By Jane Smith

George Bush Boulevard, between North Andrews Avenue and State Road A1A, is closed for drainage installation through Aug. 8.

The installation comes as the continuing construction work on George Bush Boulevard moves east of the Intracoastal Waterway bridge in Delray Beach.

City contractors will make utility repairs and improve the drainage.

Eastbound traffic will have to turn south onto Andrews Avenue, then go east on Crestwood Drive to reach A1A. Southbound vehicles on A1A can turn onto Pelican Lane and drive west until Andrews Avenue is reached and then follow that street south to George Bush Boulevard.

Construction work will take place Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Emergency vehicle, local driveway and pedestrian access will be always provided.

George Bush Boulevard is undergoing $2 million of improvements from Northeast Second Avenue to A1A. The project started in July 2021 and is 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 and adding 5-foot sidewalks and bike lanes.

Florida Department of Transportation contractors are doing the roadwork. The main contractor is Hardrives of Delray Inc.

By Jane Smith

A former Delray Beach water quality inspector, who was reorganized out of her job in January, filed a federal lawsuit July 25 against the city, the city manager and the Utilities Department director.

Christine Ferrigan, who had received Florida whistleblower protection from Palm Beach County’s inspector general over problems she reported in the city’s reclaimed water program, said she was let go in January – five days after she filed a written retaliation complaint against two of her Utilities Department supervisors.

The suit is Ferrigan’s second legal action against the city and the first one against the city manager and utilities director. In her federal complaint, she alleges her U.S. and Florida Constitutional rights were violated.

She is seeking back pay, a similar management-level job to the ones she had applied for but was not selected, and compensatory damages against the three defendants. She is also seeking punitive damages against City Manager Terrence Moore and Utilities Director Hassan Hadjimiry “for her pain, emotional and mental suffering, stress, humiliation and reputational harm.”

Her first legal action, a complaint filed in April with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, named only the city.  

Since December, Delray Beach has been operating under a consent order, a legal agreement, with the state Department of Health over the city’s reclaimed water problems. The consent order included a $1 million civil fine against the city, which the city paid on Dec. 7.

The Health Department began its investigation in January 2020 when a South Ocean Boulevard resident called to say she was not properly informed of a cross connection found on her street in December 2018. A cross connection occurs when reclaimed water pipes carrying highly treated wastewater used for lawn irrigation are wrongly connected to the drinking water lines.

The city has spent more than $1 million to inspect each of its reclaimed water locations and add backflow preventers when needed.

Ferrigan previously claimed whistleblower status in Boca Raton in 2008 after she was fired from that city’s water department. After suing the city, she and her attorneys received a $537,500 settlement in 2014 from the city’s insurance company, published reports said. The city did not admit any wrongdoing.

Boca Raton police detectives are investigating an armed robbery that occurred on the barrier island early Sunday morning, July 24.

The two victims arrived home on Banyan Road at 4:28 a.m. after spending the evening at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, police said in a news release. Both victims stated that when they parked and got out of the car, they were approached by a masked Black man who pointed a gun at them and demanded their belongings.

Both victims complied and gave the man their wallets, phones and cash. Both stated he began to flee and before jumping over a concrete wall turned and fired one shot in their direction. The man then got into a dark SUV parked on Banyan Road and fled north. Neither victim was injured.

The incident happened in the 2700 block of Banyan Road. Banyan is a block west of State Road A1A and runs parallel to it from East Camino Real to Southeast 31^st Street.

The suspect is described as being about 5-feet-8-inches to 5-feet-10-inches tall wearing dark pants and a long-sleeve hoodie.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Scott Hanley at 561-338-1344.

— Steve Plunkett

Work to repave Spanish River Boulevard began July 25 at Military Trail, the project’s western end, and will continue eastward to State Road A1A until at least Aug. 12.

“Hopefully the weather is good to us and job will be completed on schedule,” All County Paving project manager Brad Jones said in an email.

“We will do our best to keep traffic moving but some delays should be expected, especially during rush hours,” Jones said.

Workers will grind 1 inch of the existing asphalt on the first day of each section, then repave the road surface on the second day. A tack coat is sprayed first and cannot be driven on until hot asphalt is laid and compacted and the crew reopens the road.

