By Ron Hayes
There’s a world of titles to choose from when deciding which children’s books to give this holiday season — and some of them were written close to home, by local neighbors.
Here’s a sampling set in Palm Beach County and written by Palm Beach County authors:
The Tree That Went SailingAuthor: Dennis Johnson, West Palm Beach
Illustrator: Sherrie Tengbergen
For ages: Kindergarten-age to 9 years
What’s it about?
A Palm Beach family looking for the perfect tree to grace its garden finds a green buttonwood on Ibis Isle in the Intracoastal Waterway and has it moved by crane and barge.
Where can I get it locally?
Main Street News, Classic Bookshop and Green’s Pharmacy, all in Palm Beach
Price: $21.99; coloring book version, $4.99
Author’s Web site: www.thetreethatwentsailing.com
Dead Fred, Flying Lunchboxes And The Good Luck CircleAuthor: Frank McKinney, Delray Beach
For ages: 9 and up
What’s it about?
Inspired by the author's walks to school with his daughter, this fantasy adventure features a 50-foot prehistoric Megalodon shark who lives under a drawbridge, a dead fish that talks and flying lunchboxes escorted by flying fish.
Where can I get it locally?
Barnes & Noble, Borders
Price: $18.95 retail.
Author’s Web site: www.dead-fred.com
The American Jungle: The Adventures of Charlie PierceAuthor: Harvey Oyer III, West Palm Beach
Illustrator: James Balkovek
For ages: 7 to 12
What’s it about?
Based on the actual diaries of Charlie Pierce, the author’s great granduncle, this fictionalized account dramatizes pioneer life in South Florida during the 1870s.
Where can I get it locally?
The Richard & Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum; Jupiter Lighthouse gift shop, Hand's bookstore, 325 E.Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach
Price: $19.95
Author’s Web site: www.theamericanjungle.com
Whispers From The BayAuthor: John Tkac, Delray Beach
For ages: Fifth-graders and up
What’s it about?
Winner of the 2008 Florida Book Award for young adult literature, Whispers From The Bay is the story of a young boy living on Key Biscayne in the 1950s who mysteriously learns how to telepathically talk to dolphins.
Where can I get it locally? Barnes & Noble (or online)
Price: $22.95 in stores, $13.77 online
Author’s Web site: www.whispersfromthebay.com
The Popup Story of Delray Beach: The All-American Village By The SeaAuthor: Roger Culbertson, Lake Worth
Illustrator: Al Margolis For ages: 5 and up
What’s it about?
A historically accurate account of the city and all it has to offer, with each popup page highlighting a different aspect, from Delray Beach history to arts and culture and parks and recreation. One hundred percent of the sale price supports Delray Beach public and private schools.
Where can I get it locally? Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce; Hand’s, 325 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach
Price: $25.00
Author’s Web site: www.delraypopupbook.comRead more…
Blame it on her genes, said Manalapan resident Bev Myers, whose artwork is featured at the town of South Palm Beach’s first art show of the season. It’s because of her father that she’s an artist.
“My father was a very creative individual. He was a belt and pocketbook designer in New York at the end of the Depression,” she said. “I was only 2 when he died.”
Her daughter is creative also, she said. “Jane is a licensed architect. She and my son-in-law, Michael Marques, a general contractor, designed the 2,000 square-foot addition over my loggia.”
Concerning her own creativity, Myers works in a variety of mediums. For inspiration, she studies her favorite artists — including Joanie Mitchell, Richard Diebenkorn, Frank Auberbach and Lucien Freud — and then uses that knowledge as a fertile ground to grow her own style.
“I like painting landscapes and portraits with energy. I don’t like still-life — that’s boring,” she said.
Her garden is another source of inspiration. “I look at the garden like a painting. I see how colors, sizes, shapes and textures relate to each other.”
This Jan. 10, she plans to open her beautiful garden for a Daubach Foundation charity tour that will benefit Florida Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients. Myers is a docent at the Norton Museum of Fine Art, and she especially enjoys sharing her love of art with children.
She also plays a little golf, and yes, there is an artistic connection. “In golf, you have to trust the swing. In art, it’s the same,” she said. “You have to trust that the body and arm will coordinate and something will come out. With both golf and painting, you have to let go with the stroke.”
— Christine Davis10 QuestionsQ: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I grew up in Newton, Mass. (a suburb of Boston), went to the Newton Schools and then to Wheaton College in Norton, Mass. I was married in my junior year and finished at Boston University with a degree in fine arts. Boston is a cosmopolitan city with great museums and lots of culture.
Q: Tell us about your art.
A: My art is expressionistic. I dream with my eyes open. People tell me that they like my style because it is loose. I use my whole arm for my energy as I have essential tremor in my hands and am not great with details, although I can do it when I have to.
Q: What other careers have you had, and what were the highlights?
A: In 1964, my husband opened an executive recruiting firm and I went in to help him get started, and then I stayed in it for 22 years even though my heart was always in art.
Q: How did you choose to make your home in Manalapan?
A: We bought the house in Manalapan due to an error by the real estate broker. He called the wrong Myers! My husband had just sold his company and we were looking for a larger house, so I went with this broker anyway just to see this house. We loved it, bought it, and this ‘lucky’ broker did well also.
Q: What is your favorite part about living in Manalapan?
A: We enjoy small-town living, which Manalapan affords us. It has approximately 500 residents, lovely people, including our town employees and police (as evidenced by my last speeding ticket).
Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I just finished an excellent historical novel by my dermatologist in Boston, Vivian Loh. It’s about the capture of Singapore by the Japanese in World War II. It’s called Breaking the Tongue and is about the coming of age of a Chinese boy who revered the British and redefined his culture and himself.
Q: What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
A: I like to listen to classical music when I paint. However, because of my grandson, I’m getting to like rock also.
Q: Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A: “Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird?” — Pablo Picasso
Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: My idol is my husband. I’m the balloon and he is the string.
Q: If your life story were made into a movie, whom would you want to play you?
A: I think Katharine Hepburn would have been great. She was an individualist who did her own thing and was her own person. She also had a tremor (in her voice) and accomplished so much.
For information on the Daubach Foundation charity garden tour, please call 407-733-3741.Read more…
By Ron Hayes
O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum!
We miss you, Tabloid Tannenbaum!
Has it really been 20 years since all those lights went dark for the last time on The World’s Tallest Christmas Tree?
Those 16,000 twinkling lights?
Or was it 20,000 lights?
Or 36,000?
Quibble about the lights if you want.
No one doubts that for 17 years, Generoso Pope Jr., owner of The National Enquirer, gave Lantana the world’s tallest tannenbaum.
Why, thousands came each year to marvel at it!
Or were there millions?
What began in 1972 as a modest tree outside the newspaper’s headquarters at 600 S. East Coast Ave., peaked in 1985 at 126 feet, a towering Douglas fir topped by a 6-foot silver star, set amid a glittering Christmas village filled with toy trains and reindeer, parachuting elves and a baby Jesus.
And then, on Aug. 29, 1989, the tabloid’s new owners made the sad but unsurprising announcement. The National Enquirer Christmas tree would rise above the railroad tracks no more. When Generoso Pope died on Oct. 2, 1988, the world’s tallest Christmas tree died with him.
“We contacted all the big local companies and offered to pay 50 percent,” remembers Iain Calder, the Enquirer’s former chairman and CEO. “But we didn't get one response.”
The only thing more dazzling than the tree itself was the story behind it.
