Manalapan’s fourfold increase in two years leads an unprecedented wave of $20 million sales along coast

By Larry Barszewski

Real estate buyers had no vaccine to protect them from luxury home prices that hit stratospheric levels in 2021. A record number paid $20 million or more for coastal homes in southern Palm Beach County as a 2020 pandemic bump in residential sales turned into a 2021 juggernaut.
For example:

• The average sales price for a Manalapan home, which sat at $5 million in 2019 and $5.5 million in 2020, quadrupled to $22.4 million.
• A Highland Beach home sold for $21.6 million in March 2021 and then resold for nearly $8 million more a half-year later.
• The coastal stretch from South Palm Beach to Boca Raton recorded 20 home sales of $20 million or more — up from three such sales in 2020. Ten sold in Manalapan, four in Delray Beach, three in Highland Beach, two in Boca Raton and one in Ocean Ridge. Another Highland Beach home sold for $34.7 million last month.

“We have, in my 25-plus years of experience, never seen the velocity and the pricing [of the past year] ever before,” says Senada Adzem, executive director of luxury sales for Douglas Elliman Real Estate in the region.
She and other agents say the market, typically fueled in the past by out-of-state shoppers from the Northeast, also saw unprecedented demand from places like California, Chicago and Texas, with buyers “very comfortable with the pricing.”

Sales and prices skyrocket
The luxury market figures, provided by the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office, tell only part of the story of the booming demand for residential properties.
The number of single-family and condo sales in the county dipped 5% in 2019 from 2018, while increasing a tepid 1% in 2020 as the pandemic took hold. Then came 2021. Sales jumped 30% — going from 30,493 in 2020 to 39,835 last year.
Prices climbed even higher. After the county’s average sales price for a house or condo fell 31% in 2019, it rose 11% in 2020. It then skyrocketed 59% in 2021. The average price, which sat at $544,088 in 2020, increased to $865,636 last year.
The biggest-ticket home purchases also reached new levels. In the 15 years prior to the pandemic, only five Palm Beach County homes sold for more than $50 million, with one topping $100 million.
That changed in 2020, with four sales in one year for more than $50 million. And that was nothing compared to 2021, when 11 sales in the county exceeded $50 million. All were along the coast, including two for more than $100 million.
There’s more at work in the high-end market than a lack of inventory or increased demand, says Jonathan Miller, president of New York-based Miller Samuel Inc., who has been studying the super-luxury market nationally for almost a decade.
“There are really three major markets doing heavy lifting for super luxury: New York, LA and Palm Beach,” Miller says. “It’s not because properties like this are appreciating more; it’s buyers in this market are doing a new calculus of what this property’s worth.”
Nationally, there were 12 to 16 home sales a year topping $50 million between 2014 and 2018, he says. That jumped to 23 in 2019, 29 in 2020 and 40 last year, he says.
“Think of it as a reset in values,” Miller says. “This in many ways represents the surge in global wealth, the disparity between high end and low end.”

Twice sold in Highland Beach
The resets may be happening in real time.
No sales epitomize the South County market in 2021 as much as the ones in Highland Beach for 3715 S. Ocean Blvd., a roughly 11,000-square-foot mansion on the ocean with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, floor-to-ceiling ocean-view windows, a 1,200-bottle wine wall and a 3,000-square-foot sky deck.
A Nevada family purchased the home for $21.58 million in March 2021, having seen the property only through a Facetime chat with Adzem. Once the buyers settled in, though, they realized the home wasn’t big enough to meet their needs, she says.
While the family wasn’t in a rush to sell, it took advantage of a $29.5 million purchase offer — almost $8 million more — six months later. The family moved to Stone Creek Ranch 10 miles to the west, where it bought a 30,000-square-foot property in unincorporated Delray Beach for $17.2 million.
“For some, oceanfront is a must. Others, who have a boat, want a dock. For others, it’s having a gated, secure community. This was the case for this family,” Adzem says. “They got double the space minus ocean views. They got lakefront.”

More families in the mix
Adzem says her clientele — people in the market for homes priced at $10 million or more — looks different these days.
“I’ve noticed a huge influx of families,” Adzem says. “In the past, we used to have many empty-nesters,” retirees whose children had moved away from home.
Couples in their 30s and 40s are now moving their families and businesses and working remotely, says Nicholas Malinosky, another Douglas Elliman agent.
“There’s a reason why these wealthy buyers want to be here — and it’s not to vacation. Buyers are not buying here for three months in the sun,” Malinosky says. “Now it’s, ‘We’re getting out of New York. We’re getting out of California. We’re making our homestead here. We’re bringing our business here. We’re bringing our family here.’”
South County’s small coastal towns are making a big impression on them.
“We’re hearing a lot of our clients coming from California mentioning the influx of crime in their neighborhoods in California. They feel our coastal towns are very safe,” Malinosky says. “These small towns with their police departments provide a certain sense of security.”

Manalapan makes a mark
It’s not just security, says Manalapan Mayor Keith Waters, whose town of about 450 attracts the biggest prices in South County. It had sales of $94.2 million, $89.9 million and eight others topping $20 million last year.
Waters describes Manalapan as “calm, serene, small, cloistered,” traits he says many buyers find desirable.
“People have second and third and fourth and fifth homes, but they’re not in communities necessarily,” Waters said. “It’s a different lifestyle here. You come and you have a chance to be a neighbor and to have a neighbor and friends who care about you and what’s going on in your life. It makes for a true community.”
Stewart Satter, a Manalapan commissioner who made mansion redevelopment a “hobby” of his when he moved to town, says today’s prices are driven by basic economics — “a crushing demand and zero inventory.”
He purchased four ocean-to-Intracoastal lots in 2005, paying just under $5 million each for the properties, and picked up another for $6.8 million in 2010. One he kept as his own home; a second he sold in 2010. The three others all have connections to the recent market surge, catching the eyes of interested buyers.
“They’re getting square footage, they’re getting extraordinary finishes, getting extraordinary views,” Satter says. “There’s no inventory and people want these extraordinary homes and they’re willing to pay for them.”
Among Satter’s properties:
• 1660 S. Ocean Blvd. sold for $38.875 million in December 2020, the most expensive sale in Manalapan that year.
• 1560 S. Ocean Blvd. sold for $16.35 million in 2013. It went on the market again last year, selling for $26.2 million in February 2021.
• 1400 S. Ocean Blvd. sold for $25.2 million in 2016. The property is now on the market for $75 million.
“I think the buyer of my house at 1660 could sell that house for $20 million more today, easily, because there’s nothing for sale. It’s a one-of-a kind house,” he says.
Pascal Liguori, a broker associate with Premier Estate Properties who represented the buyer of 1660, says Satter might not be far off. He said his clients were “jaw-dropped” by the new construction — its finishes, floor plan, views and contemporary style.
“They saw it and bought it within a week. It was stunning,” Liguori says. “Manalapan is the perfect place for a contemporary-style house. You have glass on both sides. You look out one way, you see the ocean. You look out the other way, you see the Intracoastal. You really get the perspective that you’re on an island.”
Satter has a vacant lot at 1260 S. Ocean Blvd. that he purchased for $15.45 million in March 2021. He was offering to build a home there and sell it for $125 million, a number not seen before for a spec home. Instead, he says he will close in March on a contract to sell the property for $42.5 million — almost tripling his investment in a year. The sale comes with permitting in place and construction plans ready to move forward.
“They’re going to step into my shoes and let my general contractor build it for them with some minor changes inside,” saving millions of dollars, Satter says.

Value is often in the land
As that deal shows, the value of a property doesn’t have to be in a house. Buyers may be more interested in Manalapan’s biggest draw — its 60-or-so ocean-to-Intracoastal properties that Satter says give their owners “the best of both worlds.”
Oceanfront mansions built in the 1980s and 1990s often don’t have the amenities that are in demand today. Satter says his contractor has three current projects on properties with direct ocean access, including one that was a knockdown and another that was raw land where a house had been demolished years ago.
“There are a couple of sales of direct oceanfront that have not been recorded yet, in the $30 million range, and they’re going to knock down the houses,” Satter says. “People are spending a lot of money for land because you can’t find it in Palm Beach. It’s already been picked over and developed.”