Jones said his company will control the dust caused by the grinding as much as possible. Vehicle access to homes and businesses will be affected during the project’s work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

— Steve Plunkett

Graduation day: Sarah Dagher hugs her mother, Joumana, as her father, Salam, looks on following Gulf Stream School’s graduation ceremony on June 10. Sarah recorded a 99.5% average during her final year at the school, one of the best scores ever recorded there. The Daghers live in Ocean Ridge. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Some families do their homework: Get kids into school first, worry about buying a house later

By Rich Pollack

Beth and Jake Hollinger don’t know exactly where they’ll be living when they leave their Philadelphia home in a few months in order to enjoy the tropical Florida lifestyle.
They do, however, know exactly where their two grade-school-age children will be getting an education.
“The priority was to get into Gulf Stream School,” says Beth Hollinger, explaining that finding a home in coastal Palm Beach County took a back seat to getting the kids into one of the area’s prestigious independent schools. “We’ll just deal with finding a home later.”
As a significant number of affluent families have undertaken a pandemic-driven migration to Florida, they are discovering that only so many slots are available for the high-end private-school educations they want for their children.
Area private schools that once struggled to fill classrooms are now hitting record enrollments and creating waiting lists that can stretch into the hundreds.
Gulf Stream School, for example, is at capacity and has a waiting list with the names of about 70 children on it. Enrollment is at the highest it has been in the last several years and is up about 30% from 2019, prior to the pandemic, according to school leadership. About half of all new applicants come from out of state.
“Next school year we’ll have more students than we had this school year and this year we had more students than we had the year before,” said Michael Mahady, Gulf Stream’s director of admission.
The demand for slots in South Florida private schools stretches far beyond Gulf Stream School, with more and more schools forced to turn students away — at least for now.
A recent story from Bloomberg.com reported that enrollments at 15 private schools in coastal South Florida are up 14% on average over the past two years, compared with a 1.7% increase across the country. Those numbers come from the National Association of Independent Schools.
At Saint Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, with an enrollment topping 1,300, the Bloomberg report said applications have increased 20% in the last year-and-a-half and the waiting list for the pre-kindergarten through 12th grade school has swelled to more than 200 students.

After the graduation ceremony in June, Estella Postma rings the school bell as classmates (l-r) Barbara Gamboa, Gracie Robinson and Lily Thomas wait their turns. Ringing the bell at the beginning and end of the school year is a tradition for eighth-graders. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

One of the main factors limiting the number of students enrolled in these private schools is a commitment to small class sizes. At Gulf Stream School, for example, classroom sizes are usually limited to about 15 or 16 students.
The graduation in June of the entire eighth grade included just 28 students.
While annual tuition at many of these exclusive schools can be pricey, it doesn’t seem to be affecting applications.
At Gulf Stream School, tuition ranges from $18,735 a year for a half-day of pre-K for 3-year-olds to $29,995 for students in the fifth through eighth grades. At Saint Andrew’s School, tuition for students in kindergarten through eighth grade can top $32,000 a year, according to the school’s website.
Gulf Stream School also has a cap of 250 students as a result of a 1994 agreement with the town, and Gulf Stream town records show that agreement remains in place.
For the school, maintaining a strong relationship with town officials as well as with the wider community is a priority even as enrollment hits maximum levels, says Head of School Gray Smith.
“Our discovery is that we can continue to provide — in fact augment — the sense of community and family, and the abiding traditions that make up the Gulf Stream School student, and family experience when the school’s classrooms are at capacity,” he said. “However, we acknowledge that there is a tipping point between school size and achieving our mission, and we have no intention of crossing that line. Our number one intention is to be the best neighbor we can be.”
The cap has meant that in rare instances families have delayed their moves south, more evidence that they are prioritizing the children’s education over the purchase of a home more than ever before.
Pascal Liguori of Premier Estate Properties recalls the recent case where a sale he was handling on a $6-million-plus barrier island home fell through because the deal was contingent on the family’s two children getting into Gulf Stream School.
When that didn’t happen, the deal fell through.
“They postponed the move until they could get them in there,” Liguori said. “For them, it was Gulf Stream School or nothing.”
Steven Presson, luxury Realtor of the Corcoran Group, says that situation is rare. Instead, he says, many of the parents he’s dealt with come with a list of three or four schools that they will tour.
“The nice thing about South Florida is there’s not just one great private school, there are a whole bunch of them,” he said. “In the Palm Beaches, we’re really lucky.”
In Delray Beach, St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic School is seeing increased enrollment and waiting lists in certain grades. For next year, the school’s enrollment is about 415 students.
The school has waiting lists for its pre-K 3 grade as well as its third, sixth and seventh grades. Other classes had availability of only one to three spaces as of mid-June.

