City Council members Yvette Drucker (l-r), Andy Thomson, Monica Mayotte, Andrea O'Rourke, Mayor Scott Singer, Brightline President Patrick Goddard and U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch shovel ceremonial dirt on Jan. 25 at the site of the new train station next to the Downtown Library. Photo by City of Boca Raton

By Mary Hladky

As a Brightline train zipped past, Brightline and Boca Raton officials raised ceremonial shovels and tossed dirt on Jan. 25 to break ground on the long-awaited Boca Raton train station.

The start of station construction comes one month after the upscale rail company began work on a 4.5 story, 455-space parking garage. The station and garage are expected to be completed this fall.

Brightline President Patrick Goddard was joined at the ceremony by U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, (D-Boca Raton), Discover the Palm Beaches CEO Jorge Pesquera, Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer and the City Council’s four other members, as well as representatives of companies building the station.

“As a premier business and leisure destination, Boca Raton is a perfect fit for Brightline and will be an integral part of our network that will further connect the state of Florida,” Goddard said.

“Brightline will be a game-changer for Boca Raton, and especially our downtown,” Singer said.

Construction is starting about one year later than initially anticipated in part because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which forced Brightline to halt passenger service in March 2020. Service resumed in November.

At 38,000 square feet, the Boca station will be smaller than Brightline’s stations in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, which are about 60,000 square feet. A bar and restaurant will be available to premium passengers. A market with items such as beer, wine and snacks will be open to all passengers.

Brightline will pay $20 million of the station cost, and the city will spend $9.9 million on the garage. The project cost was partly defrayed by a $16.3 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant.

By Mary Hladky

The state fire marshal is seeking the public’s help in its investigation of how a Jan. 2 fire started in vacant townhomes on the site of a proposed luxury condominium at the intersection of East Palmetto Park Road and South Ocean Boulevard in Boca Raton.

The fire marshal’s office, which is heading up the investigation, is offering up to $5,000 for information leading to the identification of persons responsible for the fire and has posted a sign on the site saying that arson is suspected. Money for the rewards comes from the Florida Advisory Committee on Arson Prevention.

To report information, call 877-662-7766, 561-513-2547 or 561-620-6051.

The fire broke out at about 4 p.m., engulfing about one-third of the Breakers Townhomes in the Por La Mar neighborhood before Boca Raton Fire Rescue crews were able to extinguish it. No one was injured.

The fire prompted temporary closures of portions of South Ocean Boulevard and Southeast Wavecrest Way.

A fire marshal’s spokesman said on Jan. 7 that the investigation is ongoing and that no additional information was available.

“The residents in Por La Mar have been complaining for months about homeless people, mostly teenagers, going in there at night and partying,” said Katie Barr MacDougall, president of the Riviera Civic Association which includes Por La Mar. “One of the neighbors thought there were kids in there setting off fireworks.”

Homeless people at the site is not a new issue. In 2020, a 26-year-old man was charged with first-degree murder for killing his father in the parking garage of an office building on the property. Both were homeless.

The townhomes and the office building will be demolished soon to make way for One South Ocean, a 70-unit condo on 3.5 acres that is being built by Miami real estate investor Ramon Llorens.

The Riviera Civic Association supports the condo project. MacDougall has said that project architect Jorge Garcia of GarciaStromberg GS4 Studios in West Palm Beach was willing to accommodate their requests for small design changes.

By Joe Capozzi

The thieves rode in on a jet ski. 

Under cover of darkness, they boarded boats tied to docks in Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes and sped off with tens of thousands of dollars in high-end electronic equipment and fishing gear. 

In all, 18 pleasure boats were entered between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Dec. 31 by two thieves on a single jet ski, according to images captured by two private surveillance videos, Ocean Ridge Police Chief Richard Jones told The Coastal Star.

Of that total, eight or nine boats were hit in the Briny Breezes Marina, said Michael Gallacher, general manager of Briny Breezes Inc. 

The boats were boarded between the Briny Breezes Marina and the canals behind Waterview Drive, Ixora Drive, Harbour Drive North/South and Ocean Harbour Estates Canal, Jones said.

One video shows a suspect climbing off the jet ski and entering a boat while another holds onto the sea wall so the jet ski does not float away with the current, he said. No evidence indicates there was more than one jet ski involved.

All but two of the 18 boats either had electronics and fishing gear stolen or wires cut from the equipment. The most popular items stolen were Garmin and Simrad GPS devices and depth finders with a rough combined value of about $100,000, Jones said. 

“The target seems to have been newer, high-end electronics,’’ Gallacher said in an email to residents, noting that GPS devices, radios, scuba gear and other equipment were not removed from smaller boats.

The Ocean Ridge Police Department, which also patrols Briny Breezes, is encouraging all boat owners to lock their hatches and also to remove and secure all electronics that are removable from their boats when not in use. 

Anyone who has questions or information about these thefts can contact Detective Choban at 561-732-8331 or achoban@oceanridgeflorida.com. Police also want to hear from residents who may have captured suspicious videos from their home surveillance systems. 

While jet skis are loud at full throttle, they can be relatively quiet when idling which explains why homeowners never heard them. 

“For our jurisdiction, it is extremely unusual,’’ Jones said of thieves arriving using a personal watercraft to commit crimes in Ocean Ridge.

But he said it’s not uncommon in other waterfront municipalities for thieves to arrive on various watercraft, from small boats to kayaks and paddleboards, many of them stolen.

“It is likely that these suspects use any type of watercraft they can steal to commit these crimes,’’ he said.

By Joe Capozzi

A proposed $26 billion nationwide settlement with the pharmaceutical industry over the opioid crisis drew a sharp rebuke from Ocean Ridge Town Commissioner Martin Wiescholek.   

“It’s the settlement culture that we have come to accept as part of our daily lives where corporations can do whatever they want and if they get caught, they pay a little settlement,’’ he said Jan. 3 at a Town Commission meeting.

“It is unconscionable to even consider such a settlement. It's a slap in the face to every American.’’ 

With Wiescholek dissenting, the commission voted 4-1 to join the settlement with Johnson & Johnson and drug distributors Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson.

If the deal is finalized, Ocean Ridge stands to get $32,000 to $36,000 over 18 years, Town Attorney Christy Goddeau told commissioners. 

Many municipalities in Palm Beach County have reluctantly agreed to participate, noting the payouts will fall far short of the epidemic’s financial and human costs. 

But Wiescholek, who had the item pulled from the commission’s consent agenda so he could publicly share his feelings, said his concerns were not about whether Ocean Ridge was getting its fair share of money.

“It’s not a cost issue where we can say, ‘Well, you know what? At least they are paying back what it cost us the taxpayers.’ It's simply, ‘We’re getting away with it and we are keeping most of our profits.’ That is not acceptable in my book,’’ he said.

“I'm going to make a very bold statement here: Keep your free money. I don’t want it. This is not what this town should be about. We should be ashamed of taking $32,000 for a settlement of 500,000 people that have been killed.’’ 

Vice Mayor Susan Hurlburt told Wiescholek she agreed with everything he said but added, “I don’t think us not taking part in this is going to make a hill of beans in the big picture.’’

Commissioner Geoff Pugh pointed out the town accepted money years ago from settlements with the tobacco companies.

“I think the town is lucky to get $32,000,’’ he said. “Maybe it's a small slap to those companies but still it's something.’’

According to research Wiescholek said he did before the commission meeting, the $26 billion settlement works out to about 5% of the four companies’ combined profits.  

And if the town gets as much as $36,000, that equates to about $19 for each town resident, he told the commission. Then he said the street cost for one Oxycontin pill is $20. 

“So we are settling this thing for the price of under one pill per resident to get these drug companies off our backs. Not acceptable. It's just not acceptable,’’ he said, adding that the attorneys general who negotiated that settlement “should be ashamed of themselves.’’  

Before the commission voted to participate in the deal, one resident told Wiescholek she was insulted by his comments.

“This is not the place for social issues’’ said Stella Kolb. “What you're doing, Commissioner, is lecturing to us and I resent it.’’