Sharing the spotlight
Other communities, some not considered pricey enclaves, have also experienced their own price surges.
A house in South Palm Beach — one of only four in the town — sold for $10 million in December 2020 after selling for $3 million just four years earlier.
Most people in South Palm Beach live in condos, which also made tremendous gains in 2021.
The centerpiece of the town’s condo market is its newest tower, 3550 South Ocean, which opened in 2019 and is decades younger than the others in town.
The top 24 highest-priced condo sales in town the past four years have been units at 3550 South Ocean. Nine were recorded in 2019 and 15 in 2021 for prices ranging from $1.5 million to $6.45 million. Only seven other condo sales in town — five in 2021 and one each in 2020 and in January 2022 — topped $1 million.
“It’s the only new building along that strip of buildings,” says Satter, who has friends living in 3550 South Ocean. “People want new if they can get it. They don’t want to live in a 30-year-old unit.”
Older condos may not be getting prices at that premium, but they’ve done well in today’s tight market. That’s seen in South Palm Beach’s average sales price in its nearly condo-exclusive market, which rose 35% last year.

Where the sales are
Still, when it comes to expensive island properties, not even Manalapan comes close to the sales taking place in the town of Palm Beach, just a short drive north on State Road A1A.
Palm Beach had eight of the county’s 10 highest residential sales prices in 2021, 2020 and 2018, and six of the top 10 in 2019. Manalapan managed only two entries in the top 10 last year and one sale in each of the previous three years.
Of the town of Palm Beach sales, eight were for over $50 million in 2021, including sales of $122.7 million at 535 N. County Road and $109.6 million at 1840 S. Ocean Blvd.
“Palm Beach has an incredible brand and certain people are willing to pay for that brand,” Satter says. But Liguori says the tight housing market may be opening buyers’ eyes to Manalapan and other South County coastal alternatives.
“The people that would come to Palm Beach to look for property, typically wouldn’t look south to Manalapan,” Liguori says. “In the last two or three years, that’s changed drastically. … People are seeing it as a very good alternative.”
Other coastal communities are also seeing more high-priced sales.
From 2018 through 2021, South County coastal communities besides Manalapan had 66 sales of $10 million or more, with half of those sales coming in 2021. A dozen — all but two from 2021 — sold for between $20 million and $34 million.
Where were those 66 sales? Nearly half — 32 — were in Boca Raton. Another 11 were in Highland Beach, 10 were in Delray Beach, eight were in Gulf Stream, three were in Ocean Ridge, and there was one each in Lantana and South Palm Beach.
In 2021, of the 33 coastal South County sales of at least $10 million recorded outside of Manalapan, there were 10 each in Boca Raton and Delray Beach, nine in Highland Beach, and two each in Gulf Stream and Ocean Ridge.
In other coastal communities since the pandemic began, a top sale of $7 million was recorded on Hypoluxo Island in Lantana, one for $3.9 million in Boynton Beach and one for $950,000 in Briny Breezes.

How hot is too hot?
Despite the record sales happening, the county’s real estate market is not as overheated as it was leading up to the market crash experienced here during the Great Recession, says Ken Johnson, an associate business dean and real estate expert at Florida Atlantic University.
Johnson and Florida International University Professor Eli Beracha have created a ranking that looks at housing market overpricing in the country’s top 100 metro areas (www.business.fau.edu/housingtop100).
While homes in South Florida, including Palm Beach County, were selling in January for 23% above what would be expected based on long-term pricing trends, that was still the lowest of any region in Florida and ranked 57th of the 100 nationally.
“This is not a Top 10 list you want to make,” Johnson says.
What it shows is that South Florida buyers may have learned from the earlier beating here, when prices went from selling for 80% above what would be expected historically in 2006 to plummeting to 28% below the expected long-term trends over the next five years.
Palm Beach County is not at the same risk today. Instead of the tremendous oversupply of housing it had back then, there is a tremendous undersupply now, Johnson says.
“We’re not going to see a market crash. We might see unaffordable housing for a very long time,” Johnson says. And the luxury market, which he says is consumption-oriented, is the least sensitive to an economic crisis.
“People consume based on their income and their taste. The financial component, the potential gain in value, is far less of a concern for people in Palm Beach, Manalapan,” Johnson says. “No one would walk away from that financial gain, but it’s not the No. 1 driving factor in why they bought the home they bought.”

Buying unlisted homes
Expect the strong housing demand to continue. The state says some 547,000 people exchanged another state’s or country’s driver license for a Florida one in 2021, a 40% increase from 2020.
“That’s an incredible statistic and an indication of what’s coming here. That’s why demand and prices are going to remain strong,” says Bill Mate, a Jupiter Realtor who is on the boards of directors of the Florida and National Realtor associations. “There is little supply and tons of demand.”
As the residential inventory continues to shrink, expect more sales involving unlisted homes, with real estate agents knocking on the doors of the most desirable homes, hoping to convince owners it’s time to sell.
That’s how an $89.9 million sale came about in Manalapan in December. The property was never listed on the market.
“Most recent sales are all going to be off market, simply because the public inventory is diminishing every day,” Adzem says. “A lot of the ultra high-end are oftentimes off market. There is exclusivity, there is special access, there are many reasons. Some sellers also don’t want their property available to the public. They’re private people.”
Persuading homeowners to sell is the tricky part, especially with owners happy to be living on the ocean in South Florida, Malinosky says.
“Sellers are hesitant to sell. Even though they’re selling at record prices, there’s nowhere for them to go,” Malinosky says. “At some point, a seller will sell based on the increased value. In most cases, those sellers have other homes in the state that they can go to.”
The recent surge may have started with the pandemic, but it won’t end there, Mate predicts.
“We’re going to level off a little bit, but we’re not going way down,” Mate says. “It’s a wild, wild time and it’s going to be this way for a while.”

What we examined
The Coastal Star researched qualified single-family and condominium real estate sales — not all sales — from 2018 through early 2022 using data supplied by the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office. The state defines a qualified sale as “an arms-length transaction in an open, competitive market between an informed and typically motivated buyer and seller.” The appraiser’s office uses qualified sales when putting together its mass appraisals. Qualified sales do not include distressed sales, those between affiliated parties, those conveying less than 100% ownership, and those involving government agencies, banks, or loan or mortgage companies.