Jake and Beth Hollinger enrolled children Kaje and Elason at Gulf Stream even before they found a house in Florida. Photo provided

The Hollingers — the Philadelphia couple who will be sending their son Kaje, 6, and daughter Elason, 9, to Gulf Stream School next year — brought their children with them as they looked at a handful of private schools.
The last stop was at Gulf Stream School and it was a hit with everyone in the family. Even the children were smitten by the openness of the campus and large sports fields.
“It just felt magical,” Beth Hollinger said. “We didn’t know we were ready to move until right then and there.”
Falling in love with the school was one thing; getting in was another. Fortunately for the Hollingers, it had openings in the first and fourth grades when they applied earlier this year.

Some students in lower grades gather on the first day of the school year at Gulf Stream School. Rachel O'Hara/The Coastal Star

At Gulf Stream, as well as other prestigious independent schools, finding an open spot in some grades is easier than in others. Getting your child into pre-K or kindergarten classes at a South Florida school is tougher because of demand from parents who want to start their children at that particular school.
“We feel lucky,” Beth Hollinger said. “We felt lucky that we were even able to secure a tour.”
The Hollingers had the advantage of being familiar with the area, since they vacationed here regularly for the past decade.
“We always wanted to head this way, but the pandemic pushed up the timeline,” Beth Hollinger said, adding that virus-related shutdowns were especially difficult for her children, who felt cooped up at home as a result of COVID-related restrictions. “The pandemic put a real damper on their school experience.”
In addition to Gulf Stream’s physical layout, the Hollingers felt comfortable with the school’s small size and family focus, which they say is similar to the school their children were in previously.
Those factors gave Gulf Stream an advantage during the height of the COVID restrictions, making it possible for the school to remain open for in-person classes when many others had shifted to online learning.
Just a month or two after everything was shutting down in 2020, Gulf Stream opened its summer camp. A couple of months later, school was back in session with real classes.
“We’ve had families who started this year and it was the first time in two years that the children had actually been in a classroom,” Smith said.
The layout of the school, with plenty of open space, made it possible for classes to be held outdoors and for classrooms to be reconfigured to keep kids safe.
Gulf Stream also brought a pediatric nurse practitioner on board and offered voluntary COVID tests, thanks to a gift from a parent. The school then opened up the testing to other family members.
The fact that Gulf Stream School could offer children a chance to play outside at a time when playgrounds up north were closed was attractive to many parents and remains attractive to the Hollingers — and their children.
Beth Hollinger says her 6-year-old didn’t want to go back to the Northeast after their last vacation, which included the visit to Gulf Stream School.
“He loves being in Florida,” she said.