In 1971, Pope had moved the Enquirer’s office and staff from New York City — home of that pitiful little shrub, the Rockefeller Center tree — to Lantana. And Pope missed Christmas.
“Even Generoso Pope couldn’t bring snowstorms to South Florida,” Calder explained.
So he put up a little 60-foot tree on the Enquirer grounds, to give himself and his fellow transplants a touch of Christmas just like the ones they used to know.
Or was it 86 feet?
“All I know is, it was two feet shorter than the Rockefeller Center tree,” says Malcolm Balfour, a former reporter at the paper.
Pope was upset until Balfour, thinking quickly, added: “But the Rockefeller Center tree is on a platform.”
And Pope was assuaged.
According to Balfour, Pope then ordered him to get Bing Crosby down to Lantana, to sing White Christmas at the lighting ceremony.
Crosby was already booked, and Perry Como was in Ireland, filming a television special.
They settled on the West Point Glee Club, all 40 members, flown to Florida and put up at Pope’s expense.
The next year, he brought Burl Ives.
Balfour says he’s the man Pope sent to buy lawn decorations.
“How much did you spend?” he asked when the reporter returned with toy trains, elves, a baby Jesus, etc.
“ ‘It was $46,000, Mr. Pope’ … He didn’t even blink an eye.”
Other Enquirer insiders smile and say, “Yes, well, Malcolm tells a great story.” But on one point, they all agree: The world’s tallest Christmas tree was also the world’s most expensive.
Pope spent about $1 million each year on the whole display.
Two trees were chosen in Oregon, the branches numbered, sawed off, then brought by flatbed railcar to Lantana.
Pope persuaded the FEC railroad to stop by his office so the tree could be unloaded — and slow down to keep from blowing the bulbs off once it was up.
Next, a dozen bikers were hired to bolt the branches back on. If the branches didn’t form a perfect cone, they were rearranged, or more added.
“They put on more branches than God had in the first place,” Calder boasts.
Kevin Long and his mother, Dorice, came up from Pompano Beach to spray the surrounding trees green, deck them with lights and set up the animated displays.
“I’ve got memories of being there from early in the morning until late at night,” recalls Long, who is today the president of Christmas Designers Inc. “There must have been 300,000 or more mini light bulbs.”
But the biggest expense was not the tree, or the lights, or the reindeer. It was security.
“I remember Generoso Pope telling me once that we had more cops on duty at the tree each evening than West Palm Beach had to cover the whole city,” Calder says.
Each night, Pope would choose a small child in the crowd to push the button and light the tree.
The child would push the button while Pope, off to the side with a walkie-talkie, whispered, “Now” — and a grown-up flipped the real switch.
And for the next eight weeks, the crowds came, and came, and came.
Everyone gasped, everyone marveled, everyone was filled with delight.
Well, almost everyone.
“We had a big glass window in the office, and it was distracting, trying to work when you had 100,000 people in your garden,” remembers Balfour.
A hundred thousand people! Really?
“Oh, did I say a hundred thousand? I meant to say ten thousand.
“Tabloid!” he chuckled. “Tabloid!”
Read more…
Photos from Bill Dunn's memorial
By Ron Hayes
Bill Dunn must have had six or seven different addresses during his 25 years in the county pocket. But mostly he lived on the beach.
He slept at home, but he lived on the beach. And when he died, family and friends brought him back to the beach, to say goodbye the way people in this tiny, unincorporated, unpretentious patch of old South Florida do.
More laughter than tears. More stories than sobs.
“Please, don’t wear black,” his brother, Greg, said. “Wear shorts, wear flip-flops. Be casual, because that’s the way he was.”
At 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14, they gathered at Don Brown’s house on Streamaire Lane — in shorts and flip-flops, Hawaiian shirts and tie-dyed tees — and ambled down toward the ocean.
Some carried beers, some skateboards, some babies.
A bagpiper’s mournful rendition of Going Home ushered them down the dunes and onto the sand, but the mood was strikingly upbeat for the memorial service of someone who has died so suddenly, and so young.
On Friday evening, Nov. 6, Dunn grilled a steak at his home on Surf Road, popped a beer, carried his meal across the street to eat with friends — and choked to death. He was 48.
“He just swallowed a piece of meat that got lodged way down and there was nothing anyone could do,” his brother said. “The official cause was aspiration by food. They didn’t even do an autopsy.”
A hundred and twenty programs for A Celebration of the Life of Bill Dunn had been printed, but that wasn’t nearly enough. When the final notes of America the Beautiful faded under the rising tide, about 250 men, women and children stood in the sand before a makeshift altar.
On a table set against the dunes was Dunn’s little Laughing Buddha statue, his conch shell, and coconuts like those he planted throughout the neighborhood. And, of course, the hardwood pineapples.
For years, Dunn had jig-sawed driftwood into pineapple shapes, cross-hatched them, painted them and given them away to friends and neighbors.
A pineapple by the door is an ancient symbol of welcome, after all, and Dunn was always welcoming.
“Hi, I’m Bill Dunn,” he would say with a smile and an outstretched hand. “Surfer, diver, photographer. Damn glad to meet you!”
Sometimes he even said it to little kids.
Now, as the sun slid behind the seagrape trees, friends and family stood by the altar and talked about “Pineapple Man,” or “Tropical Man,” or “Billy Coconut.”
If you knew him, you marveled that one man could fill such a short life with so many varied interests. If you didn’t know him, you wished you had.
Generous and affable
William Charles Dunn was born on Christmas Eve 1960 in Indianapolis, Ind.
His family moved to Boca Raton when he was 13, and he attended St. Andrew’s School, where he and Gene Fortugno first met.
“He chose his lifestyle, and it wasn’t about money,” Fortugno said. “It was about taking a walk at sunset, or taking the right picture, or barbecuing with his friends. And yet he read history and literature. He liked to talk about politics. He was a simple man, but he wasn’t simple.”
After graduating from the University of Florida with a degree in fine arts, Dunn moved to the pocket in 1984, and never really left.
“He’ll always be here,” his brother told the crowd, “because when was he ever not here?”
Through the years Dunn made a living shooting society photographs for Davidoff Studios in Palm Beach, or doing construction work, but mostly he worked at making friends.
“He always showed up on our doorstep with a bottle of champagne on New Year’s Eve,” remembers Barbara Bennett, wife of Briny Breezes mayor Roger Bennett, “and at Christmas his gift was always a special calendar.”
He surfed, he kayaked, he taught children how to swim.
He planted herb gardens in neighbors’ yards, invited them by for bratwurst and opened the door with a cold Michelob in hand.
“He helped me redo my roof after Hurricane Wilma,” said Boyd Boggess, a friend of 20 years. “He was the most generous and affable man I think I’ve ever met.”
Now only the stories
Finally, as the setting sun tinged the white breakers with gold, his mother watched from a golf cart on the beach as Greg Dunn and Gene Fortugno waded into the surf. His brother carried Dunn's ashes in a soluble urn; his oldest friend, a wreath.
The piper played Amazing Grace as Greg gave the urn to the waves his brother had watched each morning for most of his life.
Then Fortugno added the wreath.
The conch shell was blown, and 250 friends and relatives stood in silence for a moment, until a large wave rolled in and suddenly someone let out a rowdy, rock concert scream — “Bill Dunn!” — and the whole crowd broke into cheers and applause.
“We all had our Bill Dunn stories,” his friend, Jeff Johnson, said, “and we’ll always have our Bill Dunn stories. But the sad thing is, we won’t have any more Bill Dunn stories.”