Related story: Senate seats changing as well

By Joel Engelhardt

For the past decade, coastal residents have had a single Florida House member representing them in Tallahassee. 
This year that’s going to change.
Somewhat mournfully, state Rep. Mike Caruso is saying goodbye to most of his long, narrow coastal district, which included voters from Boca Raton to South Palm Beach and beyond.
Those coastal communities instead will be covered by three House districts drawn horizontally, so that coastal residents will be competing for their representative’s attention with residents from as far west as Florida’s Turnpike in one district and Military Trail in another.
That’s not all bad, political observers say, pointing out that coastal residents will have three advocates in the state House where they now have one, as the House and Senate redraw the maps to account for population shifts identified in the decennial census.  
“Having three representatives giving you attention is probably a bonus,” said Boca-based County Commissioner Robert Weinroth, who for years has seen that play out with three House members representing the city of Boca Raton and west Boca.
The key is that coastal residents vote and contribute to campaigns, said longtime campaign consultant Matthew Isbell. They are an especially important voting bloc in districts that aren’t dominated by a single political party. 
“From a purely political perspective, both (Districts) 87 and 91 are going to be completely fine when it comes to beach issues because in those narrowly (split) districts every vote matters, whether it’s inland or on the beach,” Isbell said. 
The downside is the loss of expertise required to master issues unique to the coastal communities, said Highland Beach Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman, who is running as a Republican for the new House District 91 seat.
“That’s an advantage to have one person to affect the beach, intertributary canals and so forth,” she said. “Chopping it up will put a number of (representatives) in that same community so it would take the three working together to achieve what one person did previously.”
South County coastal residents will have three members in the state Senate as well, as the Senate maps approved by the Legislature in early February also cut horizontally, creating Senate districts for Boca Raton, Boynton-Delray and points north. 
For Caruso, a Republican who represents District 89, it’s bittersweet. He’ll be forced to establish a residence farther north to run in a Republican-leaning District 87 that starts at the Boynton Inlet and covers Hypoluxo, Lantana, Manalapan and South Palm Beach, as well as large swaths of West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens, before ending at Marcinski Road in Jupiter. 
The district went 49.8% for then-President Donald Trump and 49.5% for Joe Biden in 2020, but as of 2020 had a slight edge in Republican registration, figures provided on the Legislature’s redistricting website show.
His new district’s voting-age population would be 71.9% white, 7.5% black and 15.8% Hispanic, legislative calculations show, which is less white than the 2010 figures for his current district (80% white, 7.6% black and 9.5% Hispanic). 
“It saddens me the way that redistricting has come on forces me to have to move,” Caruso said.
Caruso has lived in the South County coastal area for 35 years, and he said he’s not ready to give up all his ties: He’ll hold on to his beachfront condo in Delray Beach.
Caruso has no plans to abandon the Republican Party after the county’s Republican Executive Committee censured him in February for his endorsement of a Democrat, Katherine Waldron, for a House seat in a predominantly Democratic district. The local party officials asked state party leadership to prohibit Caruso from running as a Republican ever again, a step he said the state party assured him it would not take. 
The Democratic leanings of the new District 90 covering Delray Beach and Boynton Beach didn’t work for him. “They turned that into a plus-22 (point) Democratic seat,” he said. “So I can’t stay there.”
Legislative calculations show 60.5% support in the new district for Biden in 2020 and 38.8% for Trump.
That seat is where incumbent Joe Casello, a Democrat, plans to run. Coastal representation is new territory for Casello, who points out that his old District 90 didn’t go east of Interstate 95.
That being said, he pointed to his long ties to the area and his time on the Boynton Beach City Commission. “I’m excited about it,” he said.
The district would go from the northern tip of Highland Beach to the Boynton Inlet and west to Military Trail. The Legislature calculated the voting-age population as 58.5% white, 24% black and 13.3% Hispanic.
As for having three members? “We all work as a team up here. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. This way you have three voices here,” Casello said.
Farther south, Boca Raton and Highland Beach fall into District 91, Emily Slosberg-King’s seat that used to run entirely inland. The new map has it encompassing all of Boca Raton and much of west Boca, as well as the coast to nearly the Delray Beach line.
Slosberg-King, a Democrat, has announced she will not run again, setting off a surge of interest in the district that voted 52% for Biden in 2020 and 47.5% for Trump and has a voting-age population of 71.5% white, 6% black and 14% Hispanic.
A day after Slosberg-King’s announcement, Boca Raton Councilman Andy Thomson said he would run in District 91 as a Democrat. Gossett-Seidman and west Boca resident Christina DuCasse moved quickly, too, saying they would seek the Republican nomination. 
A fourth South County seat, District 92, would be carved out of the area’s western fringe, running from the Broward line north to Hypoluxo Road. Rep. Kelly Skidmore, a Democrat, would be seeking her second term in that district.
The state’s 120 House districts contain about 180,000 people each while the 40 Senate districts contain about 538,000 people each. Legislators are required to redraw the maps every 10 years to keep the districts uniform in population.

Related story: New map carves barrier island into three districts for state House

By Joel Engelhardt

Despite the larger size of Senate districts, the southernmost section of Boca Raton (south of Glades Road) would fall into a Senate District 30 dominated by Broward County residents. Voters in the district, which went 60-40 for Joe Biden in 2020, could be asked to pick between incumbent Democrats Gary Farmer and Tina Polsky.
Sen. Lori Berman, a Democrat, holds the Delray-Boynton District 31 now, which runs from Highland Beach to South Palm Beach along the coast. She would lose several coastal communities in a new District 26, which would extend along the beach from Glades Road to the Boynton Inlet. It would go farther west than her current district, spanning the whole county to take in Belle Glade and South Bay. 
The voting-age population would be 65% white, 15.8% black and 14.5% Hispanic.
District residents voted 58-41 for Biden.
Farther north, District 24 would start at the Boynton Inlet and stretch along the coast through Hypoluxo, Lantana, Manalapan and South Palm Beach all the way to PGA Boulevard, roughly approximating Sen. Bobby Powell’s current District 30. The district went 62-38 for Biden.
The new maps passed with bipartisan support in the Florida Senate and the Florida House.
Unlike congressional maps, the state House and Senate maps are not reviewable by the governor. The last stop before they become law is the Florida Supreme Court.

Tristen Willis, 10, studies the board as he competes with Deb Peters at the Delray Beach Pavilion. It’s part of James McCray’s effort to teach chess, mainly to young players. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

By 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday, well before the parking lots filled and beachgoers crowded State Road A1A and Atlantic Avenue, James McCray and Samuel Spear Jr. were busy preparing the Delray Beach Pavilion. They arranged a basket of bananas, apples and mandarin oranges. Filled a bucket with bottles of iced tea and purified water. Displayed the T-shirts neatly.
Then they positioned seven small folding tables and chairs along the Pavilion’s rail and placed a chessboard and hand sanitizer on each.
Finally, McCray hung the banner. “Community That Plays Together Stays Together/James Chess Club, Est. 2020.”
“The appeal of chess is love,” he said. “When you learn to love a game, you learn to love yourself.”
Since June 2020, James McCray has taught twice-weekly chess games for boys and girls at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum on Northwest Fifth Avenue. The children think they’re learning how to play a game.
McCray, 72, believes they’re learning how to live a life. “In both chess and life, the only opportunity for growth comes from experience,” he reasons. “With experience, you get better at both chess and life.”
On Dec. 29, McCray arranged to set up at the Pavilion, his first effort at spreading his love of chess, and life, to the larger community. This Feb. 19 event was his second downtown gathering.

James McCray plays chess with Samuel Spear Jr.

Chess vs. life decisions
Tables set, refreshments ready, McCray and Spear waited for players to appear.
“It’s all in the hand of God,” McCray said.
And they waited some more. James McCray’s fledgling effort to make chess a public pastime in Delray Beach has noble predecessors.
In 2017, a chess enthusiast in the Netherlands named Jesus Medina Molina set up three chess sets in a public park in the city of Utrecht, and “The Urban Chess Project” was born. To date, more than 40 cities throughout the Netherlands have followed Utrecht’s example and placed games in their public parks. New York City’s Washington Square Park is famous for its outdoor chess tables, where fabled master Bobby Fischer once played, and Chicago offers chess tables in four of its public parks.
The most famous outdoor chess game dates to 1454 in the northern Italian city of Marostica. Sept. 12, 1454, to be exact. According to the story, two noblemen fell in love with Lionora, a daughter of the local lord, Taddeo Parisio, and challenged each other to a duel for her hand.
However, Parisio was a peaceful man, so he decreed that they would play a game of chess rather than risking bloodshed, with the winner winning Lionora and the loser her younger sister, Oldrada. The moves of that game, and the winner, are lost to history, but on Sept. 12 in even-numbered years, thousands gather in Marostica’s town square to watch human chess pieces re-create that legendary game on a chessboard 58 feet long on each side.
McCray is happy if he can keep his Pavilion tables busy with his students and passersby enjoying a game he’s played for 50 years.
“Same old story,” he says. “We had neighborhood games, and chess was different from basketball and baseball. I went for chess because I don’t like to be hit.”
Eddie Rodgers, 69, a West Palm Beach native, has been playing chess with McCray for 40 years.
“James uses chess for his life decisions,” says Rodgers, whose father taught him the game. “To me, it’s a game first, but I realize its importance in making life decisions. Some pieces are more or less important in your life, just as some decisions you make are more or less important.” Samuel Spear Jr. is a relative newcomer, having played only 11 years.
“It brings people together,” he says, “and you can pause a minute. You can just sit there and study the board. It’s not like some games, where you have to go crazy.”

‘It’s a mindset game’
Shortly after 10 a.m., Mary McKinzy of Riviera Beach arrived with her grandchildren, Tristen Willis, 9, and Taya Willis, 6.
Tristen, a third-grader at Trinity Christian School, is the chess player. Taya nibbled an apple.
“I play golf, too,” he announced. “I like both. With golf, I get to play with people, and when I get bored I can play chess alone.”
This Saturday morning, he played chess with Deb Peters, a retired elementary school teacher from Long Island who taught computer chess to 500 kids. Chin in hand, he studied the board. He frowned. He moved. She frowned. She moved. They moved.
Does he smell victory?
“I sure do,” he said, and his sense of smell proved true. They shook hands. Peters was gracious in defeat.
“Did you let him win?” a cynical spectator asked.
“Absolutely not!” she exclaimed.
“It’s fun to win,” Tristen said in a postgame interview, “but even if I lose I’m happy because I got to play. And even if you lost, you can always win the next one.”
This is one of the life lessons McCray wants to impart.
“I try to teach the little ones you don’t have to always be successful to be happy,” he says. “And you will lose sometimes. But make sure you don’t give up.”
Now Thomas Norris arrived with his son, Ethan, 9, a third-grader at Boca Raton Elementary School.
“James taught me to play,” Ethan said. “It’s a mindset game, not like video games like Fortnite and Call of Duty. I play those games, but not as much. I get bored. I never get bored with chess.”
What he’s learned, Ethan said, is that chess has three kinds of moves: dumb moves, great moves and reasonable moves.
“Never make a dumb move or a bad move,” he said. “Don’t give your pieces away, and don’t rush. Take your time.”
Patience is another life lesson McCray teaches through chess.
“Be patient and appreciate every moment,” he tells young players, “both in life and in chess. And either way, you’re going to lose someday.”
Ethan played until his father returned with a burger and fries to interrupt the game. Ethan ate the burger and fries, then fell asleep on a bench.