By Steve Plunkett

Gulf Stream is hoping Highland Beach will take over the processing of its building permits after Delray Beach called an abrupt halt to the arrangement it’s had with the town since 2009.
Delray Beach says its interlocal agreement with Gulf Stream does not cover engineering, floodplain and landscaping review of Gulf Stream building plans and it stopped providing those services in the middle of May.
“This has stalled Cary Glickstein’s (Bluewater Cove) project along with some other projects in town as Delray has done a full stop now that they’re aware that their staff lacks the authority to do this review,” Assistant Town Attorney Trey Nazzaro said.
Nazzaro told town commissioners on June 10 that in about 2011, a Delray Beach official signed off on an internal staff document that extended the scope of the agreement to include the engineering and related items for Gulf Stream applications.
“But that official did not have the authority to do that. It needed to be brought to the City Commission for approval, which was never done,” Nazzaro said.
When Delray Beach stopped doing the reviews, Gulf Stream asked its consulting engineering firm Baxter & Woodman to pinch-hit on the engineering and floodplain reviews. Landscape architect Dave Bodker of Delray Beach has been recruited to review landscaping plans.
Gulf Stream and Delray Beach officials met to discuss the situation on May 20. Since then, Gulf Stream issued a request and received three bids from third-party organizations, which Town Manager Greg Dunham was still evaluating, and asked Highland Beach if it could do the work.
Overseeing a building department is nothing new for Highland Beach Town Manager Marshall Labadie, Nazzaro said. Starting one “was the first thing he did when he came” to the town in 2018.
“His commission wanted him to bring the building department in-house, and they apparently have been doing a very good job,” Nazzaro said. “Highland Beach has a certain level of expectation of that, sort of a concierge-level of service that you would be getting.”
Highland Beach commissioners were receptive at their June 21 meeting to drafting an agreement with Gulf Stream after their building official, Jeff Remas, said he was “kind of excited” about getting the extra work.
“I see this as an opportunity for us to actually improve our services because we’ll be bringing on some more people with more hours to have the capability to work in-house with us here, and actually help our plan review process,” Remas said.
In their May 20 meeting, Delray Beach officials gave their Gulf Stream counterparts little reason to think that the interlocal agreement could be extended.
Delray Beach City Manager Terrence Moore said his city would add new costs for the permitting review, plus travel time for building inspectors, plus staff time to teach Gulf Stream how to use its new digital permitting system. Gulf Stream residents previously were paying the same permit fees as Delray residents.
“I think they’re trying to recoup some of their expenses,” Nazzaro said.
Plus, the Delray Beach delegation warned that the political environment may come to bear.
“It seems that the constituents are very upset with the amount of time it is taking to process their permits, so why are they also processing Gulf Stream’s permits,” Nazzaro said.
Gulf Stream generates 250 to 300 building permits a year, Dunham said. But Highland Beach’s Remas said that did not include sub-permits such as electrical and plumbing and said the total was really 800 to 900 a year.
Highland Beach currently processes 2,000 to 2,100 permits a year, so adding the Gulf Stream work would be a 40% increase, Remas said.
Dunham was not optimistic about negotiating a new agreement with Delray Beach based on his discussions with their officials.
“They really couldn’t guarantee the City Commission would be OK moving forward with continuing the relationship,” he said.
He and Nazzaro will weigh the three bids the town received and keep talking with Highland Beach to find a solution.

Attorney Bryan Boysaw and Kenya Madison, senior director of Healthier Delray Beach, comfort each other after digging soil from near where Samuel Nelson was lynched in 1926 west of Delray Beach. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Samuel Nelson was abducted from Delray Beach jail and lynched in 1926

By Ron Hayes

On June 19, 1865, Union Army Gen. Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas, to inform about 250,000 Black men, women and children enslaved in the state that they were free, and had been for more than two years.
Slavery was dead in these recently reunited United States, and Juneteenth was born.
In 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday, so a week before this year’s celebration, nine members of the Palm Beach County Community Remembrance Project met beside the C-3 canal west of Delray Beach to remind us that while slavery ended after the Civil War, lynchings did not.
Four shovels poured soil from the canal bank into four gray buckets that Saturday morning, and then the nine men and women, Black and white, held hands in a circle over the buckets and bowed their heads in prayer.

On June 11, the participants in the preservation of soil to remember the lynching of Samuel Nelson took time to pray and reflect. BELOW RIGHT: Jars will eventually join those of other victims in a memorial display in Alabama.