And so, if you want to see Bill Dunn’s monument, stroll around his neighborhood and count, if you can, all the houses with a hardwood pineapple by the door.
According to tradition, they are saying, “Welcome.”
But here in the county pocket, they say, “Damn glad to meet you!”
In addition to his mother, Gail, and brother, Greg, Mr. Dunn is survived by his nephew, Gregory Dunn Jr.; four nieces, Alisha Dunn, Kyla Moore, Chelsea Moore and Cassidy Moore; and his beloved cat, Karma.
The family asks that donations be made in his name to www.surfriderpbc.org, an organization working to protect the beaches, wildlife and ocean.
Read more…
By Emily J. Minor
BRINY BREEZES — Ruth Littlefield, a longtime Briny Breezes resident who moved here in the 1950s and nurtured a reputation for her generosity, artistic talent and getting herself in and out of mostly hilarious jams, has died at age 95.
“She was feisty,” said Edith Behm, a family friend who spent a lot of her growing years with the Littlefield family. “Sometimes she would open her mouth and she’d just stick her foot in somebody else’s.”
A woman who loved a good piece of gossip and a cocktail, Mrs. Littlefield moved here with her husband, Frederick, in 1955. She was a beautician; he worked for a builder. The couple spent about half their time in Florida, and the other half of the year at their beloved spot on Cape Cod. There, Mrs. Littlefield ran a beauty parlor and for a long while did the hair of President Kennedy’s sister, Rosemary, until a fancier salon opened on the island, said her son, Dana Littlefield.
Dana Littlefield remembers his childhood as wholesome and fun. And with his mother, it was always an adventure, he said. The Littlefields had two other sons, Nelson and Lee, who also survive their mother. Mrs. Littlefield died on Oct. 25 of this year. Dana Littlefiled said his father also died on Oct. 25 — in 1985. And Mrs. Littlefield’s second husband, Robert Dumas, died on Oct. 25, 1995.
Ruth Littlefield attended high school on Cape Cod and did not take kindly to gender limitations put on her by society, her son said.
She opened a weight-loss salon, worked with oils and acrylics on canvas and also did wood carvings with leaded glass. In Florida, she was president of the Briny Breezes Hobby Club, and a member of the Art League and the Red Hat Society.
Dana Littlefield said his mother’s ashes will be taken to Cape Cod this spring and buried in the family plot. The remains of Frederick, her husband of 50 years, are buried there as well — in one of his well-used tackle boxes.
Read more…
BRINY BREEZES — Frederick “Pete” Schoeni, a resident of Beloit, Ohio, and Briny Breezes passed away on Nov. 11 in Ohio. He was 85 years old.
“His motto in life was, whatever you do, you have a responsibility to do your best,” said his daughter Bonnie Pinkerton.
Mr. Schoeni was a lifelong farmer in Ohio, raising cattle, chickens and potatoes. During the farming off-season, he and Violet, his wife of 65 years, spent their time traveling in Florida in their motor home, stopping every season in Delray Beach where each of their parents had retired. In 1986, Mr. Schoeni and his wife bought a place in Briny Breezes. He was actively involved in the Square Dance Club, which his wife’s parents founded, and enjoyed swimming and golfing.
“He and my mother were wonderful dancers,” said Ms. Pinkerton. “He was always whistling and singing. He was a very happy person.”
Said John Legrow, a fellow square dancer and swimmer, “He often talked in swim classes about how much he enjoyed working on the farm.”
“He was a grand gentleman,” said another square dancer, Kay Hall. Mr. Schoeni was a paratrooper in the Army during WWII, but was never sent overseas. “He played on the Army baseball team, and before he was sent over he got pulled out because they needed a catcher for some sort of base playoff game. As soon as the games were over, so was the war,” said Ms. Pinkerton. “He was a huge sports fan, particularly baseball and Ohio State football.”
He held memberships in the West Branch Future Farmers of America, the Columbiana County 4-H Club, the Sebring Masonic Lodge No. 626, and Bethel United Church of Christ in Ohio.
He is survived by his wife Violet (Myers) Schoeni; daughters Barbara (Gary) Peters of Alliance, Bonnie Pinkerton of Alliance, Patty (Bob) Brogan of Beloit, JoAnne (Bill) Meier of Beloit; eight grandchildren, Curt (Melissa) Brogan of Canal Winchester, Ohio, Jeff Brogan of Beloit, Brad (Marci) Brogan of Nashville , Tenn., Angela (Brad) Martin of Wichita, Kansas, Matthew Meier of Beloit, Michelle (Eric) Gibbons of Alliance, Trisha (Aaron) Dillon of Alliance, Dr. Christopher (Jennifer) Peters of Perrysburgh, Ohio and six great-grandchildren. He is also survived by two brothers, Dale Schoeni of Beloit and Kenny Schoeni of Bowling Green, Ohio.
Memorial contributions can be made the West Branch Alumni Association 14277 Main St., Beloit, Ohio 44609 or Alzheimer’s Assistance and Referral Network, P.O. Box 3383, Youngstown, OH 44513. Friends may send condolences and sign the guest register online at www.grfuneralhome.com.Read more…
Matilda Miller Young with her husband, Willard, near the Seagate Condominium in 1970.
By Mary Katherine Stump
DELRAY BEACH — Matilda Miller Young, a resident of Delray Beach, passed away on Oct. 19 at the age of 103.
“She was determined to live ’til 100,” said her son-in-law, Oswald “Os” Peters.
Mrs. Young was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., and later lived in Detroit, Philadelphia and Boston before her move to South Florida in 1965 with her husband of 60 years, Willard “Bill” V. Young. Mr. Young served as the mayor of Delray Beach from 1982 to 1984. He passed away in 1987.
“They were an extremely interesting couple,” said Mr. Peters. “He was a grand raconteur and she was a great hostess during his time as mayor. A very appropriate first lady. She never earned 10 cents a day in her life! She was a kept woman.”
With her husband, Mrs. Young travelled the globe extensively, having visited 63 countries and all 50 states. “They were curious. He took his 16 mm camera with him and she took her 34 mm,” said Mr. Peters. The two kept a diary to remember the details of their trips—the names of the lakes and the mountains. Once they returned they would put on slideshows to help raise money for charitable organizations in the area. “She photographed people,” said Mr. Peters. “Willard took the wildlife and scenic shots, and she took the pictures of the people. They had a character, a personality that she was attracted to about a place. She liked people, and by virtue of her involvement in her many different clubs, she was incredibly outgoing.”
Ms. Young was involved in the Delray Beach Garden Club and the Republican Women’s Club. She was also a member of Daughters of the American Revolution and the Huguenot Society. She was an avid golfer and bridge player and a skilled needlewoman.
She is survived by four grandchildren; five great grandchildren; and son in law, C. Oswald Peters of Palm Beach Gardens. She was preceded in death by her daughters, Audrey Y. Dunlop and Marjorie Y. Peters.
Private family services will be held in the Garth at Church of the Palms Congregational Church, Delray Beach.
Read more…
By Emily J. Minor
GULF STREAM — Mary Howard Hudgins, a longtime Gulf Stream resident who, in her younger years, competed in many sports long before that was considered mainstream for women, has died. She was 91.
For many years, Mrs. Hudgins and her husband, Edward, spent winters in Delray Beach and were longtime members of the Gulf Stream Bath & Tennis Club and the Gulf Stream Golf Club.
When Edward Hudgins died in 2005, they had been married 60 years.
Their son, Dr. Wren Hudgins, said his mother’s lifelong athleticism stemmed from the healthy competition of growing up with three brothers and a sister. In her early years, she moved from hockey to gymnastics to basketball to tennis to skiing, eventually also taking up golf.