William Horan and Matthew Heles play chess at the Delray Beach Pavilion. They walked up from the beach and found the chess event in progress.

As morning turned to afternoon, a few more players appeared, a few kids, and even more adults, passersby who stopped for a quick game in the Pavilion’s shade.
Among them was a large pink flamingo named Matthew Heles, 19.
Climbing the Pavilion steps from the beach, Heles wore one of those inflatable flamingo costumes, cleverly tricked out to make it appear he’s riding the giant flamingo. He was accompanied by his friend William Horan, 27, dressed like a normal human being.
“Chess is great for learning patience,” Heles said, “and learning to think ahead. I’m very impulsive — obviously, I’m wearing a pink flamingo costume — so it’s good for me to sit down.”
Heles and Horan sat down and played a game.
The flamingo won.

The James Chess Club meets Thursdays 5-7 p.m. and Saturdays noon-2 p.m. at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, 170 NW Fifth Ave., Delray Beach. Lessons are for children, but all ages are welcome to play. For more information, call 561-352-7145.

Goodwill has long been the bedrock of our community newspaper. Yes, we provide news, information and entertainment for our readers, but our foundation is based on the goodwill we receive from the businesses and residents in our coastal communities.
Much of this approval and support has been developed by the newspaper’s commitment to providing quality on every single page, every single month.
As the years (almost 15!) have rolled along we’ve juggled and honed the paper to accommodate the needs of the community as best we can. For the most part, the feedback you’ve provided has been our guide as we’ve moved forward year-to-year.
This month, unfortunately, we find ourselves doing a little downsizing.
Our business has not bounced back from the pandemic as robustly as we anticipated. As a result, we are scaling back the range of calendar items offered each month in our print edition and will only list events that happen within the geographic boundaries of our distribution area: south of Lake Worth Beach, north of Deerfield Beach and east of Interstate 95.
The Palm Beach ArtsPaper in our Around Town section is a separate publication. It will continue to list a select number of events without geographic limitations.
As we reduce our costs by limiting the length of the calendars and the newsprint required to print them, we are expanding the free event listings on our website (www.thecoastalstar.com) and will be happy to show event organizers how to input their own online calendar listings. Just send an email to admin@thecoastalstar.com.
We are making this change to increase income and control expenses to ensure our ability to continue publishing.
We are making this adjustment in good faith and hope by doing so we continue to engender your goodwill.
To make a tax-deductible donation in support of our community journalism, visit https://fpf.column.us/the-coastal-star.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

Sandy Sexton, a Fuller Center volunteer since 2018, has ensured that hundreds of children get ‘the treatments, interventions and education they need,’ Fuller CEO Ellyn Okrent says. Photo provided

By Jan Engoren

Working with children is a passion for Sandy Sexton, a retired speech pathologist for the Palm Beach County School District and resident of Carriage Hill in Boca Raton.
Once she retired in 2018, Sexton continued her work pro bono at the Fuller Center in Boca Raton to get children the services they need. Many of the children come from underserved homes, where parents may be working and/or not able to provide adequately for their children.
“I volunteer because the staff works so hard to do the best for the children,” Sexton says. “The parents want the best for their children but may have limited means.
“My work helps the kids get the step up that they need. When you see the expression on their faces when they’re learning and their eyes open up, they smile a wonderful smile and there’s a brightness in their faces.”
That’s the best part of her work, she says.
Sexton, 71, recalls a 4-year-old boy who had severe dental issues that sometimes hindered his ability to eat and speak. When she learned the parents did not have the resources to procure treatment, Sexton reached out to the Sunrise Rotary Club, where she is a member and past volunteer of the year, and located a colleague and pediatric dentist who provided some information and direction for when treatment woud be most appropriate.
Additionally, she encouraged her fellow Rotarians to help paint classrooms at the Fuller Center West site and to assemble more than 150 bikes for the children that were donated by Boca West Children’s Foundation.She participated in these activities which were initiated and coordinated through the Sunrise Rotary Club.
Her other volunteer activities have included Boca Helping Hands Family Feeding Night, Spirit of Giving, Global Volunteers (Cuba) and the Caridad Ball Committee (2020).
Another satisfying memory for Sexton was helping a 3-year-old child who fell from a tree. He was diagnosed with agenesis of the corpus callosum, a congenital brain abnormality that can cause intellectual deficiencies.
Sexton found services for him, allowing him to enter kindergarten with the language skills he needed to succeed.
“Do something to make someone else’s life better,” says Sexton. “That’s my motto. That’s why I volunteer.”
Ellyn Okrent, CEO of the Fuller Center, says that “we are so grateful for Sandy’s priceless gifts. Her most significant contribution was teaching us how to identify children with special needs and how to work with the school system to get them assessed and to access the services and interventions they need.
“Sandy’s gift of wisdom and expertise has ensured that hundreds of children are receiving the treatments, interventions and education they need,” Okrent says.
Sexton, a native of St. Louis, grew up in an era when women were supposed to be housewives, teachers or nurses, but she knew she wanted something else.
In retrospect, she credits her parents, both children of the Depression, with being the role models who shaped her.
“The strength they exhibited made me who I am today,” says Sexton, a Daughters of the American Revolution member whose family traces its roots back to England and Henry VIII. While studying her genealogy, she discovered one of her great-great-grandfathers was a stone mason who helped build the Anheuser-Busch plant in St. Louis.
An inveterate traveler, Sexton has been to 50 countries and says that Peru with its “mystical culture” is her favorite.
In 2015 she traveled to Cuba and was so enamored by the country and its people she returned the following year to teach English to children through a Global Volunteers program.
This year, she returned from a trip to Morocco, where she camped in the Sahara Desert and watched the sun set.
She has hiked to Machu Picchu via the Inca trail in Peru twice and hopes to hike it again. She has plans to hike in Bhutan. She planned to go to Easter Island this year, but the trip was canceled because of the coronavirus. Next year she hopes to visit Japan for cherry blossom season.
Closer to home, Sexton, a widow with one daughter (a tax attorney in Washington, D.C.), enjoys going to the beach, playing pickleball twice a week, riding her bike and swimming.
Sexton says she’s motivated by the joy she sees on kids’ faces when they learn something new.
“Seeing their eyes light up, seeing them be successful and feeling good about themselves is what makes me happy and keeps me going,” she says.

NOMINATE SOMEONE
TO BE A COASTAL STAR
Send a note to news@thecoastalstar.com
or call 561-337-1553.

By Joe Capozzi

Residents in Briny Breezes and Ocean Ridge can expect to see more police activity this year — and a greater chance police will stop them — because of a new program aimed at deterring potential criminals from “casing” those towns. 
“We want to create an environment ... where criminals don’t feel welcome to come here,’’ Ocean Ridge Police Chief Richard Jones told Briny’s Town Council on Feb. 24. 
“We want our presence to overwhelm them and every time they drive through the area we want them to see a police car with flashing lights on it with people pulled over.’’  
The proactive approach, launched Jan. 10 in response to a rash of car thefts and boat burglaries in Ocean Ridge and neighboring Briny Breezes, calls for officers to initiate action without being dispatched to a call, said Jones, whose department provides police services to Briny Breezes under a contract with the town.
That increases the likelihood drivers will be pulled over for seat-belt violations, broken taillights and rolling through stop signs.
At times “you may be more likely to be stopped because of a traffic infraction,’’ Jones said. “You’re probably not going to get a citation depending on your demeanor with the officer. You’re probably going to get a warning. However, if you are criminal in nature, if you’re here for the wrong reasons, you don’t belong, you will probably get a citation and you may go to jail.’’
From Jan. 10 to Feb. 1, police made 347 incident reports in Briny Breezes. In January 2021, that number was “well below 100,’’ Jones told the council. He didn’t offer specific numbers for Ocean Ridge, but said incident reports there jumped “about 600% in January.’’
It’s too early to declare the program a success, Jones said in an interview after the meeting, but he pointed out that there had been no car or boat thefts since the program took effect.
Jones said police always encounter people who complain about being stopped for what they perceive as minor infractions. But he said he believes residents in both towns will welcome the new program.
In a related matter, Briny Breezes will consider installing a license plate recognition camera at the south end of town later this year. 
There’s a camera on the north end, at Cordova Avenue and State Road A1A, but it can’t capture images on the south end of town, Jones told the council.
Ocean Ridge has four LPR cameras and plans to add four more. A camera on the south end of Briny Breezes would “completely encapsulate both Briny and Ocean Ridge into one single LPR system that really gives us the coverage we need,’’ the chief said.