International tourism took off in November after the U.S. reopened borders to fully vaccinated travelers. Leonardo Sanchez sips a mate tea on Delray Beach’s municipal beach while soaking up the sun among a group of family and friends from Argentina. One of them, Alberto Palmetta (left), is a professional boxer. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Best summer on record, early-season surge signal sunny outlook for 2022

By Jan Norris

They’re back — the flocks of tourists that give the state its reputation as a winter habitat for snowbirds.
But this year, they might be known as the early migrators. They showed up at least six months ahead of the traditional schedule.
“We had the strongest summer on record since recorded time,” said Troy McLellan, president and CEO of the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce.
He was near giddy about the positive numbers coming from all the agencies and industry watchers who count occupied beds, restaurant reservations and train riders. Tickets to events and venues also figure in.
Those numbers translate into much-needed tourism dollars — a large part of the county economy, with more than $7 billion in play annually from visitors in pre-pandemic years, according to the county’s Tourist Development Council.
“Commerce continues to happen. The GM of Town Center mall reports stores are bustling. Restaurants are on waits [for seating]. But the flip side is having workers,” McLellan said. The challenge remains finding the labor to service the tourists, he said.
The problem started early in the pandemic, he said, as hospitality industry workers and hourly laborers started assessing their careers after their bosses closed the doors to the public. Many who were let go decided to go back to school or to switch careers for less demanding hours and the uncertain pay of tip-based earnings.
Cooks, servers and hotel housekeepers are still in big demand. Restaurants have adjusted with shorter hours or fewer tables seated. Pay scales have increased for retail and hotel workers, and often companies have thrown in hiring bonuses.
But, McLellan said, “The business of hotel, restaurants and retail is doing well.”
After shutting down completely in March 2020, Florida became one of the first states to reopen its hotels, restaurants and transportation. Once airlines got back up to speed, and later cruises began sailing, South Florida became the “at last we can travel” resort destination.
“We had the highest bed tax collections in August on record,” McLellan said. “It means people are traveling again.”
Discover The Palm Beaches, the marketing agency that collects data on visitors to the county, provided statistics showing spring and summer had record numbers of leisure travelers in April, May, June and July — surpassing 2019’s boom year.
In November, after a year and a half of restrictions, the U.S. opened its borders again, allowing in international tourists who showed proof of vaccination.
Europeans came back, sometimes to reunite with families; Canadian tourists and snowbirds arrived, and some from South America came north for their annual holiday shopping, with favorable exchange rates in place.
The year ended with the county hosting about 7.8 million visitors, just shy of the pre-pandemic record-breaking 2019 year, according to Discover The Palm Beaches.
Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, the beachfront resort in Manalapan, is experiencing a strong demand for bookings, both suite and premium rooms, according to Michelle Phillips, marketing director.
“Indicators suggest that we could return to pre-pandemic levels sometime in late 2022 once the corporate group and social/wedding business bounces back entirely,” she said.
Group functions, including large conventions and big weddings, were canceled because of the pandemic. Smaller gatherings, most outdoors, have taken their place.
Phillips noted that Florida’s open spaces and warm weather conducive to outdoor events are drawing customers.

Brazilian tourists Gabriel Da Luz and Mathias Rocha volley a soccer ball at South Beach Park in Boca Raton.

Season started early
The county’s marketing program, touting 39 unique cities and towns plus 47 miles of “unspoiled beachfront,” reaches the Northeast U.S. and spreads throughout eastern Canada. Now that borders have reopened, Canadians are coming down by car and in motor homes, or renting favorite efficiency hotels for lengthy stays.
At the Del-Raton RV Park in Delray Beach, owner Art Parsons says his spots have been booked out for months. “We’re very busy. We have our seasonal regulars, but a lot of newcomers. There are a lot of RVs on the road.”
He’s owned the park for 48 years, and many people who rent space for months at a time reserve the same spot each year. His visitors include those from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Georgia, but none in 2021 from Canada. “Canadians got a late start,” he said. “We were all booked up by the time they hit the road. A lot of them are going to Pompano and Hollywood.”
At Benny’s on the Beach on the Lake Worth pier, the Canadians are back full force, according to chef/partner Jeremy Hanlon. “Oh yeah, as of mid-December, it’s like a ship pulled up to Palm Beach County. All the Quebec tags. We have several regulars and they were really pumped to be back. They’re so happy to be able to travel.”
A lot of new residents are filling seats too, he said. “It’s the mainstay of conversation: ‘I just moved down and I’ve never been here before.’”
But finding help to run the dining room is a challenge, Hanlon said. “We get people who are looking for a job, but who don’t want to work. We’ll interview and welcome them, then they don’t show up. That’s when management steps up” to do extra work.
John Calormis of the Dune Deck Cafe in Lantana says his seasonal Canadian regulars as well as newcomers have been coming in for “a while.”
Diners still appear to prefer outdoor seating as safer, so the Dune Deck, which is entirely al fresco, has a built-in edge on restaurants that don’t have as much outdoors.
The business is a godsend after the beach was closed and the restaurant completely out of service for months in 2020. “It was tough,” Calormis said.
The increased number of visitors so early has been obvious to people trying to get into restaurants and finding out they have to wait.
Jeremy Bearman, chef/owner of Oceano Kitchen on Ocean Avenue in Lantana, says he’s seeing really big numbers. “Season doesn’t usually start for us till January. This year, it began in September and hasn’t stopped.”
Several factors contributed, he said, with “Florida being open” the main one. “Obviously, you see it on the roads. Traffic has never been worse.”
He’s also seeing a lot of new residents — ones who came to visit and decided to stay. “We hear it every day in the restaurant: ‘Yeah, I just bought a house down here.’ I don’t know if it’s their primary residence or a second home. But a lot of people are talking about moving here.”
His small casual eatery is doing so much business, he said, he’s working on expanding to accommodate more diners. “We really need a bar, and more seating. In season, we’re on a 11/2- to 2-hour wait. Our regulars who support us year-round can’t get in. It’s frustrating.”
He is trying to work things out with his landlord and the town, which he said “has been very supportive and helpful.”
“We want to stay on the Avenue.”
Overall, he said, “We’re very thankful to have all good opportunities. Being a small restaurant, we were able to pivot and stay open and do well.”
Many restaurants changed because of COVID, especially adding outdoor seating to assuage diners who did not want to be in confined spaces with strangers. Dozens added patios, and cities loosened restrictions on sidewalk seating and allowed canopies. The Kapow Noodle Bar in Mizner Park was among restaurants that took advantage of this and moved more outdoors.

Transit bouncing back
Another indicator of the comeback is public transportation. Steven Abrams, executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which operates Tri-Rail, said ridership on the commuter railway is booming.
“We are second in the nation behind Denver for commuter rails coming back to ridership,” he said. “We’re at approximately 70% of pre-COVID figures.” The rail is transporting about 15,000 riders a day, he said.
In contrast, he said, ridership on commuter trains in New York and New Jersey is at just 20% of pre-COVID numbers.
Tri-Rail connects to all three airports in South Florida, giving tourists inexpensive rides to and from their destinations. Connecting rides via free coaches in Fort Lauderdale and city buses in Miami and West Palm Beach, as well as cars for hire, make it easier to get around the area without a car.
“West Palm is now the highest ridership station in the county,” Abrams said. Boca Raton used to be, but that was when offices there were full of on-site staffers who now work remotely.
Visitors also take Tri-Rail to visit attractions and shop in other cities; with its proximity to the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach and the downtown area, tourists who want to see a performance can take the train back and forth.
Sports venues in Miami are accessible via rail, eliminating long car trips and parking costs, Abrams said.
Tourists and residents alike are finding plenty of attractions open as well, and the Boca Museum of Art has record-breaking figures in the books for November, according to Jim May, deputy director of communications.
He points to the international premiere of the exhibit Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru as one of the biggest draws for the museum. It opened in October and runs through early March.
“A year ago, there were 750 visitors for the month of November. We had 10,000 this year. The year before COVID, we did 2,600 in November,” May said.
The county’s Tourist Development Council is a sponsor of the exhibit, which has drawn visitors from other parts of Florida, particularly Miami-Dade and Broward counties. It was planned to open after hurricane season and on the cusp of the traditional tourist season opening; it exceeded expectations.
“Our membership is breaking records, and while most of that is local, we’re getting a lot of new people from all over. Sales in the museum shop are up significantly as well,” May said.
While there are no guarantees with the coronavirus surging again and the especially contagious omicron variant taking hold, Discover The Palm Beaches is bullish on 2022.
Figures on bookings for the new year have the experts predicting record-breaking numbers in high season — January through March — and overall to be 10% to 11% higher than 2021. That translates to 8.5 million tourists visiting Palm Beach County.

By Joe Capozzi

The Champlain Towers collapse that killed 98 people in Surfside in June weighed heavily over a special magistrate’s hearing last month when South Palm Beach officials voiced concerns about erosion damage to three oceanfront condominiums. 
The Dec. 22 hearing dealt with code violations at one condo, La Pensee, but discussion of that case disclosed concerns about damages at two other condos, Horizon East and Mayfair House East. 
“We don’t want another Surfside here in South Palm Beach,’’ Town Attorney Glen Torcivia said, explaining why the town is demanding immediate repairs to sea wall erosion near a corner of the pool deck behind La Pensee, a 24-unit oceanfront condo at 4000 S. Ocean Blvd.
Special Magistrate Mitty Barnard agreed with the town code officer’s determination that the damage violated the town code as “an unsafe structure.’’ 
She gave La Pensee a Feb. 1 deadline to secure permits for the repairs and a March 1 deadline to complete the repairs. La Pensee had been seeking a March 18 deadline to finish the work, a time line that left town officials uncomfortable. 
Pounding surf during November king tides eroded a 5-foot section of the sea wall near the stairs at the northeast corner of the pool deck, said Kevin Markow, an attorney for the condo. 
But, he said, engineers who have looked at the damage said the six-story condo, built in 1985, and its residents are not in imminent danger, an opinion town officials aren’t ready to fully support.
Markow said the condo was in the process of hiring an engineer to conduct a thorough study and report as part of the repair plans. Those plans were initiated, he said, before the town’s building officials alerted code enforcement about potential safety violations.
“We will certainly share our engineering report with the town when we have it,’’ Markow said. “I don’t know if it should be a condition of the order. We all have the same interests, to make sure everybody is safe and the property is secure. There’s no indication that it is not, at present.’’
Town Manager Robert Kellogg took issue with that answer, sparking a brief debate with Markow.
“I totally disagree,’’ Kellogg said. “You’re not an engineer. We need some kind of a letter from them saying that there is no imminent danger to that facility or that structure. Period.’’ 
Markow responded, “I mean, has the town sent an engineer out to the property?”
“The only people I know that have been out there are inspectors,’’ Kellogg said.
“And they’re not engineers, right?’’ Markow replied. 
“They’re not,’’ Kellogg said, leaning closer to his microphone, “but let me tell you something. We had a situation in Surfside. I’m dealing with a situation very similar to this right across the street from Town Hall where I have an engineering report that there is a potential collapse over there. And I want to ensure that the residents of that condo are protected.’’

