an effort afoot to make residents aware of the impact the erosion of home rule could have on them.  

“We have the ability to get citizens behind us,” said the county League of Cities’ Radcliffe. “We’re encouraging our people to get out and educate their residents that there’s an assault on their way of life.” 

Capt. Christopher Colletta of Delray Beach takes a selfie as members of his Army tank unit open some of the Project Holiday boxes sent from Delray Beach to Camp Casey in South Korea. Photo provided

By Ron Hayes

On the morning of Nov. 7, Delores Rangel arrived at work and found an email from Dongducheon, South Korea.

This was unusual.

The executive secretary to the Delray Beach City Commission did not often deal with people 7,662 miles away and 14 hours ahead of her.

Ms. Rangel,

My name is Captain Christopher Colletta and I was born and raised in Delray Beach until I turned 18 and went off to college.

Since then, I commissioned into the Army and now am the Executive Officer of a tank company deployed to Camp Casey in South Korea, a few miles from the DMZ separating North and South Korea …

I recently saw on Facebook that you are in charge of collecting supplies to send to soldiers deployed overseas …

• 

Actually, Delores Rangel is a lot more than the person in charge. She is the reason Project Holiday exists.

“My daughter, Melissa, joined the Air Force right after 9/11, and my husband and I were devastated,” she remembers. “We knew we were going to war and she was sent overseas. She was barely 5 feet tall and she was in war zones.”

Rangel started sending her daughter boxes of goodies every week — through five tours in Iraq.

Before long, her City Hall coworkers were leaving donations on her desk — candy bars, toiletries, paperback books — and soon she was mailing several boxes each week, which E3 MP Melissa Rangel would share with her colleagues.

At Christmas 2006, Rangel joined with two established programs, You Are Not Alone and One Soldier at a Time, and Project Holiday was born.

• 

... Let me know what I can do to get a few goodies for my soldiers. I know it would mean a lot to them.

Very Respectfully,

Christopher Colletta

P.S. I love Delray so much that I even named my tank “Delray” at one point. Check out the picture of it during a training exercise in California — you’ll see it written on the gun!

• 

For Christmas 2017, the 12th annual Project Holiday sent hundreds of packages to service members in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and Korea.

Everything, from the candy bars, toiletries and paperbacks to the postal costs and hours spent packing the boxes, was  donated.

The Delray Beach Property Owners Association contributed. Crane’s Beach House hosted a fundraiser.

“The community just opens their hearts and wallets,” Rangel said. “It’s a great event. So many are still in harm’s way, and so many families can’t afford to send a package.”

In 2006, the military postal rate for a single box was about $10. In 2017 it was $15.95. One year, Rangel remembered, the total postage cost hit $7,000.

“All I need is one name,” she explained. “The boxes are rejected if they’re just sent to an unnamed soldier.”

• 

I went to Gulf Stream School. I loved it. My best friends were almost all made there — about half of us went to the same high school, and then we always meet back up for holidays and for weekend trips in between. — Colletta in one of a series of email exchanges with The Coastal Star.

Project Holiday volunteers listen to a presentation as they gather at the Delray Beach Community Center to stuff holiday boxes for troops. World War II veteran Edward Storck (right) was acknowledged at the event. His granddaughter is deployed in Afghanistan. 

• 

At 11 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 3, more than a hundred men, women and children wait in the bleachers at the Norman C. Rolle Gym of the Delray Beach Community Center.

Edward Storck, a World War II veteran, is there from Lake Worth. His granddaughter Trisha is deployed in Afghanistan.

Johnny Castro with American Legion Post 367 has brought seven fellow legionnaires.

Out on the floor, three long tables hold large cardboard boxes brimming with stocking stuffers —edible, readable, spreadable and playable. The paper signs taped to the tables below each box identify its contents. This box has “socks.” That box is “sunscreen.”

We’ve got books, CDs and DVDs. Scarves and underpants. Lip balm and chewing gum, tuna fish and Slim Jims.

We’ve got granola bars, cookies, crackers and popcorn. Baby wipes, deodorant and playing cards. Even some yarmulkes.

And, of course, “miscellaneous.”

Meanwhile, in the room next door, a giant pile of 300 priority mail boxes waits.

• 

At 18 I left Delray to attend Vanderbilt, spending 4 years in Nashville. I also applied for and earned an Army Reserve Officer’s Training Corps scholarship, which paid for my schooling and began my service.

The same day I graduated, I also received my commission and my parents pinned on my rank insignia as a brand new Second Lieutenant.