She attended Kent Place School and Smith College.
Mrs. Hudgins met her future husband when he was on military leave and she was teaching snow skiing in Vermont. They married in 1945 and she began working for the War Department. But she continued to teach skiing during the winters in Vermont and was a master of the slopes in the days before mechanized chair lifts.
The Hudginses moved to Richmond, Va., after the war and she found herself without good snow skiing. That’s when she picked up the golf clubs. In 1948, she won the ladies title for the state of Virginia, her son said.
After the birth of their children, Mrs. Hudgins focused more on homemaking and her hobbies, but was always involved in the Red Cross and the Junior League, among other service organizations. Through her life, she gained a lovely reputation for her friendly and giving nature.
Mrs. Hudgins is survived by her two sons and their families. Dr. Hudgins lives in Seattle; his brother, Frank Howard Hudgins, lives with his family in Arlington, Va.
In January, the family will have a memorial service for Mrs. Hudgins in Richmond, Va.
Read more…
Nearly 100 people gathered for the Interfaith Friendship Festival at Abbey Delray North. Photo by Waymon Dixon.
By C.B. Hanif
That hint to humanity in the annual convergence of winter holidays? It keeps getting louder and louder. This year is no exception. With Thanksgiving and Christmas, Hanukah and the Hajj, Kwanzaa, New Years, Three Kings Day and others in such proximity, conditions are great for all kinds of good.
The Delray Beach Interfaith Clergy Association set the tone Nov. 8 with the First Interfaith Friendship Festival in which I was fortunate to take part. It united nearly 100 folks from Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist, Baha’i and other traditions to share dialogue and a dinner that Abbey Delray North deserves a bow for hosting.
That followed Yom Kippur in September, and Eid al-Fitr marking the end of Ramadan. Oct. 17 began India’s largest and best-known holiday, Diwali, the “festival of inner light” observed by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. Baha’is celebrated the birth of founder Baha’u’llah Nov. 11 and 12.
Since then, the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding wrapped up its second annual weekend of “Twinning” of mosques and synagogues across North America and Europe, Nov. 13-15, with 100 of each reporting improved communication, reconciliation and cooperation, including some in South Florida. Meanwhile, the success of the Hajj to the holy city Mecca, an obligation for every able Muslim at least once in life, was celebrated with Eid al-Adha on Nov. 27. That means the climax of the Hajj — the day of prayer to the Almighty by several million pilgrims in the barren desert outside Mecca — actually coincided with Thanksgiving Day.
Another item in the winter-convergence roll call is the gathering in churches in many African-American and other communities for services on New Year’s Eve. It’s a tradition at which I balked as a sleepy-eyed youth. As I look forward to participating in that and a multitude of other local celebrations now, my only burden is having enough time and deciding which congregation with which to share it.
Speaking of tradition, our media organizations have done a poor job of educating their publics about “the other.” They continue missing the stories of people who, increasingly, are getting together for learning and sharing, while respecting each others’ different spiritual and/or philosophical beliefs.
Yes, “if it bleeds,” it still leads. But the unmistakable trend, again this season, is spiritual communities and individuals of faith — or no particular faith — fulfilling their mission as engines for transmuting destructive trends, setting higher examples and seeking common ground.
C.B. Hanif is a writer, editor and media and inter-religious affairs consultant. He visits or speaks at synagogues, churches and mosques, seeking folks who are making the Golden Rule real, not just an ideal. On the Web at www.interfaith21.com.Read more…
Caption info: Nora the cat photo courtesy of Burnell Yow!
By Arden Moore
As a reporter covering Palm Beach County for the Sun-Sentinel years ago, I quickly learned to expect the unexpected. I reported on lottery winners who died penniless and hospice patients who delivered messages of hope for the living. I also discovered surprising skills in headline-makers — like a former university president who was a whiz at fixing up vintage trucks.
So, why am I “me-wowed” by a cat who plays the piano? On a recent trip to New York City, I attended the annual ASPCA ceremony that honored top people and pets in 2009. Cat of the Year honors went to a former shelter cat named Nora, who is drawn to the piano keyboard like most cats are to organic catnip.
Five years ago, when Betsy Alexander and Burnell Yow spotted this cute gray tabby at an animal shelter, they were startled by the one-word declaration posted on the kitten’s cage.
“Most of the info about adoptable cats says things like, ‘Good with other cats,’ or ‘likes to cuddle,’ but Nora’s chart had only one word: ‘Bossy,’” says Alexander, a music teacher from Philadelphia. “Apparently, Nora would attack her other siblings when placed in the same cage. Even today with our other five adult cats, she prefers to keep to herself or hang around us.”
Or play the piano. Today, Nora answers to a new nickname: Piano Cat. Her keyboard pawing of chords has turned her into a YouTube sensation as more than 17 million people — and counting — have clicked on her various online postings to see and hear her musical talents. Her live appearances on such shows as NBC’s The Today Show proved her music-playing abilities are real.
Her rescue-to-celebrity story has been captured in books and on CDs and dozens of television appearances. Why, Billy Joel sent her a package containing his latest CD, a letter declaring he was a fan and a signed photo of himself at the keyboard with the words, “To the Piano Cat from the Piano Man.”
“When we adopted Nora, we knew she was feisty, but we had no idea she loved to play music,” says Alexander. “It makes you wonder how many shelter cats and dogs are out there who never get the chance to express themselves, to showcase their special talents.”
Good point. When I rescued Cleo, my 12-pound poodle-terrier mix, from the streets, she did a lot of cowering and shaking. I made it my mission to make her feel safe. I slowly built up her confidence, doling out praise and treats for mastering simple doggy commands like sit, stay and leave it. Once our bond was solidified, we enrolled in a dog-people workout class together called Leash Your Fitness. Little Cleo leaps over hurdles, pops into a sit on cue and joins me in yoga stretches; her favorite is, naturally, downward facing dog.
But Cleo truly wowed me recently during a surfing lesson. Turns out, Cleo is a natural at catching waves. Wearing a yellow safety vest and under the supervision of a surf instructor, Cleo spilled off the board a few times, but managed to ride three waves all the way to shore by standing confidently on all four paws. Hang 20, Cleo!
See more photos from the Eastern Surfing Association championship
By Tim O’Meilia
North Atlantic Drive has earned a new name. Call it Pipeline Point or Cutback Court or, simply, Surfers Street. But never Wipeout Way.
The northern end of Hypoluxo Island juts into the Lake Worth Lagoon like one of those giant, foam “We’re #1” fingers. For good reason. Three of the best young surfers on the Eastern U.S. seaboard live within a long paddle of each other on North Atlantic Drive.
“It’s pretty crazy,” said Christian Miller, 16, who finished second in the Junior Men’s division at the Eastern Surfing Association championships at Cape Hatteras, N.C., last month. The 42nd annual event attracted 500 of the East Coast’s best surfers.
“It’s just a lot of talent,” said 15-year-old Patrick Nichols without a trace of bravado. Facts are facts. Nichols won his longboard (9-foot surfboard) division.
“It’s kind of weird,” said Luke Marks, who finished second in the Menehune final (that’s the 11-and-under group for you Barneys). He turned 11 during the event.
Of 18 Palm Beach County surfers in the competition, only the Hypoluxo trio made the finals. Nichols and Marks were chosen for the ESA All-Star team, which will compete around the country in the next year. Miller has been on the all-stars for four years and decided against a fifth.