Repairs begun at Mayfair
After the meeting, Kellogg explained that his remarks about the “potential collapse” across the street from Town Hall were about erosion problems discovered in June to the pool and pool deck at Horizon East, a seven-story condo built in 1973.
A private engineering report commissioned by The Mayfair House, which is immediately south of Horizon East, warned that the north segment of Mayfair House East was “at risk of imminent collapse’’ after erosion led to the formation of a sinkhole.
Emergency repairs have been initiated since the report was issued June 30. Workers are still in the process of “shoring up the void” with jacks and steel beams and plates, Kellogg said after the Dec. 22 hearing.
During the hearing, Markow assured town officials that La Pensee’s top priority is the safety of its residents. 
“But you have to understand a little bit of the origin of how we wound up here,’’ he said. “We have a disgruntled resident who is in multiple litigation proceedings with the association and reported this violation as a matter of spite.’’
Torvicia said town officials don’t care how the violation was reported. They just want the La Pensee repairs done as soon as possible. 
The special magistrate asked town officials if they consider the damage “a health/safety issue at the moment.’’
“We don’t know,’’ code enforcement officer Manny Palacios said. “We don’t know the depth and problem of the erosion issue. That’s exactly why the building official would like to have a letter from their engineers stating right now there is no immediate danger to the pool or the structure itself.’’
Markow assured the town and the magistrate that the board of La Pensee wants to make the repairs as soon as possible.
“We take it very seriously but by no means do we think this is an issue where residents’ safety is an issue,’’ he said.
“The cause was king tides in four to five days in November. It was not a lack of maintenance. It was something that was completely unforeseeable.’’
If La Pensee fails to meet the magistrate’s February and March deadlines, it can be fined up to $100 a day. 
With condos and towns up and down the coast scrambling to hire engineers and contractors to make sure their buildings are safe, getting the repairs done by March 1 might be a challenge, Markow said. 
“Certainly in a post-Champlain Towers world, what I can continue to offer is to share any engineering records we do have and any reports we do receive with the town immediately. What I can tell you based on engineers that have been out there is, nobody went out there and said, ‘You’ve got a major problem on your hands.’ It seems to be a pretty garden variety sea wall erosion sea wall repair,’’ Markow said.
“We understand the urgency and the board is certainly acting responsibly. … But I don’t want to hit the panic button” when no one else is.
Although Highland Beach and Boca Raton have moved ahead with their own inspection rules, South Palm Beach and other municipalities decided to wait for guidance from Palm Beach County on a countywide program. The county, though, has put that plan on hold and is waiting to see if the state Legislature creates a statewide program.
In light of the problems at Horizon East and Le Pensee, might the town reconsider implementing its own program?
“Certainly we can reconsider it,” Kellogg said in an interview Dec. 23, “but with our building official being part of that task force that was put together by the (county) League of Cities, the council just decided to wait and see if the Legislature is going to do anything. I think there is still a large concern about not only those two buildings, but other structures in town and the potential damage being done.”

Related Story: Opioid settlements, ‘way less’ than cost of crisis, get reluctant support

By Charles Elmore

After a rocky 2020, fewer people died of overdoses in southern Palm Beach County cities during the first three quarters of 2021. Sometimes a lot fewer.
In Delray Beach, overdose deaths decreased 40% to 33 in the first nine months of 2021 compared to the same stretch of the previous year, according to the latest records available from the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office, which identified an “injury city” where an overdose occurred.
In Boca Raton, such deaths fell 28% to 48. In Boynton Beach, the decline was 24% to 44 deaths.
“We’re cautiously optimistic,” said Ariana Ciancio, service population advocate for the Delray Beach Police Department. “I want to knock on wood and be thankful where we can. But we can never be complacent about this. It ebbs and flows.”
In the last 90 days, upticks in some monthly reports of drug deaths locally and across Palm Beach County mean few are feeling complacent. All deaths take a toll. But many see evidence that efforts by first responders, community groups and others are having an effect.
For example, cases more than doubled in 2021 in which paramedics arrived after someone else had administered naloxone, whose brand names include Narcan, Delray Beach Fire Rescue documents show. That is medicine that can counter the potentially lethal effects of an opioid overdose.
Delray Beach paramedics used Narcan 118 times in 2021 through mid-December, compared to 161 times the full year before, records show. But people other than paramedics, sometimes denoted in records by the catch-all term “bystanders,” administered Narcan by the time paramedics arrived 100 times in 2021, compared to just 41 in 2020.
Delray Beach issues Narcan to police as well as fire-rescue responders. Records show city police used Narcan 70 times in 2021, Ciancio said. She said she did not have 2020 data at hand.
Even so, that would not account for all bystander interventions in 2021. Ciancio said community organizations have mounted a continuing push to educate and train people how to help. 
For instance, about 50 people attended a public meeting at the Delray Beach Public Library on Dec. 1, where an overdose death occurred in the parking lot months earlier, officials said. The event offered naloxone training by members of the West Palm Beach-based group Rebel Recovery, whose website describes programs to offer peer support, reduce harm and assist people struggling with addiction to make “positive changes.”

‘Trial by fire’
At the same time, paramedics have been honing protocols to deal with fast-moving situations, said Sean Gibson, division chief of emergency medical services for Delray Beach Fire Rescue.
Responders have tried to calibrate carefully how much Narcan is needed to keep patients stable and breathing on their own, while assessing how much, if any, may have been administered before paramedics arrived, Gibson said. Too much too soon can leave people startled, upset or resistant to treatment at a hospital, he said.
Facing a pandemic since early 2020 on top of overdose calls, “it was a trial by fire for a lot of new paramedics,” Gibson said. “It’s been a long row to hoe, I’ll say that. But I think we’ve got a good group of people who have weathered it despite all the adversity.”
Overdose deaths recorded by medical examiners can vary from counts by police and fire-rescue departments, which may have on-scene information for certain cases without access to final medical reports for all deaths. By just about any account, though, 2020 was a tough year.
Delray Beach Fire Rescue recorded 64 overdose deaths in 2020, rising from 35 in 2019 and 18 in 2018 before falling to 11 in 2021 through mid-December. Emergency calls for suspected overdoses declined to 161 in a not-quite-finished 2021, down from 244 in 2020, 213 in 2019 and 214 in 2018.

Complicated by coronavirus
The first part of 2020 was especially rugged. Delray Beach police logged a doubling of overdose fatalities, to 42 from 21, in the first seven months of 2020 compared to the same period a year earlier.
The early stages of the pandemic not only threatened lives and jobs, but also temporarily closed in-person meeting spaces for support and recovery groups. Many scrambled to meet through Zoom or other online methods.
In 2021, a common approach was a hybrid of the two, alternating between gathering in person and virtually, said one participant who asked not to be identified in a group that meets in southern Palm Beach County.
“Discussions in meetings are certainly less centered on COVID than they were in 2020,” the participant said. A helpful thing for many has been “more intimate access to support in in-person meetings.”
In Boca Raton, city officials said overdose deaths tracked by responders rose from 15 in 2018 to 28 in 2019 and 32 in 2020 before falling to 13 as of Dec. 10, 2021.
Mayor Scott Singer said factors might be greater awareness of the potential hazards and greater proactivity by doctors and health care professionals to limit abuse.
First responders deserve credit, Singer said: “Because of intervention by our fire-rescue teams and police officers, they are able to actually save a number of lives.”
Deputy City Manager George Brown said the city has not changed its policy on how it responds to opioid cases. He speculated that police and fire-rescue might be getting calls sooner and so are able to administer Narcan or get people to the hospital more quickly.

Where deaths happen
Briny Breezes, Manalapan, Gulf Stream and Ocean Ridge do not appear as “injury” locations in overdose records from medical examiners, though they do fall within ZIP codes listed as death locations where no place of injury was identified. That happened in 11 cases in 2020 and 10 during the first nine months of 2021.
This does not mean residents of those towns were necessarily involved. A death location can be different from an injury location because someone was taken to a hospital, for example, officials noted. And sometimes examiners did not know or at least did not record a place of injury.
In another 21 cases in 2020 and nine through nine months of 2021, records listing only a death location showed ZIP codes in or near Delray Beach, Boca Raton and Boynton Beach. 
The records include what medical examiners classify as overdoses from all drugs and alcohol and, at least in this case, do not specify the specific substances causing death.
But other sources paint a stark picture of which drugs have been causing the deadliest outcomes.