In other Briny Breezes news:
• The council held a moment of silence to honor former Alderwoman Nancy Boczon, who died Feb. 15. She served on the council from 2008-14. “What I remember most about Nancy was how helpful she was. She knew everything,’’ council President Sue Thaler said. “And her cats, Trixie, Pixie, Dixie, I can’t remember how many she had. One after the other with ‘ixie’ names. Very clever.’’
• The council’s annual organizational meeting will be 3 p.m. March 15 at Town Hall.
• The council will consider appointments to the Planning and Zoning board on March 24. Interested residents should contact the town clerk.

Delray Beach is in a dire state of overcrowding and developers are in denial by ignoring its severity.
To borrow from the movie Don’t Look Up, why not “Look Around!”
What do you see?
There are buildings under construction now, at peak season, causing detours at every turn.
There’s the Atlantic Intracoastal bridge rising and closing while traffic builds up, resulting in a massive tie-up of cars. And to top it off, bike lanes are being added to narrow roads, leaving drivers to creep behind cyclists.
Then what happens? 
Road rage causes a driver to peel out and come close to hitting an oncoming vehicle.
Is this what you call progress? Turning our charming “village by the sea” into a nightmarish “metropolis by the sea”?
What does it matter that tourists have to spend a substantial part of their limited vacation time trapped in traffic?
Profits have been made and those who raked in the money now run to other potentially lucrative locations.
You don’t believe this is serious? What measures, if any, are being taken to address this volume of traffic?
Isn’t it obvious this problem will only get worse once the Atlantic Crossing project is completed? Who will be able to “cross” Atlantic Avenue anymore?
And have you considered the impact this will have on first responders en route to an emergency?
Are you aware of the decline in tourism coming once word gets out? What city dweller, eager for escape from the raucous urban life, wants to land in the same situation on vacation? And what becomes of the Delray residents simply wanting to maintain a peaceful environment?
Wake up!
Look around! Reality is here; it’s a done deal.

— Mary Licata
Highland Beach

It’s very simple. Andrews Avenue in Delray Beach is (together with its side streets) no longer a safe thoroughfare for anyone, due to overcrowded beach access and insufficient recreational parking zones.
Safety is a No. 1 priority regarding traffic mobility — from simple pedestrian passersby to extenuating circumstances that emergency vehicles must contend with to perform their services. The public welfare is at stake here and municipal taxes are paid by everyone to ensure it.
The lack of distinct signage along Andrews Avenue and where needed along the side streets illustrates this inevitable problem.
The south end of Delray Beach has three public parking lots assigned to it; the north end is at a loss for one. Perhaps the lot occupied by the Florida Inland Navigational District could be modified to accommodate both the beachgoer and the environment, similar to the parking facilities at MacArthur Park on Singer Island and Spanish River Park in Boca Raton.
Meanwhile, the pressure continues to build on Andrews Avenue and adjacent streets. It is a problem that all of Delray Beach, sooner or later, must solve.

— James Stonehouse
Delray Beach

In March, the Florida Coalition for Preservation will celebrate its 15th year of community service.
We began in response to a neighborhood crisis. In 2007, a Canadian firm had made a “too good to be true” offer to acquire the tiny town of Briny Breezes, replacing the historic trailer park with a high-rise development serving up to 5,000 residents, guests and staff.
Barrier island citizens rapidly galvanized state and local government support to defeat the proposed plan.
But it was apparent at the time that the “sleepy” oceanfront area from Delray to Ocean Ridge was ripe for radical change. The FCFP board decided to stay in business as long as external pressures threatened the lifestyle of folks living near the ocean and Intracoastal Waterway.
Since its inception, well over a thousand households have donated funds to the coalition as it expanded its reach to address a host of environmental and growth issues affecting stakeholder communities.
For example, we helped to establish a Rising Waters Task Force to cope with potential impact of change in sea levels — literally on a block-by-block basis in our area of Palm Beach County. Select findings of the task force are now being implemented throughout the state.
On the mainland, the coalition has worked closely with builders and residents to assure that major development projects respect the proximity to oceanfront neighborhoods, and that bridges and roads have the capacity to handle increased traffic when construction is completed.
The good news is that most major projects near the bridges have been toned down from initial plans. The bad news is that traffic on the barrier island is already growing exponentially, even before completion of larger projects.
As we enter our 15th year of service, FCFP recognizes that it must redouble efforts on issues relating to growth management, and dealing with multi-jurisdictional decisions involving public health, safety and well-being.
Everyone knows that The Coastal Star barrier island readership prevails among the coalition audience. Our members live and recreate in two cities (Delray Beach and Boynton Beach), three towns (Gulf Stream, Briny Breezes and Ocean Ridge), and the county (Surf Pocket and beaches).
All of these entities are represented by members on the coalition board.
Together they will initiate longer term multi-jurisdictional projects to study such issues as: how best to deal with increased traffic; if and where to locate EMT capacity on the barrier island; how to manage impending state-mandated conversion from septic to sewer systems; when and how to manage height of sea walls; how best to deal with FEMA-required heightening of new-building elevations; and any other threats or opportunities that affect the value and enjoyment of living on or near our barrier island.
We have experience in dealing with complex issues. The community has people who can deal with challenge, and who are willing to fight for good solutions to tough problems. It is our shared obligation to look forward and get involved.
We look forward to many more years of productive service. Feel free to contact us at Community@PreservationFLA.org and take a minute to complete FCFP’s community service survey, so we know what is important to you.

— Bob Ganger, chairman,
Florida Coalition for Preservation

By Mary Thurwachter

The dune restoration project scheduled to begin on Feb. 28 has been delayed until later this year. Lantana Town Manager Brian Raducci said in a news release that “there is insufficient dry beach width at Lantana’s Municipal Beach” to proceed with the project.
Palm Beach town consultants will monitor the shoreline, anticipating a return in November 2022, after sea turtle nesting season, according to the release. “If at that time the proper conditions exist, dune sand will be placed in both the towns of Lantana and South Palm Beach, as planned.”
The undertaking is the result of an agreement among Lantana, South Palm Beach and Palm Beach. Sand will be transported by trucks to Lantana’s beach (and South Palm Beach) from an existing stockpile at Phipps Ocean Park.
The Lantana Town Council approved the agreement during a special meeting Feb. 9.
Mike Jenkins, engineering consultant for Palm Beach, told Lantana officials during a workshop last December that if dune projects are done in concert over a larger area, they tend to perform better.
He said Lantana’s presence in a program with repetitive dune projects means those projects would be eligible for FEMA funds if there’s a declared disaster after a hurricane.
South Palm Beach will pay for the sand in exchange for ocean access from Lantana.
The Barefoot Mailman Family Beach Day, scheduled for March 5, will be held as planned at the beach park.