All three found wave riding the same way: Surfing runs in their families. Christian’s dad is Jim Miller, a well-known surfing name on the East Coast and still a competitive surfer. But young Miller didn’t take it up until he was about 9, after dabbling in baseball.
Nichols picked it up when he visited his New York uncles for the summer when he was 7. Marks was 5 when he and his dad, Darren, sampled the waves together.
“I loved it,” said Marks. “Having fun out in the water. Doing tricks. It’s just fun.” He is, he says, a better surfer than his father.
Miller and Nichols are good friends, hanging out at one another’s houses. Until this year, Marks tagged along. Although they still own their house on North Atlantic Drive, the family of seven moved to Melbourne Beach recently.
The trio have amassed chestfuls of medals and closets full of trophies traveling to Puerto Rico, Peru, Nicaragua, California, Hawaii and every surfing beach up the East Coast. All three have an array of surfboard, clothing, sandal and equipment sponsors to help pay their way to contests.
“I love the adrenaline you get from surfing,” Nichols said, “the feeling you get from nose riding — riding the waves.”
When they aren’t competing, they often surf where they started at Lantana and Lake Worth beaches. The younger boys have dreams of making a career of wave-riding.
Miller is taking a step back from competition. “Since I did so well (at Cape Hatteras), it’s kind of a farewell for me. I’m taking a new path in my life.
I want to get more serious with the Lord and with my girlfriend,” he said. But he’s not leaving surfing for fun. “I like how surfing can get your mind off all the stress in the world,” he said. “How relaxing it is.”
(For more information about the local ESA chapter, visit pbc.surfesa.org)Read more…
By Ron Hayes
Nostalgia’s funny that way.
You start out reminiscing about someplace specific. A seafood restaurant, maybe, and the she-crab soup you loved there.
The drinks at the bar while you waited for a table.
The show tunes you sang around the piano after a few of those drinks.
And the next thing you know, it’s not just the old Busch’s Seafood Restaurant you miss, but a whole other time and place. Back when you could still call mahi-mahi “dolphin” and not get picketed by PETA. Back when Old Florida wasn’t so crowded, and you weren’t so old.
For more than half a century, Busch’s was the only restaurant along A1A between Palm Beach and Delray Beach. A third of a mile north of Woolbright Road on the east, the white sign with the big red lobster in the black top hat was a landmark. You couldn’t actually see the ocean from the dining room at 5585 N. Ocean Blvd., but you could smell it, and you could taste it.
Stone crabs for $8.50. She-crab soup, $3 a bowl.
Busch’s served seafood, they mixed drinks, they sang songs — they made memories.
The seafood, drinks and songs are gone now. But, oh, the memories!
“It was sort of like the restaurant version of Cheers,” remembers Ava Van de Water, a Palm Beach native who discovered Busch’s in the early 1970s. “You hoped you wouldn’t get your table right away, because you wanted to wait at the bar and listen to the piano music and chat with Liam and Jerry, the bartenders. The veal Oscar was fabulous. I remember my sister ruined that for me when she told me what veal was made from.”
But while Busch’s had veal Oscar, fine wines and piano music inside, the exterior was far more humble.
“We were just an old wooden building,” Lucy Bergman says. “I called it a saloon.”
In 1952, a New Jersey family bought the former roadhouse and named it for the Sea Isle City hotel and restaurant founded in 1882 by their grandfather. George Busch was never as famous as his brother Augustus, who went into the beer business with a man named Anheuser, but he knew seafood.
The Busches owned Busch’s until 1960, when Bergman bought it.
“I had no desire to be in the restaurant business,” she’ll tell you now. “I was 26. My parents had left me a little money, and my husband at the time talked me into buying it.”
From roadhouse to celebrity hangout
For the next 16 years — except for a couple of months when Busch’s became The Brown Jug, and failed miserably —Bergman owned Busch’s. And Busch’s owned Bergman.
“I never got any sleep in those days,” she recalls. “When I started, there were some very tough years, then the word spread.”
The lobsters were flown in live from Maine in lots of 30, twice a week. The Icelandic lobster tails came twice a year, 1,500 pounds at a time. The Key lime pie began closer to home — from lime trees in Bergman’s backyard. First the locals came. Then the snowbirds went home and told their northern neighbors. Eventually, the celebrities arrived.
Benny Goodman was the Pompano Almondine Salad with blue cheese dressing and two Cutty Sarks. Joan Rivers was a combo platter.
Kate Smith, the big woman with the bigger voice, was such a regular that Bergman and she became friends.
“She was a wild driver,” Bergman recalls. “And she always parked in No Parking zones. She’d make me wait and she said, ‘If a policeman comes, tell him it’s Kate Smith’s car and he won’t give you a ticket.’ ”
Bergman, on the other hand, says she had no special relationship with the law.
“I never gave them free food out the back door, but they’d drive the drunks home. And late at night they’d drive me to the bank with the deposits.”
Suddenly, she laughs.
“I was attacked once by a woman in a wheelchair who came at me swinging her cane. She’d found one of our matchbooks in her husband’s jacket and thought he was having an affair with me.”
She shakes her head. “Well, he was having an affair. But it wasn’t with me.”
New owner adds that touch of Greek
And then, in March 1976, Bergman sold Busch’s to Bill Lambrakis, whose restaurant experience until then had consisted of owning a Burger Chef and a Dunkin’ Donuts up home in Asbury Park.
“I’d seen hamburgers coming across the counter, but I wanted to see lobster tails,” he says.
Lambrakis added a touch of his Greek heritage to the menu — more sauteed dishes, more pasta, a Greek fisherman’s platter.
“The entire time I went there, they always had the same special, Grouper Agliolio,” remembers Valerie Koz, whose wedding rehearsal dinner was held at Busch’s in 1987. “Every time you went there, that was the special.” She laughs. “We thought it must be the world’s biggest grouper.”
Lambrakis relaxed the jacket-and-tie rule, but kept “no shorts.” No exceptions.
When baseball legends Dom DiMaggio and Ted Williams arrived in shorts, he turned them away. DiMaggio was gracious, he recalls; Williams was insulted. But they went home and changed.
And the celebrities kept coming, among them Connie Francis, whose manager called ahead to say the singer didn’t want to attract attention.
“She showed up in a bright red cocktail dress with a big red hat,” Lambrakis laughs. “Didn’t want any attention.”
As he reminisces, the stories tumble out, one after the other.
The lady drunk hugging the commode.
The choking victim, flat on her back in the middle of the dining room, waiting for paramedics while the pianist played Isn't She Lovely.
The two old men fighting at the bar. “The hearing aid flew this way, and the dentures were going that way.”
Eventually time ran out
In the early days, Lambrakis says, you could set your clock by the clientele. The old folks who wanted fried food came early; the lobster lovers waited until seven-thirty or eight.
And then the clock ran down.
In 1976, the same year Lambrakis bought Busch’s, the Ocean Ridge Town Commission re-instituted a 1969 ban on commercial property and set a deadline of 1996. Lambrakis sued, but the ban was upheld in 1981. He could have stayed four more years, but on May 9, 1992, Busch’s served its last lobster.
Drive by 5585 N. Ocean Blvd. today and you’ll find the Portofino condominiums.
“The restaurant business is a tough business,” Lambrakis says, “but those were the most pleasant years of my life, because I’d got what I always wanted, my own restaurant.”
Both Lucy Bergman and Bill Lambrakis had owned Busch’s for 16 years.
Bergman moved to Lake Tahoe, Calif., for five years, then returned and became a receptionist for U.S. Trust Co. in Palm Beach. She retired in 2002 and lives in Boynton Beach.