Florida’s deadliest drug
The death toll from opioids rose a staggering 42% in Florida in 2020, a detailed analysis released in November by the state’s Medical Examiners Commission showed. That was 16.7 deaths a day from opioids as an official cause of death — the “highest total ever,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said.
And an average 2.6 of those opioid deaths happened each day in Palm Beach County. That included 1.6 per day in the county dying from the synthetic opioid fentanyl. It was Florida’s deadliest drug, accounting for more than twice as many direct fatalities statewide as any other single contender including cocaine, alcohol or methamphetamines. 
Broward (611 deaths) and Palm Beach (572) counties led the state in deaths directly attributed to fentanyl in 2020. Fentanyl was present but not ruled the cause of death in another 62 cases in Palm Beach County.
Many people think of heroin when they hear the word opioids, but records tell an evolving story: Heroin-caused deaths fell by a third in Palm Beach County during 2020 to 138, the lowest total since 2014.
Opioids can come in many forms, including pills such as oxycodone. It is fentanyl, though, that wreaked unprecedented damage.
“Increasingly fentanyl, which is 100 times more powerful than morphine, is added surreptitiously to other illegally manufactured drugs to enhance their potency,” said John Hulick, senior program manager for the substance use disorders community service department of Palm Beach County. “While some drug users may be seeking out fentanyl, many may not have wanted to take it. Many people are dying without knowing what they are ingesting.”
A breakdown by age of the 572 fentanyl deaths in Palm Beach County in 2020 shows relatively few — 67, or less than 12% — involved people 25 years old or younger. Deaths occurred more frequently among people 26 to 34 years old (180), 35 to 50 (208) or older than 50 (117).

‘One death is too many’
Across Palm Beach County, “you’ll note the overdose deaths in 2021 are below 2020 and on par with the number of deaths experienced in 2019,” Hulick said. “My position is, while we prefer to see reductions and may never get to zero, one death is too many. The devastation of such experienced by families, friends and the community is enough to maintain that position.”
Reports late in 2021 showed the struggle is far from over. In October and November combined, overdose response calls tracked by Delray Beach police fell from 55 to 48 but deaths rose to 18, double the number in the same months a year earlier, Ciancio said.
October brought a 21-month peak for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue’s use of Narcan, according to records supplied by Hulick’s office. Reported fatal overdoses countywide reached a 2021 high of 70 in November, a total exceeded by only one month of 2020, though causes had yet to be confirmed by medical examiners in all cases.
Hulick spoke in Delray Beach at a September event that celebrated hard-won gains but also recognized how precarious progress can feel for people and families affected by addiction.
“Our work is not complete,” he said. “I am reminded of that day in and day out.”

Mary Hladky contributed to this story.

By Mary Hladky and Jane Smith

When a $26 billion deal was reached in July that required the pharmaceutical industry to help pay for the opioid addiction and overdose crisis, a framework was established to get that money to thousands of communities that have borne the brunt of the problem.
Florida and its cities and counties are slated to receive as much as $1.6 billion if the two settlements in the massive nationwide case against Johnson & Johnson and drug distributors Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson are finalized.
That’s an eye-popping amount. But as it is divvied up, each city’s and county’s share will fall far short of what the opioid epidemic has cost them.
In southeastern Palm Beach County, Boca Raton stands to get the biggest slice of that pie — a maximum of $1.2 million paid out over 18 years.
Delray Beach, the epicenter of the crisis in the county, could see nearly $900,000. Boynton Beach’s cut could be $783,000, according to allocations listed in the Florida Attorney General Office’s opioid settlements portal.
Gulf Stream could get $27,266; Highland Beach, $83,070; Lantana, $62,619; Manalapan, $55,275; Ocean Ridge, $32,671; and South Palm Beach, $14,990. Briny Breezes’ share is listed as $8,323, but Town Attorney Trey Nazzaro told the council to expect about $800 a year, which would be about $14,400.
Palm Beach County would be entitled to about $13 million.
“I think every single county is under the impression it was way less” than what each spent responding to the crisis, said Chief Assistant County Attorney David Ottey.
If the county had litigated the case on its own, “we would not be satisfied with that amount,” he said.
Various organizations have pegged the epidemic’s cost at many multiples of the settlement amounts. The Society of Actuaries found the costs in the U.S. were $630 billion from 2015 through 2018 alone, the Associated Press has reported.
Delray Beach officials are especially aggrieved that their share is so small when their burden was so large, and that the city trails Boca Raton, which was not as severely affected by opioid overdoses and deaths.
Nevertheless, Delray Beach joined the state of Florida in agreeing to the settlements, as did Boca Raton and Boynton Beach ahead of the Jan. 2 deadline, rather than leave money on the table.
“It’s super-disappointing to me to see actual figures when they came through, knowing that our neighboring town is going to see more of those dollars,” Mayor Shelly Petrolia said at a Dec. 7 meeting of the City Commission. “And I know that they did not have as huge a crisis as we did in Delray Beach.
“There was not an hour in a day (in 2016 and 2017) when we were walking outside that we didn’t hear sirens running,” she said. “Our police and our fire staff were on the front end. They looked like they were in a war, watching young people die in front of them. It was terrible on a daily basis.”
Former Mayor Cary Glickstein, who led the city in 2016 when public safety officers responded to a record-high 690 overdoses and 65 fatalities and in 2018 when it filed a lawsuit that ultimately was rolled into the national litigation, also reacted with dismay.
“I think by any objective measure, the settlement is disappointing,” he said in a Dec. 8 email to The Coastal Star. “Delray’s portion of the settlement amount will do little to offset the addiction and mental health crises these drugs spawned by the defendants’ collective negligence and callous disregard for human life.”
He also faulted the metrics used to determine how much each local government would receive that favored Boca Raton over his city.
But Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer indicated his city had no control over the metrics used, and noted that since population was one factor, his city stood to receive a larger amount.
The city and county metrics are based on population numbers adjusted for their proportionate share of the nationwide impact of the opioid epidemic. Factors include the amount of opioids shipped to the state, the number of opioid-related deaths and the number of people who suffer opioid use disorder.
More than 500,000 have died from overdoses to prescription and illegal street opioids since 1999, according to federal data.
If the settlement agreements are finalized, the four companies would be bound by them. They would be released from all civil liability in the opioid epidemic and thousands of local governments and states would drop lawsuits against the companies.
But the agreements leave thousands of other lawsuits against many other defendants unresolved, including manufacturers, drugstore chains and smaller distributors. Many of those are negotiating their own deals, which could potentially bring more money to states, cities and counties.
After the agreements were reached, they went to states and their municipalities for formal approval. Most were expected to sign off on the proposals.
The Boca Raton City Council, for example, authorized City Manager Leif Ahnell to sign the settlement agreements on Nov. 23. Cities need not have filed a lawsuit to receive a payout, and Boca Raton and Boynton Beach were among those that chose not to do so.
The exact amount local governments get will be determined by how many of them sign on. The more that do, the more each state will receive. The states will then distribute the money to local governments.
Cities and counties will have numerous options on how they can spend the money. The settlements include approved uses for the funds that stretch over many pages, but generally revolve around opioid prevention, treatment and recovery services.

Joe Capozzi contributed to this story.

Although there’s déjà vu associated with the latest fast-spreading coronavirus variant, it feels less paralyzing than when we first learned of the coronavirus pandemic in December 2019. Yes. Two years ago. Hard to believe? Some days yes, some days no.
After we stocked up on home test kits in December 2021, it’s clear we’ve entered a new phase in this global health crisis. The hope is that 2022 will be a better year.
We now have free vaccines for all but the youngest children and booster shots, plus more and better treatment options to help us all get through the omicron outbreak. These are miracles of science we simply can’t take for granted. Imagine the global health crisis if these prevention and treatment options were never invented! Have doubts? Ask an emergency room doctor or nurse.
These are like the intensified security protocols initiated after 9/11 that made travel safer — although often annoying and less convenient. But our fears of a terrorist attack in the air have diminished. We learned that taking precautions works. Just ask a pilot or flight attendant.
Still, as this new year begins, it feels fragile.
After all, 2021 ended up being another heartbreaker for many even though it started with so much promise following the chaos and panic of 2020.
Good people still died from COVID-19 infections, schoolchildren continued struggling to find their way in an upside-down world, and some of us trudged through the last 12 months with an aching void from loved ones who left us when life just became too much. And although overdose numbers in our area dipped this past year as people went back to work and in-person addiction treatment resumed, the numbers of ODs are starting to inch back up.
And we can’t forget that, to date, 800,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.
Surely, they haven’t died in vain. Let’s remember them — and everyone still struggling — as we enter the new year. Before we step into the future, let’s vow to learn from the past.
If we all do our part, 2022 should be a better year, right?
Happy New Year.