By Joe Capozzi

A judge has rejected developer William Swaim’s request for an easement across land behind Ocean Ridge Town Hall so he can access two submerged lots his company owns in the Intracoastal Waterway. 
Swaim’s Waterfront ICW Properties Inc. has appealed the Jan. 3 ruling by Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Donald Hafele, who cited several reasons for dismissing with prejudice the company’s request to access land owned by the town and Spanish Creek LLC.
For one, Hafele wrote, the access route sought in Swaim’s lawsuit “is not the ‘nearest practical route’ to” State Road A1A. The nearest route, the judge wrote, traverses land owned by Wellington Arms, which ICW Properties sued in 2015 before reaching a settlement with the condominium in 2020. 
The judge also cited “concerns over the validity” of old deeds submitted by ICW Properties in the company’s claim that the land was part of a right of way dedicated to the public in 1955.
The state law cited by Swaim in his claim requires that the land seeking access to the nearest road be used for a specific purpose. The land is submerged and surrounded by water in an environmentally sensitive lagoon. 
Residents and environmentalists have been horrified at the thought of someone ripping out mangroves and trucking in fill to turn the wildlife-rich lagoon into a construction site and another Florida development.
From the outset, Swaim has asserted that the lagoon is not a pristine natural wetland but rather a construction project by the Army Corps of Engineers, which dredged out the area decades ago for mosquito control. 
That argument was bolstered by Hafele in 2019 in a separate case, against the state of Florida, when the judge ruled that the mangrove-rich lagoon was largely man-made and not navigable in its original state some 180 years ago. That decision recognized Swaim’s lots as buildable land that isn’t protected as sovereign by state statutes.
But in ICW’s two-day trial last summer against Ocean Ridge and Spanish Creek, “there was little to no evidence supporting a present and good faith intent” that the company intended to build anything on the submerged land, Hafele wrote Jan. 3.  
“Mr. Swaim testified that he intends to ‘wait and see’ before ICW decides what to do with the property. Swaim further testified that ICW may sell the property to a developer or other commercial enterprise so they can develop the property as they wish. … ICW’s plan to ‘wait and see’ is not grounds for relief under state law.’’
The property sought by Swaim was acquired by the town in 1999 from a private landowner for the construction of Town Hall in 2008. 
“In sum the evidence presented clearly reflected that this proposed route is not the nearest practical route nor is it even reasonably practical, given that it would traverse submerged property including well-established conservation areas,’’ wrote Hafele, who heard arguments in a nonjury trial in August.
Swaim’s request was just one of several legal maneuvers attempted over the years by companies he owns, including lawsuits and claims against other property owners and agencies. He is also involved in at least six similar lawsuits in Broward County.
In 2021 a federal lawsuit filed by ICW against the town alleging a claim for inverse condemnation and damages in the amount of $10 million was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice. That case is now closed.
In all cases, town officials have been careful to avoid making public comments, especially since Swaim on Jan. 28 filed an appeal to Hafele’s Jan. 3 ruling with the Fourth District Court of Appeal.
“A tremendous amount of work was put into this, and the judgment in our favor will help to protect the town’s investment in the Town Hall facility and drainage system, and help to maintain the environmentally sensitive lands located to the west of Town Hall, while also protecting the interests of our residents,’’ Town Manager Tracey Stevens told town commissioners Feb. 7 in rare public comments about Hafele’s most recent ruling, remarks that were part of her annual performance evaluation.
But an attorney for the law firm that successfully defended Ocean Ridge in the easement case held no punches in court papers requesting Swaim be ordered to pay the town’s legal fees. 
“Fatally flawed from the moment of its filing, this lawsuit was a brazen attempt to misuse section 704.04, Florida statutes for purposes outside its plain language and scope,’’ Lyman H. Reynolds of Roberts, Reynolds Bedard & Tuzzio wrote in a Jan. 31 filing.
“Worse than that, the plaintiff manufactured the ‘evidence’ supporting its claim, acquiring deeds from defunct corporations, baselessly fabricating property boundaries to suit its narrative and otherwise promoting imaginary property rights to drive its meritless legal theory for access rights through submerged environmentally protected property to the middle of a creek.’’

The side of the project at 6273 N. Ocean Blvd. that faces A1A appears to some as a parking garage, not a single-family residence. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Joe Capozzi

To the relief of dozens of residents, Ocean Ridge commissioners have issued a stop-work order on the so-called parking garage house, a property that has been under construction and a source of complaints for nearly seven years. 
Delays, noise, design changes and code violations at the property at 6273 N. Ocean Blvd. have made the project “the poster child” for several updates to the town’s buildings codes aimed at preventing similar situations, Mayor Kristine de Haseth said.
Residents living near the property have gotten the worst of it since the first building permit was issued in May 2015 — from changes allowing a roof deck and fronting with no windows or doors to noise from generators and trucks to a sluggish pace of construction. 
Changes to the building’s appearance from State Road A1A prompted frustrated residents over the years to coin nicknames such as “the parking garage house” and “the fort.’’
“The original plans were beautiful plans, in compliance with town rules. Then, it was not built accordingly,’’ town building official Durrani Guy told the commission on Feb. 7. 
“In 2019, it was halted. For some reason they were allowed to revise their plans and move forward,’’ he said. “The hope was they would be finished quickly, but it has not happened. … At the pace they are moving, we’re probably looking at another 24 months.’’
A construction manager for the property, speaking at the Feb. 7 meeting, blamed the slow progress on supply chain issues, labor problems and unspecified COVID-19 deaths. He said the work could be done in three more months, but residents and commissioners didn’t buy that.
“This is a site that has skipped (under) the radar too long and it’s time for the commission to act. The community is paying the price,’’ John Shibles, who lives directly south of it, told commissioners. 
When town commissioners voted 4-0 to issue a stop-work order and reject what would have been a sixth building-permit extension, concerned residents at the meeting erupted in applause. Commissioner Steve Coz was absent. 
The property is owned by Oceandell Holdings LLC, whose manager is listed in state records as Andrew Abony of Toronto. The project has been accruing daily fines of $250 since last summer. 
“Money is not a motivator here. If it was a motivator it would have been built and occupied a long time ago,’’ de Haseth said Feb. 7.
As a result of their action, town officials were able to get what they said was the first direct response from the owner in three years. On Feb. 16, town staff met with the owner and discussed the town’s concerns.
He plans to submit a request to renew the building permit at the March 7 commission meeting, Town Manager Tracey Stevens said. 

Chief reports on Old Ocean
Police Chief Richard Jones said he was preparing to issue citations to pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists who disobey traffic rules while using Old Ocean Boulevard. 
Although commissioners plan to hold a workshop soon to address safety on the oceanfront road, Jones said something needs to be done now. 
“It is completely out of control,’’ he told commissioners Feb. 7, saying his initial plan is to educate the public first. 
If that doesn’t work, citations will have to be issued at some point, he said. 
“We will give it some time before we truly begin the enforcement process. The educational campaign has to start somewhere. We can’t wait for a solution that takes a year down the road for a problem that’s become a public safety issue,’’ the chief said. 
“I know it’s not going to be popular because people use that more as an exercise path than they do a roadway, but unfortunately it is a roadway. We need to address it before someone gets hurt or injured.’’
Commissioner Geoff Pugh, concerned about the reaction from residents, asked the chief to hold off on issuing citations and focus on education.
“If you start issuing warnings, this place at the next town meeting will be standing-room-only screaming at us,’’ he said, adding that the problem subsides in the off-season. 
Jones said he was worried about liability issues. 
“We continue to talk about the fact that we know it’s an issue, but nobody wants to address the issue including the Police Department because we didn’t want to create a negative situation with residents,’’ he said. “That’s not the intention. That’s why we want to start an educational campaign that leads to that, but we have to do something.’’ 
More than a dozen residents have volunteered to serve on a task force to come up with safety measures for Old Ocean Boulevard. But before going ahead with that, commissioners will host a workshop.

In other business:
• Repairs on three bridges, at Sabal Island, Inlet Cay and Island drives, are expected to start in March, town officials said. 
The repairs, recommended during routine inspections by the Florida Department of Transportation, include addressing cracks in the asphalt, chipped-away concrete and exposed steel under the bridges, cleaning and painting corrosion stains, and restriping. 
While the state says the repairs are minor and the bridges don’t pose any danger, the fixes are required to prevent further damage. The repairs will cost about $87,500, which is in the town budget. 
Residents will be notified about ingress and egress plans. The town wants to complete the work by September. 
• Stevens received a positive evaluation from commissioners, who voted to raise her salary to $132,500, from $125,000, retroactive to Jan. 4. “We’ve never had such a strong town manager at least in the 20 years I’ve been involved with this town,’’ de Haseth said.  
• Commissioners voted 3-1 to endorse an ordinance change that would raise to 8 feet the height on walls surrounding sewage treatment facilities in town. The current limit is 6 feet but town officials discovered several condominiums have 8-foot walls. Because of “what can emanate from these plants,’’ town officials agreed the easiest solution was to raise the limit to 8 feet. Pugh voted no because he wanted the Planning and Zoning Commission to review the issue. 
• The observation tower at Ocean Ridge Natural Area is closed to the public as it undergoes repairs by Palm Beach County, which is also repairing some of the area’s sidewalks. The work is expected to be done by early March.