When Delray Beach celebrated Juneteenth the following Saturday, June 18, those buckets of soil would be there in the gym at Pompey Park, their first stop on a long journey of remembrance.
“We scouted the area around the waterway and chose a spot where the soil looked rich,” explains Charlene Farrington, director of the S.D. Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray.
No one will ever know exactly where Samuel Nelson’s body was found on the morning of Sept. 27, 1926, but this canal bank near the southeast corner of West Atlantic Avenue and Sims Road seems most likely.
We don’t how old Samuel Nelson was, if he was a husband or father, or if he had really committed any crime. We don’t even know if Samuel Nelson was his name. But we do know where he was last seen alive.
“In 1923, Delray Beach built a new city hall, fire department and jail at 14 SE Fifth Ave.,” says Mark Schneider, president of the county’s American Civil Liberties Union and a member of the Community Remembrance Project. “But that address no longer exists. The numbers jump from 12 to 20.”
On the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 26, Nelson was locked in the new jail, accused of attempted criminal assault on a white woman in Miami. The next morning, the jail door was found battered open. Nelson was gone and a short time after, his body, riddled with bullets, was found beside a canal 4 miles west of town.
Three weeks later, on Oct. 17, The Palm Beach Post noted the murder.
“NEGRO IS TAKEN FROM DELRAY JAIL AND LYNCHED
“Samuel Nelson, alias Joseph Johnson, negro, was taken from the jail at Delray and lynched. …”
The brief report had been written by The Associated Press in Miami. The story was on Page 6.
Both the Pensacola Journal and Tampa Tribune published the same AP story that day.
“NEGRO TAKEN FROM JAIL AND LYNCHED BY MOB AT DELRAY,” the Tribune headline read, but the story never mentions a mob, only “unidentified persons.”
The local newspaper took three weeks to report the lynching, but the Delray Beach Town Council needed less than 12 hours to address it.
At its regular meeting that Monday evening, the council discussed appropriating money for the local Chamber of Commerce. It talked about registering real estate brokers. It granted Mr. W.P. Brown a one-week extension on his septic tank.
The lynching of Samuel Nelson was the last item on the agenda.
Police Chief W.M. Croft told the council that he had refused to turn Nelson over to a stranger who claimed to be from Miami, and as far as he knew, Nelson was still in the jail at midnight.
The council then voted unanimously that the Police Department “should be exonerated and be declared free of any blame or neglect in regard to the above mentioned jail delivery.”

***

There is one further curiosity, though.
On Sept. 18, a little more than a week before Nelson’s death, the historic 1926 hurricane had made landfall as a Category 4 storm just south of Miami, bringing storm surges up to 14 feet in Coconut Grove and tearing the roofs off buildings as far north as Lake Park. Could the stranger Chief Croft claimed to have met really have journeyed from Miami to Delray Beach after that destruction?
All we know of Samuel Nelson’s lynching ends there, but those four buckets of soil collected in his memory have only begun their journey.
Sometime in 2023, the Remembrance Project hopes to see the soil displayed in jars at the Equal Justice Initiative’s Peace & Justice Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. The jars will be etched with the words “Sam Nelson, Delray Beach, Florida, September 27, 1926.”
They will not be alone.
Founded in 1989 by civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative works to free wrongly convicted prisoners and operates Montgomery’s Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice.
In 2015, the EJI published Lynching In America, now in its third edition, which has documented more than 4,000 lynchings in the Southern states between 1870 and 1950, including 319 in Florida, the most per 100,000 of all the Southern states.

***

Samuel Nelson is one of two known lynchings in Palm Beach County, and not the first.
On June 7, 1923, Henry Simmons was taken from a rooming house in West Palm Beach and hanged from a tree south of The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach for allegedly being involved in the killing of police officer J.N. Smith, who had stopped three Black men for stealing turtle eggs.
The Remembrance Project is working to confirm the site of Simmons’ hanging before arranging to collect soil there.
In addition to the soil collection, a high school essay contest in the coming school year will satisfy the second of three requirements communities must complete to be represented at the EJI memorial.
The placing of memorial markers at Palm Beach County’s two lynching sites is the third.
Until then, the soil that became a memorial made its first public appearance in the Pompey Park gymnasium on June 18, a centerpiece of the Juneteenth weekend in Delray Beach.
The Boynton Beach Community High School band played and politicians spoke.
“This day will be recorded in our nation’s history and tell the story of who we are as a people,” the Spady Museum’s Farrington told the crowd of about 200 filling the bleachers. “It will make Palm Beach County eligible to receive a monument from the Equal Justice Initiative bearing the names of two men who were lynched here in the 1920s.”
County Commissioners Mack Bernard and Gregg Weiss read a resolution recognizing the importance of both the soil ceremony and the federal Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, signed into law March 29.
A video of the soil collection was shown, and Yvette Norwood-Tiger sang a moving, mournful rendition of the Billie Holiday classic Strange Fruit.
“Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
“Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”
The four buckets of soil from the place where Samuel Nelson’s body was found almost a century ago waited on a table until finally the men, women and children, young and old, Black and white, came down from the bleachers and formed two long lines.
Each was handed a small mesh drawstring bag containing a plastic envelope and a wooden ice cream spoon.
One by one they dipped a bit of soil from a bucket and put it in the plastic bag. That was theirs to keep. And then they added another spoonful to the glass jars bound for Montgomery.
Nearby, city Commissioner Shirley Johnson watched.