— Mary Kate Leming
Editor

Erika Petersen will take over as Manalapan town clerk when her mother, Lisa Petersen, retires this month after 18 years on the job. ‘The town residents are losing a wonderful, caring person,’ Manager Linda Stumpf says. Erika Petersen will be promoted from deputy clerk. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

The only thing typical about Lisa Petersen’s workdays are the atypical assignments that are sure to land on her desk in Manalapan.
When the county elections supervisor moved up municipal deadlines for candidate qualifying last year, Petersen hastily revamped the town’s schedule. When the coronavirus pandemic struck, she oversaw safety measures in Town Hall. When Police Chief Carmen Mattox had a leaking roof in his office, naturally he called Petersen, the town clerk.
“I don’t know how I got into roofing maintenance,” she said, “but that’s what you do in a small town. My job has changed through the years because I kept taking on more and more.”
When people move to Manalapan, Petersen leads the welcomes and when they move away, she sends farewells. When residents complain, she takes their phone calls, and when they ask questions, she looks for answers. She works with contractors, inspectors and grumpy neighbors.
Since she’s also director of the town’s library, Petersen, 66, runs its lecture series. It was Petersen who came up with the plan for a park and gazebo in the library’s backyard. “I think of the library as the heartbeat of the town,” she said.
For 18 years, Petersen has served Manalapan as concierge, referee, researcher, big sister, ambassador and, yes, municipal clerk.
But all that ends this month when she begins her retirement.
“I feel as though I’ve lost my right hand,” said Town Manager Linda Stumpf.
Petersen, Stumpf and Mattox call themselves “the triumvirate” — “we all bring different things to the table,” Petersen said. They have worked together in Manalapan for nearly two decades. In fact, Stumpf and former Manager Greg Dunham interviewed Petersen for the clerk’s job.
“Chief Mattox, Lisa and I have been through so many adventures in Manalapan,” Stumpf said. “I have had the best work colleague and best friend anyone could ask for. The town residents are losing a wonderful, caring person.”
Mayor Keith Waters said Petersen “epitomizes the elegance, character and gentle grace of this wonderful place we call home.”
“My father always told me, ‘It is not hard to recognize a winner when you see one,’’’ the mayor said, “and I am delighted to say that I recognized Lisa the moment we met.”
It’s not a stretch to say Petersen knows every address in Manalapan. “I have this thing for numbers,” she explained. “I can tell you everyone’s house number. It’s terrible because I use valuable brain cells for information I could easily look up.”
Originally from Augusta, Georgia, Petersen graduated from Florida State University, where she met her husband, Tom. His career in the space industry brought them to South Florida, and eventually to a home in Juno Beach.
Renovating that house is a project for the Petersens’ retirement, and there’s also a piece of property on the St. Johns River near Palatka where they hope to build a vacation home.
Spending time with her 3-year-old grandson, Soren, is on the agenda, too. His mother just happens to be the next town clerk of Manalapan. Petersen’s daughter, Erika, was hired as deputy clerk six months ago, and takes over as town clerk this month.
A graduate of Florida International University, Erika Petersen, 36, earned a master’s degree in architecture from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
“Erika will bring a lot more to the building side than my knowledge,” Lisa Petersen said. “She interned for the town during college. Everybody knows her. I tease her and say I’ve been training her since she was born to take my place.”
Manalapan will show its appreciation for Petersen on Jan. 27 with a party and celebration at the library.
“It’s been a wonderful 18 years,” she said. “I have no complaints. The residents have been so kind.”
Waters put it this way: “She will be sorely missed but never forgotten. Well done, Miss Lisa, well done!”

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Lettuce will supplement scarce seagrass in experiment after year in which state death toll exceeded 1,000 ­— double the recent average

Orlando Sentinel Editorial

There’s no way to pretend Florida’s manatees aren’t endangered. They are. In every sense of the word.
The official tally of deaths in 2021 stood at 1,075 as of Dec. 17. That’s more than twice the annual average of the last five years — and nearly one-sixth of the entire population of manatees in the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico.
In one year.
Even worse, the biggest factor in this “unusual mortality event,” as federal wildlife officials blandly tag it, is one that won’t be getting better any time soon. In fact, deaths may accelerate as Florida moves into colder-weather months.
The problem is simple and horrible: Manatees are starving to death, particularly in the Indian River Lagoon, where the ecosystem is in a state of wholesale collapse after decades of pollution and inaction on the part of local, state and federal officials. Dozens have been taken to various rehab centers across the state for a laborious, months-long recovery, but too often, the slow-moving mammals aren’t spotted until it’s too late to save them.
The peril is so great that manatee advocates along with state and federal officials have agreed to an unprecedented plan to supplement manatees’ diets in one key area with romaine lettuce. It’s a move that Pat Rose, longtime head of Florida’s Save the Manatee Club, never wanted to make.
Feeding manatees encourages them to linger in areas that have no other food source. But many are just too weak to make it to safer feeding grounds, and Rose — along with others — is too heartbroken and weary of watching manatee carcasses hauled in nearly every day.
“Hopefully it will buy time for the manatees that might not otherwise make it,” Rose said, noting that the feeding will be restricted to one specific area in Brevard County, though it may later be expanded. State scientists are also working to replant seagrass in areas where it might take root, and suspending spraying of herbicides so manatees can eat floating vegetation as well. They hope it will be enough to save at least some of the manatees that are most threatened. But they fear it won’t be.
The manatees aren’t the only ones suffering. The vanished seagrass beds where they once foraged were also prime spawning grounds for the wide variety of fish, crustaceans and other sea life that make the Indian River Lagoon one of the most diverse estuaries in the nation.
And if dollars and cents matter more to you than fish and wading birds, consider this: The lagoon is a multi-billion-dollar driver of the coastal economy from south Volusia down into Palm Beach County. Massive algae blooms have, in past years, turned portions of the lagoon into a fetid soup often compared to rancid guacamole. Imagine how many tourists want to return after seeing (and smelling) that.
Many are beginning to wonder whether the lagoon has passed the point of no return. Now they’re asking the same question about the manatee population.
The same scientists and environmental advocates have been sounding the alarm about the lagoon for more than a decade. And they were almost completely ignored in 2017, when (after years of insidious attempts) a politically masterminded ploy resulted in an official downgrade of manatees’ protected status under the Endangered Species Act.
It’s time to undo that. If it takes political machinations to accomplish it, so be it. U.S. Reps. Vern Buchanan and Darren Soto have filed legislation that would fast-track the manatees’ restoration to endangered status — a move U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy has also endorsed — and it should pass.
That would force officials to give greater consideration to manatees’ well-being on several levels of decision-making, including development planning and boat-speed zones, and could lead to increased resources for emergency measures.
It’s not an ideal solution, since it would accelerate past scientific evidence-gathering that could put a clearer light on the manatees’ peril and prospects for recovery. And it is only a small part of the bigger reality: If Florida and federal officials don’t act swiftly to rescue the entire lagoon system, there will be no saving any of the birds, fish and mammals that call it home. But the manatees don’t have time to wait for a perfect solution; they need help now.

“The Invading Sea” is the opinion arm of the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a collaborative of news organizations across the state focusing on the threats posed by the warming climate.

Editorials are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board and are written by one of its members or a designee. Send emails to insight@orlandosentinel.com.

By Jane Smith

With a lawsuit looming and no suitors to manage Delray Beach’s historic arts and culture center, the city is trying to cobble together a team to manage the Old School Square campus once the lease — canceled last year by the city — expires Feb. 9.
No company responded last month to the city’s “invitation to negotiate,” a process that allows the city to enter discussions with interested firms.
“With a pending lawsuit against the city, it’s not surprising,” Mayor Shelly Petrolia said last month. “We continue to keep the campus active with events organized through our Parks and Recreation Department.
“Once we get on the other side of the lawsuit, we will see some interest,” Petrolia said.
In the interim, the city will use its parks department, which has managed several weddings, bar mitzvahs and other events during the past several months, and back it up with the Downtown Development Authority and Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, City Manager Terrence Moore wrote in a Dec. 17 weekly roundup.
Moore added that he would update the City Commission on Jan. 4.
OSS managers sued the city Nov. 5 and claimed the City Commission’s Aug. 10 vote to terminate the lease was improper and did not allow the OSS managers to remove their equipment, paintings, furniture and accessories acquired by the nonprofit organization over the past three decades.
It further alleges the city stopped a $1.2 million renovation of the Crest Theatre and failed to allow them “to quietly hold, occupy and enjoy the premises.”
The city countered on Dec. 9 that the suit should be dismissed “with prejudice” because it was little more than a “shotgun pleading,” throwing more than 200 allegations against the wall and hoping something would stick.
The response notes the suit is “comprised of 206 factual allegations, with each of the fifteen Counts incorporating and re-alleging all of the Complaint’s 206 factual allegations, leaving the defendants to speculate as to which allegations relate to which Count,” the response notes.
Petrolia and commissioners Shirley Johnson and Juli Casale voted to terminate the contract because OSS managers had repeatedly failed to provide accounting of how they had spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars given to OSS over the years.
The city contends Petrolia and Johnson were entitled to immunity for decisions made in their official roles.
Casale hired her own attorney “that is personally known to me,” who contends in court filings that she, too, is entitled to immunity.
OSS supporters claim the vote was taken without public notice. The city contends the commissioners followed the terms of the lease.
The vote, and the resulting public outcry orchestrated in no small part by OSS directors and supporters, prompted eight former mayors to write a letter that the OSS publicist sent on Dec. 8 to media outlets.
“While the Old School Square termination is what’s on everyone’s mind, we see a similar pattern in the general culture of division and polarization in our city politics that has led to costly turnover and litigation,” the former mayors wrote. “It’s not the ‘Delray Way.’”
They suggested holding “a charrette to gain public input on the future of Old School Square.”
Petrolia declined to comment on the letter because of the pending suit.
Joy Howell, a former OSS board chair, also was named in the suit. Her attorney contracted COVID-19 and received an extension to file a response, as did Shannon Eadon, a former OSS executive director. Neither response was available at press time.