Lambrakis toyed with the idea of reopening Busch’s in a former bank building on Federal Highway in Boynton Beach, or perhaps at Congress Avenue and Woolbright Road, but neither plan took root.
He’s retired now, too, and lives, like Bergman, in Boynton Beach, with Chris, his wife of 51 years.
He sold the rights to the restaurant’s name to businessman Ron Branscombe, who opened a new Busch’s in Jupiter and another beside the Intracoastal Waterway in Delray Beach. Those are now closed as well.
Alive now only in memories
But for old-timers, Busch’s had to be in Ocean Ridge to be the real Busch’s. That’s the Busch’s Seafood Restaurant they talk about when they talk about Busch’s, and that’s the one they miss.
Barbara Gellner was a young teenager when she moved to Delray Beach in 1966 and first ate at Busch’s. The food was a little pricey for the time, she seems to recall, and everyone dressed up to go there. The hostesses wore evening gowns.
Or at least that’s how she remembers it now.
“Oh, I know everything changes,” she sighs, “but how many Starbucks does Delray Beach need? I miss the days of being able to walk downtown and know every shop owner.
“I wish Old Florida would come back.”
Read more…
All the Busch’s regulars knew Jerry and Liam, the bartenders, and no one seemed to know their last names.
“Jerry Mangles and Liam Wood,” says Bill Lambrakis. “They could remember the drinks when people left for the season, and the first time they came back, that drink would be on the bar, and on the house.”
Jerry Mangles came to Busch’s from Taboo, the Palm Beach restaurant. Liam was a friend of Jerry’s.
When Busch’s closed in 1992, both men moved on to the Fifth Avenue Grill in Delray Beach, reports Lambrakis.
“Jerry married a nurse from the Boca Raton hospital. He’s had some health problems, but he’s alive and kicking.”
Liam Wood eventually settled in North Carolina, where he went into the mortgage business.
“I talked to him recently,” says Lambrakis. “He’s doing well. Got two kids and a nice wife, and I believe he still bar-tends on the side.”
— by Ron Hayes
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Last November, my husband and I bucked the trend of Web-based news delivery and published the inaugural edition of The Coastal Star. We delivered 6,000 copies of our hyper-local, free-distribution newspaper to homes and businesses along the coast. Since then our circulation has grown to 7,500 and this November we are proud to publish a Coastal Star with 32 pages plus a 32-page Palm Beach ArtsPaper insert. Between the two publications, we are delighted to have advertising support from over 90 local businesses.
We've also expanded the number of communities we report on and continue to offer freelance opportunities to some of the best newspaper journalists and advertising sales and design people in South Florida. We are proud to be working with these talented individuals and thank them for their hard work — at start-up-level pay.
As fast as things have been changing for our publication, the pace of change along our coast has been slow. That's not necessarily bad.
But as our snowbird residents begin to return, it seems like a good time for our readers to shake the sand from their flip-flops and get active in shaping the direction of our coastal community.
First we need to end the tired "us vs. them" rhetoric that still lingers from the collapsed sales offer for Briny Breezes. Each of our towns along A1A has common concerns and should be engaged in vital and open discussions for betterment of the area as a whole.
Delray Beach is providing an example of how this can be done by inviting the entire city for a workshop on beach area improvements later this month.
As we work toward common goals, we should keep in mind that bridges connect more than just roads and what may be in the best interest of our neighboring cities to the west may not feel like positive change to those of us across the bridge. We can't afford to be surprised by what happens along the Federal Highway corridor — an area we depend on for essential services.
So, let's keep our minds open, stay focused on the future and make sure we're all still living (and working) in our version of paradise come next November.
— Mary Kate Leming, editorRead more…
Caption: Susan Mullin hosts a meeting of volunteers for this year’s trunk show benefiting the Boys and Girls Clubs. The event will be held Dec. 2-3 at the new Seagate Hotel in Delray Beach. Photo by Tim StepienA friend for Boys and Girls clubs
Susan Mullin of Gulf Stream is the kind of friend any head of a non-profit organization would love to have. She raises lots of money and doesn’t need any direction.
“She’s been phenomenal,” says Mary O’Connor, president and CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County.
Each year, Mullin stages a trunk show in Delray Beach that has, over the years, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Boys and Girls Clubs.
“She has the ability to surround herself with strong committee members.
She takes an event and just makes it happen,” O’Connor said. “I know it will be well-organized and well run.”
O’Connor’s organization has 13 clubs throughout Palm Beach County. They serve 7,500 youths a year, some 2,000 youths on a daily basis.
The Delray Beach club is one of the largest in the county and annually is among the largest contributors to the county group.
Mullin’s work has not gone unnoticed in other circles. Last month, she was one of five “Women of Grace’ honored for her work for the Boys and Girls Clubs by the Bethesda Hospital Foundation.
The foundation honors women who have “contributed remarkable volunteer service to local organizations.”
This year’s trunk show benefiting the Boys and Girls Clubs will be held Dec. 2-3 at the new Seagate Hotel in Delray Beach. A preview party will be held on Dec. 1.
“I’m fortunate to count her among my friends,” O’Connor said of Mullin.
“Susan’s events are essential to what we do.”
Susan Mullin was nominated to be a Coastal Star by Delray Beach resident Kari Shipley.Read more…
By Thom Smith
Dave Spitzer spent 40 years in the hospitality industry — working for Hilton hotels, owning a restaurant in Woodstock, Ill., and running Mike Ditka’s Da Coach restaurants in the Windy City. But about 10 years ago he moved to Delray, and the more time he spent, the less enthralled he became with corporate living. Four years ago he considered a move into a franchise, but what he really wanted was to be his own boss.
“The idea of becoming a small town merchant in this beautiful area was very enticing,” Spitzer said. “This opportunity presented itself, so here we are!”
The opportunity is Old Vines, Wine & Spirits, just east of the bridge at 900 E. Atlantic Ave., and while Spitzer considers it a “work in progress,” his program is ambitious.
“We pride ourselves on searching out good values that you won’t find at the big-box stores,” he said. “We’re all about special orders and a lot of the wine and spirits that I carry are a result of a ‘local’ asking for it.”
Tastings are a must and Spitzer has a hot one Nov. 12 that will feature wine and art. Delray artist Salvatore Principe also is a vintner. He’ll be signing bottles of his own wine from Argentina. And of course, Dave will be there with a good word and an open ear.
“I’m here every day and talk to everyone who comes in to try to learn what’s going to work best,” he said, “whether it be wine, spirits, beer, gourmet cheeses or cigars.”
Typical Thursday night (Oct. 22) at Boston’s on the Beach — good crowd to hear Breeze, the incredible cover band; baseball, football and soccer on the dozens of TVs, lots of clams being fried and beer being poured. Upstairs, however, was another story, as a few hundred invited guests chomped on stone crab and shrimp and, since it was the big party in the beachside bar’s 30th anniversary week, two obligatory birthday cakes.
“It’s been wild,” general manager Mark DeAtley said while doubling as Breeze’s soundman. “But it’s been great.”
Entertainment included Matt “Guitar” Murphy and a one-time reunion by The Groove Thangs, plus a release party for a special 30th anniversary double CD featuring acts that helped shape Boston’s musical identity. The title: One More and I’m Outta Here. Proceeds benefit the Delray police.
“We live just up the road in Gulf Stream,” said Sally Burns, who stopped by the party with husband, Bob. “We love coming here, because it’s fun and nobody cares how you look or what you wear. And we can sit outside and see the ocean. It’s the only place around where you can do that.”