On June 18, the soil was part of a Juneteenth celebration at the Pompey Park gym. Delray Beach Commissioner Shirley Johnson watched as people spooned soil into bags as keepsakes.

“I’m 76 years old and I grew up here in the northwest section, and I never knew about Samuel Nelson,” she said. “Why didn’t I know about this? There was no mention in school. Nobody ever said his name. I didn’t hear about it until 2017 when Bryan Stevenson came to the Spady Museum and he told me, ‘You know, there were two lynchings here.’”
Johnson assembled the little bags of spoons for the ceremony, all 200, so she watched intently as the slowly moving lines made use of them.
“This should be listed as an unsolved murder in our police files,” she said. “I’m going to ask the police if they can reopen this case. Don’t investigate, just keep it open.
“I know we’re never going to know who killed him, but that way Sam Nelson will be remembered.”
She sighed.
“And he was just one of thousands.”

For more information about the Palm Beach County Community Remembrance Project and the Equal Justice Initiative, visit www.pbcremembrance.org and www.eji.org.

Old Ziff property sold to Oracle co-founder for $173 million

By Larry Barszewski

Manalapan is no longer playing second fiddle to the town of Palm Beach — or any other Florida location, for that matter — when it comes to pricey residential properties.
The town became home to Florida’s most expensive estate in June when Netscape co-founder James Clark sold his ocean-to-Intracoastal Waterway property to a fellow billionaire (one who has many, many more billions), Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, for $173 million.
Clark ended up being a short-term resident. He owned the property at 2000 S. Ocean Blvd. for just 15 months, but he got his money’s worth when the final sale came through.
Clark turned a $79 million profit — an increase of 84% — on the estate that cost him $94 million, the priciest sale in town until he decided to sell it in an off-market transaction. The sale was handled by Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates, who brokered both sides of the deal. Moens had also handled Clark’s earlier purchase.
The buyer was listed as Florida Realty LLC, a Delaware corporation with a California address that is the same as the one for the Larry Ellison Foundation. Besides the 15.65-acre main property, Ellison took ownership of an approximately 7-acre wildlife sanctuary space on Bird Island.

Forbes ranks Ellison as No. 8 on this year’s list of the world’s wealthiest people. His reported net worth was hovering around $93 billion at the end of June, while Clark, ranked by Forbes around No. 950, was worth about $2.9 billion.
Last year, Ellison paid $80 million for an oceanfront North Palm Beach estate. He also owns almost all of the Hawaiian island of Lanai, plunking down $300 million for it back in 2012. Other people still live on Lanai, and Ellison’s deal included a couple of Four Seasons resorts that attract the rich and famous to stay there.
His foray into Manalapan — a small town known for its expensive homes and quietly wealthy residents — had eyes popping over the purchase price.
“It’s an amazing number,” said Manalapan Vice Mayor Stewart Satter, a developer who recorded a $40 million sale of his own in March for a vacant ocean-to-Intracoastal lot. “It’s kind of hard for me to believe someone is spending that kind of money.”
Some residents may be concerned about what plans Ellison has for the town’s premier property, but Satter doesn’t think Ellison is looking to develop what he calls a “very, very, special property.”