Hearing set
A Jan. 18 hearing is scheduled before Circuit Court Judge John Kastrenakes to decide whether OSS managers can receive expedited mediation in the case.
Delray Beach taxpayers own the nearly 4-acre OSS campus. It is deed restricted and must remain an arts, cultural and educational center. If it does not, the property reverts to the Palm Beach County School District.
The campus has five entertainment venues: the Field House, the Crest Theatre, the Creative Arts School, the Cornell Art Museum and the Pavilion.
Sam Metott, the city’s parks and recreation director, wrote in a Dec. 16 email that his department can oversee the Field House events.
“We may require some assistance with the Cornell Art Museum as that involves a more distinct set of capabilities for curation and the daily functions,” Metott wrote. “Lastly, outdoor events” — such as concerts on the Pavilion stage — “involves additional planning, scheduling, and on-site logistics. Any support in that area would be beneficial.”
Toward that end, the DDA is expected to host its annual Fashion Week in February on the OSS campus instead of the Colony Hotel, Petrolia said.
“We are looking forward to helping guide and bring more community events to our downtown and city,” Laura Simon, DDA executive director, wrote via a Dec. 21 text message in response to a Coastal Star question about the DDA’s role.
Meanwhile, even though its lease expires in less than six weeks, the OSS board sent out a pre-Christmas email seeking contributions, noting that “with your help we will rise stronger than ever to bring generations of friends and patrons all the joy Old School Square has to offer.”

By Joe Capozzi

The Ocean Ridge Police Department plans to launch programs in 2022 aimed at providing more visible anti-crime enforcement and preventing car theft.
Police Chief Richard Jones will discuss the programs on Jan. 5 at a special Town Hall meeting. The meeting, which doubles as a meet-and-greet for residents and the new police chief, starts at 5:30 p.m.
“We will talk about crime trends and what neighbors and residents can do to protect themselves,’’ said Jones, who took over when Hal Hutchins retired in August.
Starting Jan. 10, Jones will launch a targeting enforcement initiative called the “ACE Team,’’ which stands for aggressive criminal enforcement. It will be made up of three officers who will work unique schedules in response to crimes like car thefts. 
For example, if a home is burglarized at 3 a.m., the ACE group might patrol the vicinity in which the burglary occurred the next night from midnight to 5 a.m. 
Although criminals might not return to the scene the next day, the ACE team’s presence in the area could result in vehicle stops for traffic violations and suspicious activity, possibly leading to arrests for outstanding warrants or in connection with stolen cars. 
“It’s not that the same person is going to come back and commit a crime, but when we are a soft target because we leave our cars unlocked and our keys in them, they find success once, then chances are they’ll return to find another unlocked car with keys inside,’’ Jones said. 
The ACE officers will offer a deterrent through increased presence and activity.
“Whatever we can do to put the message out to the criminal element that you can come here if you want, but be prepared, if you are here to commit crimes you will likely be encountered by the police and if there’s a reason for you to go to jail, you’re going to go to jail,’’ Jones said.
The group was launched partly in response to two car thefts on Dec. 1, one on Bimini Cove Drive and one on Harbour Drive North. In both cases, the cars were left unlocked with the keys likely left inside, Jones said. 
Those two car thefts helped spur a second initiative, called a Neighborhood License Plate Recognition program, that will employ enhanced cameras mounted inside participating neighborhoods.
The new cameras will supplement the town’s existing license plate recognition cameras that were installed three years ago around Ocean Ridge.
“That system is not flawless and it doesn’t work for certain functions,’’ Jones said.
Island Drive and Island Drive South residents have volunteered to pay for the first new camera in the Neighborhood License Plate Recognition program. It will cost $2,500 a year. 
Jones hopes to purchase cameras for other neighborhoods in 2022. 
A third program, called the Combat Auto Theft initiative and used in other towns in Florida, will be launched if commissioners approve an ordinance creating it. 
The CAT program would invite residents to participate. They would receive special reflective program-designated stickers to put on their cars in a place visible to police.
“If we see your vehicle on the street from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., it gives us reason to stop your vehicle. Most likely all residents in town are home or in bed during those hours. If we turn our blue lights on and you pull over, it probably means a resident is driving,’’ Jones said. 
“But if we turn our blue lights on and the car takes off, it was probably stolen. It’s important because then we want to check on the homeowner to make sure they’re OK.’’ 
Through late December, Ocean Ridge had six car thefts in 2021, one fewer than the total thefts for 2020 and one more than the total for 2019. 
“It’s common for us to have a stolen car or two here and there. That’s normal,’’ Jones said. 
But he said most of those thefts are preventable if residents don’t leave their cars unlocked with the keys or key fobs inside. 
“Too many times residents feel like this is a safe neighborhood and that no crime happens here, but that’s not entirely true,’’ he said. “It is a safe community, but it is not crime free.”

Ocean Ridge car thefts
2015   11 
2016    8
2017    3
2018    8
2019    5 
2020    7
2021    6 as of Dec. 17 

SOURCE: Town of Ocean Ridge

By Joe Capozzi

Council members are considering changes to the town code that would turn up the volume on allowable noise levels in South Palm Beach. 
But peace-and-quiet advocates needn’t worry: The Town Council doesn’t intend to allow much more of a racket than most residents are already used to hearing. 
The aim of the proposed changes is to help accommodate condominium generators that kick on during power outages. 
Many of those generators, as well as other machinery such as air-conditioning units and the town’s generator and pump station, give off noise emissions that exceed 60 decibels, the current maximum allowed in the town code — with the exception of motor vehicles and lawn mowers.
“As a reference point, I am talking at 62 DBA,’’ Town Manager Robert Kellogg, speaking through a microphone at Town Hall, told the council on Dec. 14. “So anybody giving a presentation is exceeding the town’s decibel levels.’’ 
The town decided to look at revising the noise levels after the Concordia condominiums requested permission to install a new generator in the parking lot. That generator will emit 70 decibels when running at full power. 
“I’m certain other generators in town at other condos exceed that 60 DBA” limit, Kellogg said. “Short of requiring additional muffling, buffering or screening on these generators, I don’t know what the other solution would be.’’
He said a review of surrounding communities showed that “most have similar or lower DBAs than we do.’’ 
Kellogg will offer the commission a proposal of changes in January. Options may include allowing exemptions for certain uses at certain hours. 
The proposed changes are being reviewed as the town is trying to address a complaint by a Concordia resident about noise from the air-conditioning units at a condo next door to the north, The Barclay.
A special magistrate Dec. 22 ruled The Barclay was violating the town’s noise ordinance and gave the condo until Jan. 25 to come into compliance. “This is a tricky situation because I can just see Pandora’s box being opened up because a complaint has been filed against The Barclay by a Concordia resident. Concordia wants a new generator. I don’t think there’s a good solution to this problem, to be honest with you,’’ Kellogg said. 
Changes to the town code might be the most viable solution. 
“Technology has changed and generators are much quieter than they used to be, but they still would exceed the town’s limit,’’ Town Attorney Glen Torcivia said. “How can we approve a generator that we know is going to violate our code? ‘Yes, you can do this, but we’re going to ding you with a code citation?’’’
Bill Ellis, president of the board of directors for the Concordia, said the new outside generator, which will replace a 40-year-old generator that “completely died,’’ will cost the condo about $150,000 less than a generator that sits indoors. 
The outdoor generator will run on natural gas, allowing the condo to “get rid of diesel fuel” that has been stored on site. 
In other business, the council heard a 30-minute water quality presentation from Darrel J. Graziani, the assistant director for the West Palm Beach Public Utilities Department.
West Palm Beach supplies water to the town, and Graziani said the water is safe. 
In June, Mayor Bonnie Fischer said the city needed to do a better job of notifying the town’s water customers when problems arise. It took West Palm Beach officials about eight days in May to announce that the city’s water had an unacceptably high level of the blue-green algae contaminant cylindrospermopsin and posed a risk to physically vulnerable customers.
Speaking to Graziani on Dec. 14, Fischer said: “I don’t drink the water anyway, I have to be honest with you. … West Palm Beach water has not touched my lips for 45 years. Not that I say drinking out of plastic is any better.’’

Joseph Jean paints a scene of the Barefoot Mailman on a tiny library while library director Kristine Kreidler talks with Jonathan Simplice, who takes a break from his painting. They were among volunteers building and painting the structures; a $3,000 grant will buy books. The six libraries will go into town parks and the Recreation Center. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

The Lantana Public Library is getting bigger.
And smaller.
As workers labor to complete an $811,000 expansion to the library building at 205 W. Ocean Ave., director Kristine Kreidler is overseeing the installation of six small branch libraries all around town.
Very small branch libraries.
Extremely small.
The Little Free Libraries are coming to Lantana. When the renovation is completed in March, the main library will be about 1,000 square feet larger, with a centralized circulation desk, special areas for children and teens, and a new meeting room where the former bank’s drive-thru used to be.
By early January, however, a half dozen Little Free Libraries, colorfully painted wooden houses with doors and windows, will already have appeared, filled with books free for the taking.
Look for them at Maddock Park, Bicentennial Park, Municipal Beach Park, the Nature Preserve, McKinley Park on Hypoluxo Island, and the town’s Recreation Center at 418 S. Dixie Highway, where the library is temporarily housed during construction.
“Take a book,” passersby will be urged. “Leave a book.”
The Little Free Libraries are being paid for by a $3,000 grant obtained from the American Library Association by Lantana librarian Jane Smith.
The grant had been expected to pay for only the construction of the miniature libraries until Hypoluxo Island resident Gene Work volunteered to build them.
The painting was done by students from South Tech Academy and local elementary and middle schools.
“I painted the sailboat on the red box that’s going in Bicentennial Park,” Kreidler boasts, then pauses. “But we may hire a real artist.”
With the libraries built and painted by volunteers, the entire grant will buy books to fill them. And because the libraries are little, top priority will go to books for little people.
“We’ll have adult books, too,” Kreidler is quick to note, “but all the studies agree on the importance of early access to books in a child’s development. It’s not easy for a lot of kids to walk to our library, so this is an easy access to encourage reading.”