The west end of Atlantic also has more Down East flavor with the arrival of Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine Lobster Roll. The airy eatery at Second Avenue opened a few weeks back, but Linda came down to oversee the Oct. 22 grand opening. A housewife turned lobsterwoman; she’s the granddaughter of legendary Maine outfitter L.L. Bean. Delray is only her second venture outside of Maine.
The showcase dish is a lobster roll: a quarter pound of claw meat (no tails) on a soft bun, with a secret herb topping, a little mayo, bread-and-butter pickles (no dills please!) and crunchy chips on the side. The price is $15.50, but Bean notes, none is fresher. She flies it in daily from her docks on the Maine coast. “You get what you pay for, all fresh claw, no celery or onion, just lobster.”
Also on the menu: shrimp, crab, stew and chowder, hot dogs, salads, smoked turkey club or chicken salad panini, grilled cheese, salads, Maine-made beer and sodas, wine and desserts, including Maine Wee Whoopie Pie.
Why Delray? Well, she found a lot of New Englanders who made the area home, and she already knew something about the place since grandpa spent his golden years in Deerfield Beach.
“I’m really on a mission for lobster,” Bean said, explaining that she’s trying to develop new markets for lobstermen and new tastes for consumers. “Lobster is considered a luxury food. It doesn’t show up on weekly menus. I want to change that. It’s a great source of protein; it’s not fried.”
And a special tip for die-hard Downeasters: The bread comes from Amato’s, famous for its Italian sandwiches. Don’t be surprised if Amato’s, too, gives the area a try. General manager John Amato was impressed by what he saw at the grand opening.
The new Omphoy luxury hotel and spa, open since Aug. 30, is taking a deliberate approach and trying not to spin its wheels in the beach sand. Nothing special to report yet, as management concentrates shifting the operation into second gear. Executive Chef Michelle Bernstein, the 2008 James Beard Award winner, continues to tweak the menu. She can also plan your wedding.
We hear that one change already is in place: Papyrus plants have been added to the reflecting pool at the entrance. Because it is rimless, a couple of souls didn’t realize the surface wasn’t solid and fell in.
His handlebar moustache was a Palm Beach trademark and so was his cooking. Matthias Radits, executive chef at The Breakers, was larger than life, so his death at age 52 in 2006 from ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) hit the hotel and the A1A community hard. To honor Radits, a group of Breakers employees formed the “Chef’s Brigade” and on Nov. 7 at 12:30 p.m. will host their first charity golf tournament to raise money to fight ALS. Eighteen holes on the Breakers’ Rees Jones Course in West Palm Beach, beverages, snacks, reception and prizes for $125. Call JoAnn Schulz at (561) 659-8434.
You’re not into Dancing With the Stars, you took your Couples Retreat in 1969 and you believe you should first read Where the Wild Things Are to your grandchildren. What’s a body to do?
Well, how about a night at the theater!
Florida Stage in Manalapan launched its 23rd season with the premiere of Two Jews Walk Into a War … . Call it a Middle Eastern Odd Couple, a comedy inspired by a true story about the last two Jews in Afghanistan during the final days of the Taliban regime. Avi Hoffman and Gordon McConnell, two veterans of the South Florida stage, bring the two schlimazels, Ishaq and Zeblyan, to life.
Through Nov. 29. Call 561-585-3433.
In Delray, Old School Square wasn’t this busy when it was really a school. World of Jewtopia comes to the Crest Theatre for an eight-performance pre-Broadway run from Nov. 11-15. Brian Fogel and Sam Wolfson have combined the best of their original Jewtopia with standup comedy and audience participation into a multimedia extravaganza, even if it is only two guys.
Other Old School Square highlights:
Pinball Palooza: The Art, The History, The Game (Cornell Museum, Dec. 1 to March 28). Everything you ever wanted to know about pinball.
Winter Wonderland on Ice (Dec. 18-20). Olympic bronze medalist Jozef Sabovcik. Cabaret (Feb. 19-21). The national tour.
Song and dance from Tony Danza (Feb. 22 and 23) and Christina Andreas (March 1 and 2), and words of wisdom from “Zoo Man” Jack Hanna (Jan. 7) and movie expert Robert Osborne (March 25).
“We keep getting stronger. The quality is still there and we’re bringing in a national tour,” Old School Square marketing director Melissa Carter said. “We’ve been able to keep the variety and have something for everyone.
“Now the cabaret community in New York knows about us and they want to come here. So it’s working for us. And you can’t go wrong with Christine.”
As in Christine Ebersole, Tony winner for Grey Gardens and 42nd Street, from March 15-17, and Adam Pascal, Tony nominee for Rent and fresh from the movie version, on April 5 and 6.
For reservations and information, call 561-243-7922. See you at the theater.
Thom Smith is a freelance writer. He can be reached at thomsmith@ymail.com
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By Margie Plunkett
Armed with history and a 1926 plat map, Briny Breezes Mayor Roger Bennett appealed to Boynton Beach to extend lower, resident water rates to the town that he said is “technically an extension of Boynton Beach.” Briny Breezes’ water charges rose 51 percent when Boynton Beach boosted water rates earlier this year, compared to the 25 percent increase in the residents’ rate, which Ocean Ridge pays, Bennett said during his presentation to Boynton Beach commissioners. The rationale behind the difference, he said, is that Ocean Ridge was once a part of Boynton Beach.
“The plat map shows Briny Breezes was at one time part of Boynton Beach,” Bennett said, and it, too, should be assessed the lower rate.
The history was more complicated than that, however, according to Boynton Beach City Manager Kurt Bressner. Ocean Ridge was a part of Boynton Beach until the 1920s or ’30s. Boynton Beach fell into hard financial times, and Ocean Ridge struck a deal to pay a portion of the city’s debt and in exchange would become its own town. That’s when the agreement setting the inside water rates took place. “It was essentially a divorce decree — and they got custody of the inside rates,” he said.
History wasn’t the sole issue, however. Boynton Beach Mayor Jerry Taylor raised the point that the city raised the rates to cover debt costs and is still hearing from residents feeling the pinch — even though the city subsequently lowered the rates by 7 percent. Commissioners also have to consider the precedent that would be set if they granted Bennett’s request: Others charged the outside rates, including condominiums, would want the lower, inside rate as well. About 42,000 water users pay the outside rate, they said.
Bennett also pointed out that Boynton’s water is delivered through three Briny Breezes meters, that Boynton Beach doesn’t have to read each resident’s meter or send them a separate bill. Briny Breezes does that. Boynton Beach does read and bill Ocean Ridge residents. Boynton should take into consideration its labor costs are lower for Briny Breezes and bill accordingly, Bennett argued.
When Boynton commissioners compared Briny Breezes to other trailer parks that are billed the outside rates, Bennett reminded them that Briny Breezes is not a trailer park, it’s a town. Earlier the mayor had quipped that before the deal to sell the town, its “opulent neighbors” north and south called it a trailer park, but now it’s a “quaint South Florida village.”
In the end, Boynton tabled a decision on Bennett’s request until its second meeting in November to allow Bressner to assess the impact of changing the rates. The city manager said he would prepare a comparison of current inside and outside rates using Briny Breezes’ 2009 water usage figures during the peak season, when the population swells to an estimated 1,100 from about 400 in the summer.
— Mary Kate Leming contributed to this storyRead more…
By Thomas R. Collins
The City Hall and police station in Boynton Beach might be about to move farther away from the coast, leaving the traditional downtown area.