The main house is two stories and faces the ocean. Photos provided by Realtor.com

It includes a 33-bedroom, 38-bathroom main house that sits on both sides of State Road A1A, with the larger portion on the ocean side.
“He’s decided he wants some super-unique property,” Satter said. “No one is spending $200 million to develop it.”
While Satter himself was interested in the property before Clark bought it last year, he said the value in redeveloping it is overstated. The town can allow construction east of A1A in the area, which is what developers want, but Satter said the “final say” goes to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
“They made the requirements so strict, you effectively can’t build on the east side of the road,” Satter said of state regulators. “The requirements are so strict, you can only build a small house.”
In 2020, the town gave the previous owners, heirs of media pioneer William B. Ziff Jr., the ability to subdivide the property that they had been trying to sell since 2016, but those rights went away when Clark bought it in 2021. Clark’s purchase price was far below the $195 million the Ziffs originally sought.

A seating area with cut-coral walls, pecky cypress ceilings and a wall of live orchids.

The Shutts & Bowen law firm, representing Ellison’s corporation, has requested town records of zoning and development approvals granted for 2000 S. Ocean Blvd., as well as any approvals for items such as variances, site plans or permits. The request is also for 3040 S. Ocean Blvd., which is part of the property.
How unusual is the property? Descriptions mention three tunnels that go under A1A to connect the east and west portions of the property.
One of those tunnels — “if you want to call it a tunnel,” Mayor Keith Waters says — connects the two portions of the house and includes works of art and other extravagant furnishings. “To say it’s magnificent would be an understatement,” Waters said of the underground connector.
Previously known as the Ziff estate and before that as Gemini, the property has 1,200 linear feet of ocean frontage and another 1,300 feet along the Intracoastal. Besides the main house, it has a guest house, manager’s house, two ocean cottages, tennis courts, swimming pool, regulation golf practice area, a miniature golf course and a botanic garden with 1,500 species of tropical trees and plants.
For a time decades ago, it was considered the most expensive residence in the country. It now at least holds the state title.
The previous top sale in the state was $129.6 million for a four-parcel purchase on Blossom Way in the town of Palm Beach in 2012 by hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin, said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc., a real estate appraisal and consultant firm. The most expensive single parcel before last month’s purchase was at 535 N. County Road in Palm Beach, which sold for $122.7 million last year, Miller said.
“If you look at what’s available in the properties, it’s an age-old saying: There’s only so much dirt on the ocean like that,” Waters said. “Palm Beach is a big, shiny object, and Manalapan is a quiet, subtle, and in my opinion, better version.”

And the rocket’s red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there
— “The Star-Spangled Banner,” 1814

July Fourth: A day filled with barbecue, patriotic baby contests, hula-hoop competitions and watermelon consumption followed by sundown and an anticipated explosion of pyrotechnic sound and color in the sky.
Independence Day 2022 is sure again to be one of the most memorable days of summer, with plenty of flag-waving and singing of patriotic songs.
So, a quick history lesson:
Old Glory, the American flag, consists of 13 horizontal stripes, seven red alternating with six white. The stripes represent the original 13 Colonies that joined forces to declare independence from Britain, and the stars — as of July 4, 1960 — represent the 50 states of the Union.
The first time the flag was carried into battle was during this country’s Civil War, where the war dead on both sides number upward of 650,000. At one time there was discussion of removing the stars of the Southern states that seceded from the union, but President Abraham Lincoln refused, believing it would give legitimacy to the Confederate states, so they remain.
The Star-Spangled Banner was written as a poem on Sept. 14, 1814, after Fort McHenry was bombarded by British ships in Baltimore Harbor during the War of 1812 — a conflict arising over territorial expansion in North America and escalating over trade restrictions that crippled the economy of a young America. The battle at Fort McHenry, a month after British troops had burned Washington, resulted in a U.S. victory; the poem’s author was inspired by the sight of the large American flag flying above the successfully defended fort as the sun rose.
The poem was later set to the music of a song popular at the time and became the national anthem by congressional resolution on March 3, 1931.
Any student of American history knows our country’s freedoms have not been easily won; but so far our Constitution, rule of law and unity of purpose have sustained us through the first 246 years of this country’s noble experiment in democracy.
It’s important to reflect on this history as we celebrate this year’s Independence Day. That omnipresent red, white and blue flag represents the historical strength of our union, the fireworks remind us of past battles we’ve endured, and that Star-Spangled song blasting is less of an anthem of individual freedom than an expression of gratitude that our union survives.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