Original library was small
With the arrival of the Little Free Libraries, local historians will recall that the town’s original library was also very little.
In 1947, the Lantana Woman’s Club initiated today’s library with a lending collection of 900 books, donated by the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach and housed in the Lantana Community Church on Oak Street.
By 1951, both the book collection and church membership had grown so large a new location was needed. The town (pop. 773) couldn’t afford to build a library, and the Woman’s Club couldn’t afford to rent space.
Fortunately, there had been a hurricane.
A 1947 storm had destroyed the wooden bridge to Hypoluxo Island, and when a new, concrete bridge was built, the wooden bridge tender’s house, which survived, was moved to a spot by the waterway.
In 1952, the Town Council leased that small house to the Woman’s Club for $1 a year, and again volunteers appeared to spruce up the house and build shelves and furniture.
Today’s library building arrived in 1995, purchased by the town for $226,000 after the Carteret Federal Savings and Loan succumbed to the financial crisis of the late 1980s.
The original bridge tender’s house is now at Yesteryear Village at the South Florida Fairgrounds.

A global initiative
The international Little Free Library project grew from equally humble beginnings.
In 2009, a man named Todd Bol built a model of a one-room schoolhouse and stuck it on a post in the front yard of his Hudson, Wisconsin, home as a tribute to his mother, a schoolteacher who, of course, loved books.
Friends and neighbors wanted one. Bol built more.
When Rick Brooks of the University of Wisconsin at Madison saw Bol’s miniature libraries, he brought a bigger idea to the little project.
In the early 20th century, multimillionaire Andrew Carnegie — of Hall fame — had paid to build 2,508 free public libraries. Brooks and Bol decided they would try to establish 2,508 Little Libraries by the end of 2013.
They beat their goal by a year and a half, and today the Little Free Library organization (littlefreelibrary.org) boasts more then 100,000 LFLs all over the world.
Now six of them are in Lantana.
“I’m excited,” Kreidler says. “We’d like people to bring back the book they take and donate one of their own books for others to enjoy, but you don’t have to.”
And she’s not stopping there.
The library has already secured a state Library Services and Technology grant for $50,000 to install a “radio frequency identification device” — a code reader that scans books for checkout or to find misplaced titles on the shelves.
Kreidler would also like to establish a StoryWalk in the Nature Preserve, a series of 30 panels that tell a different story every month.
“And more little libraries, of course,” she says.

Lantana librarian Jane Smith is a freelance contributor to The Coastal Star.

By Jane Smith

Former City Manager Mark Lauzier lost his wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Delray Beach in a jury trial that ended before 2 p.m. Dec. 16.
Lauzier was seeking $248,659 in severance for five months of pay and benefits, seven months of paid leave and 12 months of health insurance benefits, his attorney, Isidro “Sid” Garcia, said in closing arguments that morning in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
“We are disappointed in the outcome and believe there are numerous grounds for appeal of court rulings that impacted the verdict,” Garcia wrote in a text message the next day. “We are considering appellate options.”
Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia was happy the taxpayers would not have to pay Lauzier anything.
“We will seek attorneys’ fees for the city,” she said.
The mayor did not know the amount spent on the more than 2-year-old lawsuit.
Petrolia, who testified as a witness, attended the closing “to show the jury that the city cared about the case.”
The judge instructed the jury about 11:50 a.m. and the jury reached a unanimous verdict less than two hours later, including time to eat lunch.
City commissioners unanimously fired Lauzier on March 1, 2019, after 16 months on the job. He filed a two-count lawsuit against the city on April 29 that year.
The first count, for whistleblower protection, was tossed out by a different Circuit Court judge on Nov. 18, 2019.
Lauzier had claimed the mayor fired him in retaliation for his denying her voucher for airplane tickets for herself and one of her sons to Tallahassee. (Petrolia said she was tending to family problems and forgot to reimburse the city for her son’s airline ticket.)
Shortly after Lauzier was hired in November 2017 he rewrote the city’s personnel manual so that it favored his choices. He did not update the City Charter or alert the mayor, as was required, according to a city audit.
Julia Davidyan, the city’s internal auditor, also found that Lauzier hired inexperienced staff at high salaries and promoted his assistant to an assistant city manager position when she did not have the required experience. Davidyan also was a witness at the trial.
City commissioners received her report in late February 2019. Commissioner Ryan Boylston met with Lauzier on Feb. 26, 2019.
But Boylston was not satisfied with Lauzier’s answers and wanted to call the commission together to discuss the auditor’s concerns. City policy, though, allows only the city manager and mayor to call a meeting.
Boylston then reached the city attorney, who called the mayor to let her know that a colleague wanted to hold a special meeting. The city attorney explained why, and the mayor agreed to call the meeting. Boylston also testified in the case.
Six weeks before Lauzier was fired he received a 4% raise, Garcia told the jury, trying to bolster the claim that Lauzier was wrongfully fired.
But Garcia did not say the vote was 3-2 with Petrolia and Commissioner Shirley Johnson against giving Lauzier a raise.
At an annual salary of $244,000, Lauzier was then the highest-paid Delray Beach employee.
He is now the budget manager for St. Lucie County government in Fort Pierce.
Delray Beach commissioners also fired Lauzier’s successor, George Gretsas, after five months on the job. Terrence Moore was named city manager in August, becoming Delray Beach’s fifth city manager in eight years.

By Jane Smith

One block of George Bush Boulevard, between Northeast Sixth and Northeast Seventh avenues, will close completely starting Jan. 3 through Jan. 17, the Delray Beach Public Works director said at the Dec. 14 City Commission meeting.
Contractors will make utility repairs and improve the drainage, Missie Barletto said.
Motorists, cyclists and pedestrians traveling west on George Bush Boulevard will follow this detour: Turn south on Northeast Seventh Avenue, then west on Northeast Seventh Street to Northeast Sixth Avenue, then north on Northeast Sixth to George Bush Boulevard.
Those traveling east will be directed to take this path: Turn south on Northeast Fifth Avenue to Northeast Seventh Street, turn east on Northeast Seventh Street to Northeast Seventh Avenue, then north on Northeast Seventh Avenue to return to George Bush Boulevard.
The $2 million of improvements to George Bush Boulevard, from Northeast Second Avenue to A1A, started in July and are estimated to end in summer 2023.
The Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency is paying for the work, which includes milling and resurfacing the road with utilities and drainage improvements, 5-foot sidewalks and bike lanes.
The work does not include improvements to the steel grate bascule bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway.
Florida Department of Transportation contractors are doing the work. The main contractor is Hardrives of Delray Inc.

By Steve Plunkett

Town commissioners bounced back plans for a two-story home on a cove off the Intracoastal Waterway as too big, telling the advisory Architectural Review and Planning Board to revisit the structure’s overall massing.
Also criticized at the Dec. 10 meeting were applicants James and Nadia Davis’ requests for a special exception to the backyard setback, the design of the master suite and east side of the house facing the cove, landscaping and choice of window frame color.
Mayor Scott Morgan led the charge against the home at 588 Banyan Road in the town’s core district.
“I just looked at the photograph of the proposed residence and it takes up a good chunk of the property. And frankly, in my opinion there’s an overwhelming massing to this house,” Morgan said.
The mayor wanted reasons for a special exception to be granted “outside of the desire to move the home further south to expand the size of the building.”
Architect Benjamin Schreier said the house already was well under what Gulf Stream’s rules require. The first floor was designed to be 8,699 square feet instead of the permitted 8,720 and the second floor was 2,625 square feet instead of 3,031. Also, the height of the second-story roof was 28 feet 10 inches, well below the permitted 35 feet.
That, the design’s Anglo Caribbean style and “the way that the massing has been broken down so there’s a village-like character to it rather than one big block” made it qualify for approval, he said.
“Really?” Morgan responded. “You think this meets the characteristic of a small village which is the definition of the core district’s character?”
Schreier also argued that he had consciously tried to limit the size of the home.
“First of all, in terms of its massiveness we are a full 6 feet below the allowable height,” he said. “I know we’ve been very sensitive to what might appear as mass.” But the mayor fretted that “we’re seeing this more and more as people are building new homes. They’re going bigger and bigger.”
Morgan said the plan lacked a village feel.
“This is a very large house that’s seeking even additional setback variance to put a large home on a lot that’s going to be visible to every other home in that cove,” Morgan said.
The current allowable size of the house was partly the result of a previous decision the commission made, Commissioner Joan Orthwein said.
The Davises bought the property for $4.5 million in April 2018. They soon asked the town to abandon a 2,500-square-foot right-of-way on Banyan Road that jutted into their peninsular parcel.
“We have no current plans to build a new house, so any theoretical benefit in setbacks or buildable square footage is option value, at best, to us,” they advised the town in November 2020.
Town Manager Greg Dunham advised commissioners then that abandoning the right-of-way would add 500 square feet to the maximum allowable first floor, making the total 8,720 square feet instead of 8,220 square feet.
Commissioners approved the abandonment in December 2020 after the Davises paid a $200,000 “privilege fee” patterned after a similar procedure in Palm Beach.
“We created this, by the way, when we sold off that piece to Mr. Davis,” Orthwein said at the Dec. 10, 2021, meeting.
Also at the meeting, Bill Boardman, a 17-year resident on the east side of Polo Drive, noted that the Davises’ existing home has only one story. “The roof really in most places is no higher than the surrounding trees. You can barely see the house.”
A disappointed Schreier said the ARPB had approved and even complimented his proposed design. “This is completely unanticipated,” he said.
But Morgan was steadfast in his desire to protect the core’s quaint nature.
“You see what happens in Delray … you’ve seen our neighboring towns, what’s happened to them,” Morgan said. “Manalapan’s a perfect example. I think it’s already gone.”
The mayor said Gulf Stream’s design manual outweighed the town’s numerical rules for construction at the site.
“I don’t think it’s consistent with the district definition ... which requires us to consider the characteristics. It mandates that we consider them, and I think we need to consider them,” he said.
“This is an opportunity to refocus the town on that which is preserving its overall character, which means preserving the neighborhood characteristics,” he added.
Later in the meeting commissioners discussed what changes could be made to encourage building one-story homes and discourage two-story proposals. Among the suggestions: making the front setback deeper for two-story structures, pushing them farther from the street. Commissioner Paul Lyons said with higher finished-floor elevations now required, side setbacks should also be examined to protect the backyard privacy of neighbors.