By Joe Capozzi

South Palm Beach is basking in South Florida’s “extremely hot” real estate market, with robust condominium sales last year promising a significant boost in tax revenue in the coming budget year, Town Manager Robert Kellogg said.
A “whopping” 309 units, about one-sixth of the town’s condo inventory, were sold in 2021, with a combined sale value of $124 million, or more than $400,000 per unit, he told the Town Council on Feb. 8.
Kellogg’s figures were based on all sales in town, not just “qualified sales.” The Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office uses qualified sales, which are sales between willing buyers and sellers, in its mass appraisals that determine market value.
In 2020, 194 condo units in town were sold for a combined sales total of about $43.3 million. Sales that contributed to a $78 million jump in the town’s taxable value that year included the just-completed $70 million luxury condo, 3550 South Ocean.
“As you know the real estate market in South Florida has been extremely hot for the past 12 months,’’ Kellogg said. “It’s going to continue to stay hot.’’ 
Early this year, one condo sold for more than $1 million, he said.
“The real question is what is this going to equate to in additional revenue when we get our new valuation in taxable value in June? I’m pretty optimistic you’re going to be happy with what you see,’’ he said. 
Last year, property values in South Palm Beach jumped 4.4% to $458.5 million from $439 million in 2020. That allowed the Town Council to lower the tax rate to $3.50 per $1,000 of assessed value from the previous year’s rate of $3.54.
Preparations for the 2022-23 budget are expected to begin in May.
In other business:
• The town attorney plans to meet with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to review options for protecting pedestrians on sidewalks along State Road A1A. 
Councilman Bill LeRoy broached the issue because of concerns about pedestrians wandering onto the shoulder of the road when sidewalks are crowded with pedestrians and bicyclists or blocked by commercial vehicles.  
Among options mentioned at the Feb. 8 meeting were requiring commercial vehicle owners to provide flagmen and cones or to hire off-duty law enforcement to direct pedestrians, and posting signage in condo buildings reminding people to stay off the road.
At the suggestion of Councilman Mark Weissman, town attorney Aleksandr Boksner (who works with longtime town attorney Glen Torcivia) will discuss options with PBSO’s legal counsel.
In January 2019, a 75-year-old man was killed when he was struck by a car while walking north on the shoulder of State Road A1A between the Lantana Municipal Beach parking lot and the Imperial House condominium.
“We’ve got to do everything we can to protect everybody. We’ve got to get them off the road,’’ LeRoy said Feb. 8. “I don’t want anybody to get hurt or killed out there.’’
• Architects designing options for a new or renovated Town Hall are expected to present their renderings to the Town Council in March. Kellogg said the presentation will probably be given at a workshop a week or two after the March 8 election.
• At a special meeting Feb. 17, the Town Council directed the town manager to apply for a Florida Department of Transportation permit for the installation of up to 45 solar light posts along A1A and around Town Hall. The posts, technically called bollards, will cost the town $67,000 and complement existing street lights, Kellogg said. 
• An ice cream party celebrating the life of the late Lenny Cohen will be held at 2 p.m. March 20 outside Town Hall, 3577 S. Ocean Blvd. Treats for “Lenny Cohen’s A Life Well-Lived Ice Cream Social” will be supplied by the Ice Cream Club. Cohen died Dec. 7. A tribute scheduled for Jan. 2 was postponed because of the pandemic.

(l-r) Chamber president and moderator Dave Arm at the Feb. 24 forum with candidates John Raymer, Lynn Moorhouse, Joe Farrell, Media Beverly, Ed Schropshire and Kem Mason. Mary Thurwachter/The Coastal Star

Related stories: Six candidates square off in two races | Town bids farewell to Malcolm Balfour after nine years on council

By Mary Thurwachter

Six candidates for two seats on Lantana’s Town Council discussed several topics — agreeing on many of them — during a forum hosted by the Lantana Chamber of Commerce at the Palm Beach Maritime Academy on Feb. 24. They showed enthusiasm for the master plan, want beach restoration, and are interested in attracting good, taxpaying businesses.
But when moderator and Chamber President Dave Arm asked if any of them would be open to a public/private partnership for adding restaurants and a hotel at the public beach, the majority answered with a resounding “no.” Such a proposal has not been formally made, but rumors have swirled about it since early last year.
“I don’t want a hotel at the beach,” said Lynn Moorhouse, the only incumbent running. Moorhouse, a retired dentist, said that traffic flow is already bad over the bridge and if a hotel were built at the beach, traffic “would be nuts.”
Traffic was also a concern for Media Beverly, a longtime council watcher who successfully advocated to keep medical marijuana dispensaries out of town.
“Hotel? No,” she said. “I’ve talked to a lot of people during this campaign in all of Lantana and I’ve asked them and it’s a resounding ‘no.’ Our beach is only 750 feet; that’s all we have. For a lot of people in this town, that’s the only recreational source they have. To put a hotel up there, even with incorporated parking, you’re still talking about traffic. To add any traffic in that corridor would not be sustainable.”
Former council member Ed Shropshire, a retiree who lost his bid for reelection two years ago, said the beach is a treasure and should be treated as such. While not in favor of a hotel, he said the beach “could be utilized a little bit better, without crowding out the people.”
Kem Mason, a retired firefighter and former lifeguard and surfer, was also against the idea.
“No hotel, that’s one of our jewels,” he said of the beach. “I can speak for all the surf rats, and, no, no hotel.”
Newcomer John Raymer, an Army veteran who manages Ace Rental Place, and Joe Farrell, a flooring distributor who has run for office before, said they would be open to looking at it. Raymer said it would be “up to the residents to decide,” and Farrell said adding a hotel could be a way to bring in new revenue.
When candidates were asked about how they would bring more revenue to the town, Farrell said the town needs to “make things happen that we didn’t think about before.” He said that 10 years ago one of his neighbors suggested selling Bicentennial Park for condo development and having the town buy the Cenacle property for a waterside park.
“The Cenacle property’s gone so we don’t have to worry about it,” he said. “But we have to look at ideas like that.”
Beverly said the town needs to rein in some of its expenses and add businesses, “but we have to be careful, very prudent and we have to be strategical about it. There’s very limited commercial space here in Lantana.”
She said code revision and zoning need to be tackled to attract business and there is grant money the town hasn’t tapped into that could help with many projects.
Shropshire said he thinks the town needs to do a better job of vetting contractors.
“For example, the major contractor for the library bailed because he didn’t have the correct certification.” The library will “sit there another two months before they even start again. We’re losing money like that,” Shropshire said.
Mason said as someone who worked for the government as a lifeguard and firefighter for more than three decades, he has seen a lot of waste.
“We need to instill in our employees not to waste. And we need to work with businesses to come to town, we cannot discourage businesses from coming to the town — they pay taxes and help support us.”
Moorhouse said a lot of money would be coming in from Water Tower Commons, a retail and residential project on the site of the former A.G. Holley hospital, and from Aura Seaside, an apartment complex on the former Cenacle site.
Moorhouse and Raymer said they would look to the new master plan for guidance in bringing in revenue.
In a related matter, candidates learned that all campaign signs on Lantana Road had been removed in the middle of the night on Feb. 23. Police Chief Sean Scheller reported that a video captured by a camera outside of Arm’s gym showed a nondescript man putting signs in a pickup truck.
Scheller said the rightful owners of the signs, the candidates, had not filed any police reports yet, but several said they planned to do so.
The election is March 8.

Malcolm Balfour gets a smooch from Karen Lythgoe at Balfour’s last meeting. Mary Thurwachter/The Coastal Star

Related stories: Six candidates square off in two races | Candidates weigh in on possible hotel at beach

By Mary Thurwachter

There was no celebratory cake in sight, but fellow council members and residents gave Lantana Vice Mayor Malcolm Balfour a standing ovation after the town meeting he presided over on Feb. 28. Balfour, 83, has served on the council since 2013 and is not seeking reelection.
“We want to thank you for your years of service,” said Police Chief Sean Scheller. “You’ve always been there for us.”
Town Clerk Kathleen Dominguez said how much staff enjoyed working with him and that he would “always have a friend in the clerk’s office.”
Although the current mayor, Robert Hagerty, wasn’t present that evening, which is why Balfour presided over the meeting, former Mayor Dave Stewart — who like Balfour lives on Hypoluxo Island — said, “Mr. Balfour has served his community well for nine years. Before voting, he always looked at all aspects of an issue and was a very responsible councilman.”
Chamber of Commerce President Dave Arm said Balfour has “served the town wonderfully” and thanked him for all his support.
Born in South Africa, Balfour and his wife, Ilona, have lived in Lantana since 1972, when he was hired as a journalist for the National Enquirer.
Three people are seeking Balfour’s spot: Media O. Beverly, Kem Mason and Edward P. Shropshire.