Three developers’ proposals call for moving city operations west of I-95 near Congress Avenue. Only one would keep it in the downtown area near Ocean Avenue and Federal Highway.
Where to put the City Hall and police station — and it’s possible that only a new police station will be built — is raising questions about how important a city hall is to a downtown and where the future heart of the city will be. A meeting on the topic is scheduled for Nov. 3.
Whether a new complex is built at all is up in the air. City commissioners have agreed, at least initially, to put it on the March ballot, letting voters decide whether to issue bonds for the project, which could range in price from $30 million to more than $50 million. But they haven’t yet taken a final vote on that.
The plan now is for commissioners to choose one of the options proposed by developers and then put it on the table for voters, City Manager Kurt Bressner said.
The only eastern proposal, from Plantation-based Patrinely Group, includes two options: a 117,000-square-foot combination City Hall and police station at the northeast corner of Federal Highway and Ocean Avenue or just City Hall there and a new police station on NE Ninth Avenue, the city’s current public works site.
It also includes provisions for refurbishing the old high school building and redeveloping the existing City Hall site.
But it doesn’t include a cost estimate, which was requested in the city’s RFP. Another option is for a complex at Congress Avenue and Old Boynton Road, put forward by Atlanta-based Sembler Company, for either $32.4 million or $50.5 million, depending on whether both the police station and City Hall are built or just the police station.
Another calls for a complex at Gateway Boulevard and High Ridge Road for either $38.3 million or $23.6 million.
Both of those options include a lease option.
And another proposal, from developer James Comparato, calls for the police station to go into 67,000 square feet of raw space that already exists in Renaissance Commons at Gateway Boulevard and Congress Avenue. The cost would be $12 million but doesn’t include the likely millions the city would have to spend to outfit the space.
Whether the eastern proposal will stay in the running remains to be seen. City staff has labeled it “non-responsive.”
“That’s going to be a decision of the City Commission,” Bressner said.
Mayor Jerry Taylor said he would “have a problem” considering that proposal.
“How would I base my decision?” he said.
He said that moving the City Hall from the downtown doesn’t mean it is no longer the heart of the city. He said he’d be inclined to have the City Hall and police station “wherever you get the best deal.”
Commissioner Jose Rodriguez, who represents the district where the current City Hall sits, said taking away City Hall would kill businesses in the downtown. “It would be ludicrous to think we would move X number of employees west to Congress and expect them to survive,” he said.
Plus, he said, keeping City Hall in the east is called for in the downtown master plan.
He downplayed the importance of having a cost in the proposals, since there were few specifications in the city’s RFP, making it hard to get at a realistic price. “I had developers call me and say, ‘We can’t bid on this because we have no specs,’” he said.
Commissioner Marlene Ross, whose district would get City Hall were it to move west, said she hasn’t decided and “I’m eager to see them all.”
Residents have different points of view, she said. “Some of them feel strongly that City Hall could be anywhere in the city and some of them are committed to the original downtown,” she said.
One who is committed to the original downtown is Barbara Ready, who leads a group trying to preserve the old Boynton high school.
City Hall, she said, would anchor the downtown, acting as a visible marker that the traditional downtown is the city’s main gathering place. “There’s something to be said for having a beautiful, dignified City Hall that you can point to with pride in the downtown.”
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By Margie Plunkett
A residents group and Delray Beach government are collecting community thoughts early in November on a master plan for the beach area, to guide its design in the future.
The Nov. 7 charrette is for all city residents. “We hope to get something on paper that is a vision of what the whole community would like to see, not just the beach-area people,” said Andy Katz, a member of the board of trustees of the Beach Property Owners Association. “The beach is a very public place and everyone in the city should have input into it.” The BPOA, Delray Beach and the Community Redevelopment Agency are sponsoring the session. And Cambridge architect Perry Neubauer will lead the sessions; he helped with similar sessions for the municipal tennis center, Old School Square and the library.
The Beach Area Master Plan is intended to enhance the look of the beach area, establish “a sense of community through design, reflect the character of the beach neighborhood and complement the natural environment, according to the organizers. Other areas of the city have their own plans in place, including Pineapple Grove, but the beach plan will uniquely reflect the area.
The charrette — an information-gathering session from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the first Saturday in November — will cover subject areas including maintenance, landscaping, replacement and upgrades, future improvements and new features. Areas of focus will include the Ocean Boulevard/A1A sidewalk, lighting, public amenities and parks as well as other streetscape elements.
Design is characterized by elements such as trashcans, park benches, the gazebo and even the shower, Katz explained. Whether routine replacement of trashcans is necessary or the entire beach area must be rebuilt after a hurricane, the master plan guides the style. “When trash cans need to be replaced, we’ll know what we want to see go there,” Katz said.
The plan is a guide to follow when key beachfront decisions must be rendered, according to the organizers. A plan will be written from the ideas gathered at the charrette and presented to commissioners. The plan doesn’t require immediate spending, but can accomplish many items through the normal course of expenditures on maintenance or landscaping, but other areas could benefit from grants and county and state funds.
“It just seems strange for what we consider the crown jewel that brings people here not to have a master plan,” Katz said.
If You Go:
WHAT: Beach area master plan charrette, or information-gathering session
WHEN: 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 7
WHERE: Delray Beach Marriott Residence Inn
1111 E. Atlantic Ave., at Seabreeze Avenue
WHO: All city residents are invited to attend.
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By Tim O’Meilia
Backwash from the convictions of two Delray Beach priests continues to roil waters at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church as a couple sued parish officials Oct. 13, claiming their two children were expelled from the parish school in retaliation for their questioning of school finances.
Longtime parishioners Paul and Michele Maresca of Boynton Beach said their children, Michael, 11, and Danielle, 7, were expelled on the eve of classes, Michele was banned from substitute teaching and the couple was prohibited from volunteering at the school.
The suit alleges that their questioning of the need for a 20 percent tuition hike in light of a supposed $4 million school endowment, restitution paid by the errant priests and paid insurance claims led to their being ostracized.
“We sought answers and reassurance. We got resistance and retaliation,” Paul Maresca said in a statement. The suit does not name the parish, school or the Roman Catholic Diocese of Palm Beach but instead names the church pastor, the Rev. Thomas Skindeleski; the school principal, Vikki Delgado, and the parish administrator, John Krolikowski, all of whom Maresca said “conspired to retaliate against our family.”
In a statement, diocese spokeswoman Alexis Walkenstein said the tuition dispute “unfortunately has been blown out of proportion and many of the facts pertaining to this dispute are simply false.”
A financial statement released by the parish shows a $2 million endowment and that school operations lost $533,000 last year. Walkenstein said none of the endowment money was recouped from losses in the cases of former pastors John Skehan and Francis Guinan.
Skehan and Guinan were convicted earlier this year of grand theft. Skehan, 81, is serving 14 months for spending more than $100,000 on homes and trips to Ireland. Guinan, 66, is serving four years for taking up to $100,000 to spend on gambling, trips and a female acquaintance. Testimony in both cases showed that the priests diverted collection money to parish accounts they controlled so the money would not be reported to the diocese.
In a letter to parishioners after the priests were arrested, Skindeleski wrote the school had “big endowments” because that money had not been lost.
The decision to raise the tuition from $5,000 to $6,000 annually was agreed to by three parish finance, school and parent organizations, Walkenstein said, and the increase was explained to parents at a Home and School Association meeting and in papers sent home with students. Tuition for two-child families increased from $6,700 to $7,500.
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