Kevin Anderson of Gulf Stream says time away from tennis is more important since his 2-year-old daughter, Keira, was born. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

It’s been close to a decade since Kevin Anderson and his wife, Kelsey, settled in Gulf Stream, soon after he won his first ATP title outside his native South Africa at the 2012 Delray Beach Open.
The memory of hoisting that trophy has not faded.
“I remember that tournament very well,” Anderson said. “Really good matches, and it was a very meaningful event for me. (Winning) doesn’t happen every week.
“At the time I’d actually moved here, and it’s where I train, so winning the tournament gave a little extra meaning to it,” he said.
Anderson, 35, has compiled an impressive résumé since turning pro in 2007. He has a 76-47 record in majors, reached the finals of the 2017 U.S. Open and 2018 Wimbledon, and attained a career-high No. 5 world ranking in July 2018, becoming the first South African to reach the top five since Kevin Curren in 1985.
Those numbers might be even better if not for three of his contemporaries in what has often been called the golden age of tennis. He’s the same age as Rafael Nadal, one year older than Novak Djokovic and five younger than Roger Federer. The big three have won 20 Grand Slam titles each.
“That’s been tough,” Anderson admitted. “The two Grand Slam finals I played in were against one of those guys. They have so much experience, so it wasn’t easy. It’s been quite remarkable what they’ve been able to do.
“In some ways it’s been tough, but they’ve also been able to grow the sport, so it’s a bit of a curse and a blessing.”
Wimbledon 2018 was one of the highlights of Anderson’s career. He came back from two sets down to beat Federer in the quarterfinals, winning the final set 13-11, then beat John Isner 26-24 in the fifth set before losing to Djokovic in the final.
“The opportunity to play and come up on top of him was a great memory, a great experience,” Anderson said of the Federer match. “That hasn’t always been the case.”
Anderson got a life-altering experience when Kelsey, whom Anderson met when they were athletes at the University of Illinois, gave birth to their daughter, Keira, in September 2019.
“It sort of exaggerates the difference between life on and off the court,” he said. “On the court I’ve always been motivated, so there’s no big change there.
“But it’s more about coming home and spending time with Keira and my wife, having this different responsibility. That’s the biggest change. I’m going to be in Australia now and away for a month, but it’s part of the job. So, you get used to FaceTime and all that.”
After struggling with injuries in recent years, Anderson said he had “a good offseason” of training and was optimistic as he headed out in December for this month’s Australian Open. His world ranking stood at No. 80.
“Getting healthy is the difference between practicing and competing in terms of the strength and the body,” he said, “but all I can do is prepare the best I can.”

— Brian Biggane

Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. I attended St. Stithians high school. I moved to the United States in 2005 and went to the University of Illinois on a tennis scholarship. This, combined with my travels for tennis which took me around the world, really allowed me to interact with so many different people and experience different cultures. I think one of the main areas this influenced me is being able to relate to many kinds of people.

Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: My whole life has been dedicated to tennis. From the time I was a little kid my dreams and aspirations were to be a professional tennis player. I never pursued any other type of profession. My most proud accomplishment would be making the finals of Wimbledon in 2018, reaching my career-high ranking of 5 in the world, and representing South Africa in the Olympic Games.

Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: You have to work hard, believe in yourself and be patient. Anything that is worth achieving takes a lot of work, there is no substitute for putting in the hours in your chosen field. You have to believe in your abilities and believe in your goals. Surround yourself with people who share in your dreams and support you. There will always be people who will try to dissuade you, but you need to confidently quiet their voices. Lastly, the road to success is always up and down. You have to remain patient and learn from both the positive and negative experiences.

Q: How did you choose to make your home in Gulf Stream?
A: Delray is host to the ATP 250 event hosted at the Delray Tennis Center in February. I played this event a couple times so it brought me to Delray Beach. My wife was born in West Palm Beach so she knew the area. We came down to spend the Fourth of July weekend in 2012 and really liked so many things about Delray Beach. We bought a condo nearby in Gulf Stream and moved here in the beginning of 2013.

Q: What is your favorite part about living in Gulf Stream?
A: I love being near the small-town beach feel that Delray Beach and this area offers; great restaurants, family-owned businesses, fun local events all really add to the feel. The beach and the outdoor weather all year long also is something that I really like. Lastly, as the years have gone on we have gotten to know more and more people. Many share the same love for the area and we have connected well with the wonderful people who call this area home.

Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I am reading a series of books called The Stormlight Archive. I really enjoy fantasy books and this is one of the best series I have read.

Q: What kind of music do you listen to when you want to relax? When you want to be inspired?
A: I really enjoy classical music — at the end of the day I’ll often find a Spotify playlist that goes over some of the old great classical music pieces. When I want something more upbeat I like listening to classic rock.

Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: My dad coached me from the time I started playing tennis. But more than just tennis he taught me the value of hard work, sacrifice and pushing yourself to be the best you can be. This mind-set has really shaped my life’s journey so far.

Q: If your life story were to be made into a movie, who would play you?
A: One of my favorite actors is Matt Damon, so that would be my choice.

Q: Who/what makes you laugh?
A: I’m a big Ricky Gervais fan; he makes me laugh every time I watch or re-watch him. I have a pretty dry sense of humor at times, so a well-timed sarcastic joke will get a smile out of me.

A Dec. 19 rainstorm flooded roads on Hypoluxo Island, including near McKinley Park around Southeast Atlantic Drive and Beach Curve Road, where the town put up a sign to warn drivers. Photo provided by Media Beverly

By Mary Thurwachter

After a heavy downpour early on Dec. 19, residents of Hypoluxo Island awakened to flooded garages and roads turned to rivers.
Town officials were up early to survey the area.
One of the first on the scene was Lantana Council member Mark Zeitler, who left his car at his mainland home, opting for his 1978 Dodge truck to better navigate swampy streets.
“I don’t remember seeing the water this high before,” said Zeitler, who grew up in Lantana. “I had a paper route on the island in the ’70s and I don’t remember anything like this.”
How deep was the water?
Ken Hilgendorf gauged it by walking on the street in front of his North Atlantic Drive home.
“I’m 6-4 and the water was up around my knees, so about 2 feet,” he said. The water crept up to the edge of his garage. “A little more rain and it would have been inside,” he said. His neighbor’s garage did flood.
The deluge wasn’t any less on South Atlantic Drive, where street signs alerted motorists to flooding and “no wake zones” and a few cars around Beach Curve Road near McKinley Park had to be towed. The island has been plagued with flooding for decades and the town has done extensive drain, sewer and road improvements over the years.
Islander Michelle Donahue said on Facebook: “Wow!! Crazy flooding in Hypoluxo Island today.”
Town Manager Brian Raducci sent a message to residents later in the day: “Apparently, we received four inches of rain between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. That in combination with high tide and a full moon has created the flooding issues that we are experiencing.

The flooding, a result of about 4 inches of rain and high tides, inundated portions of North Atlantic Drive, where the water drained after several hours. Photo provided

“All systems appear to be working properly at this time, but it will take some time for them to catch up. … Hopefully we won’t get any more rain today so we may dry out a little bit.”
Floodwaters were down after several hours on North Atlantic Drive, but took another day on South Atlantic. The damage was mostly the cleanup required for some garages, streets and lawns.
Lantana Operations Director Eddie Crockett weighed in via email to The Coastal Star: “There was a significant amount of flooding on Hypoluxo Island and in other parts of the town. We received about four inches of rain in a short period of time which overwhelmed the capacity of our stormwater infrastructure.
“The pumps on the island functioned at full capacity for about seven hours. We responded and continued those efforts throughout Sunday.”
Crockett said stormwater systems are maintained weekly and during and after each rain event. “The island experiences similar events of this magnitude several times a year.” 
But some islanders thought this time was more severe.
“Have lived here 35 years and this is the worst I have seen, and I was here before the pumping system on Beach Curve/park was installed,” Gretel Andrea Babkie wrote on Facebook. “I believe the increased building of larger homes, loss of foliage and homes being built higher also contribute.”
Before his tour of the island, Zeitler visited the Sea Pines neighborhood, which is known to have flooding problems. That area fared much better, he said. “It drained down so fast. That made me happy.”