Christopher Colletta’s parents, Kathy Schilling and Joseph Colletta. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

• 

“He’s a real character,” Capt. Colletta’s father will tell you. “He’s very inquisitive, into multiple things. He went to a summer music school at the University of Miami and plays guitar and got an undergraduate degree in history and Chinese culture at Vanderbilt. He speaks Mandarin.”

Christopher’s father, Dr. Joseph Colletta, is a breast surgeon at Boca Raton Regional Medical Center. His mother, Dr. Kathy Schilling, is a radiologist and the medical director of the women’s health and wellness center at the hospital. His older brother, Matthew, has just begun an MBA program at Northwestern University. The family has lived in Delray’s Seagate community since 1982.

“We’ve never considered moving anywhere else,” his father says.

As part of the ROTC program at Vanderbilt, Christopher spent a summer teaching English at an elementary school in China, then two more summers in Taiwan and Vietnam.

“The Gulf Stream School taught him very good principles and civility,” his father says. “He’s never given us any trouble. He’s the life of the party, an organizer. Oh, and he does charcoal drawings.

“Hopefully, he’ll be coming back [on furlough] in March.”  

• 

Apache Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry Regiment consists of around 75 soldiers and officers, the 14 M1A2 Abrams tanks we operate, and a small fleet of other tracked and wheeled vehicles used to haul supplies and provide critical maintenance and medic support.

The soldiers come from all walks of life, and from every corner of the country from New York, to Alabama, to America’s Pacific Islands. We are all stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, where we spent over a year training for this deployment.

• 

In the gym, Dave Smith, a retired Air Force colonel who has been Project Holiday’s volunteer facilitator since the beginning, welcomes the volunteers.

Rangel and the other organizers are introduced with expressions of gratitude. They all say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. The crowd stands to have its picture taken behind a banner that promises, “You Are Not Alone: Delray Beach Supporting Military Families.”

“Every box is a special box,” Smith reminds them, “so don’t try to make yours more special.”

And so they begin.

• 

Earlier in my career as a second lieutenant, I was a platoon leader in Dueler Company, Apache’s sister company. It is an unwritten rule that you name your tank something that starts with the same letter as your company, which was D at the time, so I named it Delray.

That tank stayed at Fort Hood when I went to Korea. It’s still there, though it likely has a new name.

I have yet to name my tank here … I think Atlantic Ave. wouldn’t be a bad idea!

Project Holiday volunteers Alicia Martinez, 16, and Isabella Balestriere, 15, pack one of the 241 boxes sent overseas. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

• 

Isabella Balestriere of Boca Raton is a Project Holiday veteran who has attended the annual packing sessions since they began. And she’s only 15.

“I brought her here when she was 3 or 4 years old,” says her mother, Cathy, the general manager at Crane’s Beach House. “It was all because of Delores Rangel and her story. It’s not just about packing boxes. It’s about bringing my daughter, bringing the families together.”

Isabella grabs an empty postal box and joins the line of volunteers moving along each table of donated items. She tosses in some scarves and ear plugs, some body powder, a toothbrush, AAA batteries and Doublemint gum, Clif bars and peanut butter crackers until the box is full.

• 

The executive officer is the second in command of the company and working behind the scenes to ensure all the logistical infrastructure is in place.

My lane is beans, bullets and turning wrenches. I oversee all the maintenance that we conduct. To put it in Florida terms, tanks are like boats — if you let them sit, they seem to fall apart.

• 

When the box is full, Isabella carries it to the final table, where Esther Rose waits, a roll of heavy-duty packaging tape in hand. She and her husband, Adrian, have been coming up from Boca Raton to volunteer since 2007.

“We have no family,” she explains, “but my father was in World War II. It was in England, but that’s OK. We were on the same side.”

After volunteering for 10 years, Rose has mastered the tape dispenser. A box appears before her and in three quick swipes — zap, zap, zap — it’s taped and moved along.

“I just like to help,” she says, zapping as she speaks. “What do the soldiers do for us?”

• 

Being just miles from the DMZ at Camp Casey, our duties daily involve carrying out training that we have developed to ensure that we are ready to “fight tonight” as the saying goes here.

If my commander identifies a skill set that he believes our soldiers need to practice, rifle marksmanship being a simple example, we put it on our calendar and do it.

• 

Capt. Colletta, 26, and his company are deployed near the border with North Korea, where the winters are very cold and the political climate increasingly hot.

North Korea is testing intercontinental ballistic missiles it claims can reach the United States.

President Donald Trump has threatened to respond with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

The North Korean foreign secretary says Trump is “begging for nuclear war.”