In other action, the town:
• Approved a special exception request to allow a tattoo shop at 508 W. Lantana Road.
• Approved a request from First Baptist Church of Lantana to hold Easter sunrise service at the Dune Deck Café at the beach from 5:30 to 7 a.m. on April 17.
• Waived rental fees to allow for tent installation at the Recreation Center for the Lantana Chamber of Commerce’s 27th annual Fishing Derby, May 12-15. For more details, visit www.lantanafishingderby.com/retreats.

Related stories: Candidates weigh in on possible hotel at beach | Town bids farewell to Malcolm Balfour after nine years on council

Lantana will hold a general election March 8 for Town Council members in Group 1 and Group 2. Both are for three-year terms. Council members get paid $600 per month, plus a $200 expense allowance. There are no term limits. To win, a candidate needs to get 50% of the vote plus one. If necessary, a run-off election will be March 22, using the same times and precincts as the general election. Town Clerk Kathleen Dominguez confirmed that this election will have no ballot questions or amendments for voters.

— Steven J. Smith

Related Story: Four candidates compete for two seats |Video

Incumbent helps himself to opponent’s stash of chocolates

By Joe Capozzi

The pile of free chocolate bars would have been an enticing sight for most anyone passing through the lobby of the Dune Deck condominium in South Palm Beach that afternoon.
For one resident, Town Councilman Mark Weissman, the candy was particularly irresistible — and not because of a sweet tooth for Hershey’s, Krackel and Mr. Goodbar.
Each bite-size bar came with a custom-made red, white and blue wrapper with the words “Vote Cindy Furino” on one side and “A Vote For Me Is A Vote For Loyalty, Honesty and Integrity” on the other. 
Furino, who also lives at the Dune Deck, is Weissman’s opponent in the March 8 election, which begins to explain the sequence of events that sent Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies to the Dune Deck lobby on the afternoon of Feb. 4 to investigate, of all things, the alleged theft of a bowl of candy.
Some residents said it was just the latest example of problems under Weissman’s watch that prompted condo residents to vote on Feb. 25 to remove him from the board.
“This is petty behavior for someone who has fiduciary responsibility for the town’s budget,” said Jane Ruby, one of 65 condo owners. “It is grossly unbecoming to someone who wants to maintain his position as an elected official.”
The recall vote was to be reviewed by the board on March 3, but it might not be necessary because Weissman, at a special meeting on March 1, resigned as condo board president.
Weissman told The Coastal Star he stepped down because of “constant harassment” from Furino and about five other residents who have objected to condo repairs that he says are necessary for the structural integrity of the building.
Weissman said his opponents have also accused him of financial mismanagement, which he dismissed by saying he and board members “don’t touch money” because the condo’s management company handles the finances.
Ruby, Furino and others also accused Weissman of harassing residents and questioned his temperament. At the March 1 meeting, a deputy intervened when a shouting match ensued between Weissman and a board member seated next to him who claimed Weissman called him a curse word.
The candy caper was the last straw.
At 12:15 p.m. Feb. 4, not long after Furino set the candy in a bowl by the security guard’s desk on her way to lunch, Weissman entered the lobby and helped himself to not just one or two pieces but all of it. 
With both hands, Weissman emptied the bowl, deposited its contents into his pockets and walked toward the elevator. He paused, turned around and returned to fetch the clear plastic bowl, according to video of the incident reviewed by two deputies.
When Furino returned from lunch two hours later, she asked the doorman why the candy bowl was missing. The doorman said Weissman took it, according to the PBSO report. 
Furino called the cops. 
Reports of theft or vandalism of campaign signs are not uncommon before elections. But stolen campaign candy?  
Deputies showed up at the Dune Deck and, before reviewing security video, asked Weissman what happened. 
Weissman told them “he was aware of the bowl’s removal but would not state if he was involved in it,’’ a report said. 
But in an interview, he admitted he took the bowl of chocolate. He said he did so because the lobby is supposed to be a political-free zone where campaign literature, whether on a pamphlet, a mailer or candy wrapper, is prohibited. 
“We don’t allow politicking in the building. I’m the president. I removed them from the front desk,’’ said Weissman, who said he’d even removed his own campaign mailers from the lobby bulletin board, presumably posted by residents checking their mail. 
If that’s the case, Furino said, he should have removed the candy-filled bowl and taken it to her condo. “But he stole it. He put it in his pockets, and he has a big sweet tooth so we know he ate it,’’ she said.
Although Weissman confessed to having an occasional sweet tooth, he denied stealing or eating Furino’s candy. He said he put the campaign chocolates and bowl in the lobby’s kitchen where Furino kept a backup supply of her campaign candy.
“She had the whole kitchen tied up with bowls full of candy that she wanted the doorman, at the condominium owners’ expense, to continue replenishing for her,’’ he said. 
After a brief investigation, Sgt. Mark Garrison and Deputy David Hul declined to press charges. The incident was classified “a civil issue since the candy and bowl had been left in a common area with no instruction,’’ a PBSO report said. 
“Even though social convention would normally limit a person to one or a few pieces,’’ Hul wrote in his report, “we made it clear there was nothing to stop one person from taking the whole bowl.’’
Furino said she spent $600 on the candy, which she placed in plastic bowls in at least three other condo lobbies in South Palm Beach without incident.
While she was shocked to learn from the Dune Deck’s doorman that Weissman took the candy, more upsetting, she said, was PBSO’s decision not to charge Weissman with a crime. 
“They basically just blew me off, like I was being ridiculous because he took my candy,’’ she said. “It’s not petty. It just shows his character.’’
Weissman, a former state representative and former Parkland city commissioner, laughed when told about Furino’s response. 
“I’ve served in public office for 20 years,’’ he said. “I’ll survive with my character.’’

Related story: Council race turns bittersweet with charge of stolen campaign candy|Video

Four candidates are vying for two at-large seats on the Town Council, each with a four-year term. There are no term limits. The top two vote getters will each win a seat. Council members make $3,000 a year. Town Clerk Yude Davenport said the election will have no ballot questions or amendments for voters.

— Steven J. Smith

U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel listens to Water Treatment Plant Manager James T. Lee at the Delray Beach plant. Photo provided

By Rich Pollack

When U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel and Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia toured the city’s water treatment plant Feb. 8, they took a stroll through a facility that was built before Petrolia was born and when Frankel was just 4 years old.
“It was like you’re walking back to the 1950s,” Petrolia said. “The interesting thing is that it still works.”
That said, both Petrolia and Frankel know that an upgrade is desperately needed and are looking forward to a new water treatment plant, currently in the planning process.
“It’s long overdue,” Petrolia said.
While the city has yet to identify funding sources for the new plant — which is estimated to cost between $60 million and $80 million — Frankel said that federal dollars could be available.
“In the bipartisan infrastructure bill there are two very-low-interest loan programs that the city may be able to take advantage of,” Frankel said.
The law, she said, allocated a total of $35 billion for infrastructure improvements nationwide, with $1.6 billion of that coming to Florida.
Delray Beach is in the process of receiving close to $11 million from the federal government thanks to the earlier-passed American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
About $4.6 million of that is being used as revenue replacement in the city’s 2021-2022 budget. How the city will use the rest will be discussed as the city begins its 2022-2023 budget.
Whether any of that money will be earmarked for a new water treatment plan is still undecided. City leaders are expected to discuss funding for the plant in the next few months.
In the interim, Petrolia said, federal dollars will be helping the city as it takes on as many as 75 capital improvement projects on the horizon. Those projects range from building a new fire station on Linton Boulevard to increasing the reliability of the water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure.
While residents may see some of the projects become reality in the not-too-distant future, it will be several years before a new water treatment plant is working.
Construction isn’t expected to begin until the 2024-2025 fiscal year and the plant isn’t expected to be ready for use until 2026. Although the design phase of the project has not begun, a preliminary feasibility study calls for a nanofiltration and membrane softening plant.
That type of system is similar to reverse osmosis and filters out many types of pathogens but does not require healthy minerals — such as calcium and magnesium — to be added back into the water.
“We’re looking at making higher quality water all around,” Petrolia said, adding that improving the color of the water is also a priority.
She said enhancing Delray Beach’s drinking water has become a priority for the commission for several years and the new plant will make that happen.
“It will ensure a state-of-the-art water treatment process, advance the city’s monitoring and control systems and improve water pressure and serve the needs of the city for many years to come.”