During a September speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Trump said he would “totally destroy North Korea.” 

• 

It’s not our job to provide our opinions, only to provide the best prepared soldiers possible so that when our political leaders say they have an Army at their disposal that is lethal and should not be provoked, they can say that with confidence.

• 

Isabella carries her taped box over to the stage, where Scott Petrolia, 15, of Delray Beach and Felipe Mora, 15, of Boca Raton, are waiting with scales and a black marking pen.

Scott weighs the box.

“Ten and a half,” he tells Felipe, who scribbles “10.5” on the side.

And then an address label goes on:

CPT. Christopher Colletta

A CO 1-9 CAV, Unit #15919

APO, AP 96224

• 

Our food service specialists are the real heroes on Christmas. They’ll be up extremely early to get to work — I’m talking 3 or 4 in the morning. I think this year we can expect some more turkey (we had some at Thanksgiving), and some ham.

Then, at lunch and dinnertime, we officers and senior noncommissioned officers will arrive in our blue dress uniforms and serve all the soldiers.

It’s been a tradition longer than anyone I work with can remember. I think all senior leaders value the opportunity to show the soldiers how much we appreciate their hard work.

• 

By 12:30, the packing is done and the volunteers wander out, or linger to chat and enjoy the complimentary coffee and pastry.

On the stage, 241 red, white and blue priority mail boxes form a neat stack about 5 feet tall.

One year not long after Project Holiday began, a small child was discovered drawing on one of the boxes. Now that’s a tradition. The kids too short to reach a table decorate the completed packages with holiday greetings.

“Merry Christmas” some wish in crayon, or “Happy Holidays.”

On one box, an especially ambitious artist has drawn a colorful rainbow, arching over the message “Your Awesome.” 

Children personalize Project Holiday boxes sent to troops. One is  marked with a rainbow and ‘Your Awesome!’

• 

This is my second rotation to Korea. I was here from June 2015 to February 2016. I missed the holidays that year, but was glad to be back home for Christmas 2016.

Hopefully this will be the last one I spend away for the foreseeable future.

The cold and snow over here isn’t kind to native Floridians.

• 

On Dec. 6, Delores Rangel mailed 49 of the Project Holiday boxes to Camp Casey, South Korea.

“I have not heard from Captain Colletta as it is still too soon for him to receive the boxes,” she reported Dec. 13. “If I were to guess, they should receive them by Monday, Dec. 18.” 

She guessed about right.

• 

For the past two days, I had been getting all kinds of phone calls to pick up my mail since it was clogging up the mail room. The clerks ended up having to do something about it themselves and delivered it to our door since there was no way I could transport it all myself …

We all had a formation outside our company headquarters after dinner chow, and that’s where I explained the rules of how we were going to get all the gifts evenly distributed. The snow was really coming down.

I had everyone go into the conference room by reverse rank order, with the lowest-ranking soldiers going first. They’re the ones who are most likely to have never spent a holiday away from family before, let alone across the Pacific Ocean. Besides that, they can afford the least when it comes to having gifts shipped overseas.

They picked a box, any box, and couldn’t peek. Eventually, every box had an owner. I told the guys that if there was something that they’d be willing to give up or trade, they could put it in the middle of the table and it would be a free for all after that.

And chaos ensued. Everything was over in probably 15 minutes, a loud 15 minutes of boxes opening, soldiers bartering, and all kinds of things flying across the room to their new owners.

You never know what you’re going to get in a box from someone you don’t know, but I think Project Holiday nailed it on the head in terms of providing some useful stuff. There wasn’t much left over when it was all said and done.

We have one Jewish soldier in our ranks, Private Cutler, and he’s built up quite a yarmulke collection — he specifically wanted to say thanks for that.

• 

The 12th annual Project Holiday sent 241 boxes of goodies to U.S. service members in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and, of course, South Korea.

“I’m so happy the community has put smiles on their faces and let them know they are not forgotten,” Delores Rangel said.

“It’s a lot of work putting Project Holiday together, and it’s a team effort, and they’ve done an amazing job of helping us thank our troops.

“Freedom is not free, and I thank God for them.”

Christopher Colletta wears an Army Stetson indicating his promotion to captain in a ceremony in November in South Korea. Photos provided

• 

I’ll be in the Army for about six more months, until May, which is when I plan on transitioning to civilian life.

I intend to earn a master’s degree in international affairs at a school in Europe, but those applications are still in progress.

Wish me luck! 

Capt. Christopher Colletta’s original tank at Fort Hood, Texas, bore the name ‘Delray’ in honor of his hometown.