Greg Hazle, who used to work in corporate finance and project management, has led Boca Helping Hands’ expansion to other sites amid the demands of the pandemic. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Tao Woolfe

Greg Hazle, a chemical engineer and longtime corporate executive, never imagined himself heading a charitable organization, but when Boca Helping Hands itself needed a hand, he gave his heart and soul.
It was supposed to be a temporary gig for Hazle, who had served on Boca Helping Hands’ board of directors for about four years. But he found, much to his surprise, that the role was incredibly rewarding.
“After a few years I found I really enjoyed it. I found it to be a great privilege,” Hazle said, the lilt of his native Jamaica trickling through his words. “I was working with people I admired, but hadn’t met a lot in the corporate world — selfless, idealistic people.”
Gary Peters, who has been president of the board for 16 years, said the admiration was mutual. The board members, the staff and the volunteers liked Hazle’s soft-spoken, kind, intelligent management style.
“When our previous executive director retired, I asked Greg to step in as interim director,” Peters said. “He so liked the job, and was such a good fit, we asked him to stay.”
That was five years ago. Since then, Boca Helping Hands — a 24-year-old organization that feeds thousands of hungry people each year and provides job training and emergency assistance — has expanded to offer services to much of Palm Beach County.
“It was a very challenging role. We began expanding our food distribution and then COVID hit,” Peters said. “Greg managed the whole thing through the pandemic, and raised revenues, without missing a beat.”
The feeding program, which began as a humble soup kitchen in a church annex building, is now housed in several buildings off Glades Road. Sit-down hot meals were phased out because of the pandemic, but hot to-go meals are served Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Cars now line up for blocks and take turns driving into a canvas-covered distribution site. Volunteers quickly load bags of groceries into the cars Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and Thursdays from 4:30 to 6 p.m.
Besides the main east Boca facility, there are now distribution centers in west Boca, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach.
Hazle said his background working in corporate finance and project management for both Florida Power & Light and Cemex, the international cement and building materials company, helped him figure out how to expand Helping Hands. “I brought to the job a lot of corporate disciplines — corporate governance and financial management,” he said. “But I kept an open mind about how I could contribute to the community.”
While listening to the donors and community advocates, Hazle found that his assumptions about the community of Boca Raton were completely incorrect.
“My stereotypical thinking was that Boca Raton’s residents were very self-involved,” Hazle said. “It is actually a very generous community that celebrates philanthropy.”
And, by listening to his employees, he learned to “unleash the capacity of people who want to become leaders in the organization.”
Bill Harper, Hazle’s director of food and warehouse operations, said he admires his boss for his business savvy and his people skills.
“He is a breath of fresh air, a pleasure to work with,” Harper said. “He’s my supervisor, but also a mentor in life. He really listens. He hears you and understands you, but he doesn’t try to fix it. He’s good people.”
Hazle, 66, lives in Boca Raton with Tina, his wife of 40 years. The couple has two grown daughters — one in Long Island, New York, and one in Atlanta — and several grandchildren.
He said there is a spiritual component to his life and his work. He is a member of Spanish River Church and a member of the school of ministry at Palm Beach Atlantic University.
Harper, who described the organization’s volunteers as “the best in Palm Beach County,” said they, too, thrive in the warmth of appreciation fostered by Hazle.
“This is the best day of my week,” said volunteer Don Mandelbaum, who has been serving hot meals to Boca Helping Hands clients for seven years. “I feel good about being here — about what I’m doing.”

For more information about Boca Helping Hands, visit www.bocahelpinghands.org.

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

I don’t understand why there is such contempt for iguanas. They are not aggressive toward people, they run away as fast as they can if anyone approaches them. They don’t bite, they don’t sting. They don’t attack our pets. They don’t ravage our important, edible crops. What harm are they causing? What crime have they committed, outside of being ugly?
One person complained that “they eat the flowers!” Big deal! Flowers serve no tangible purpose. We don’t eat them. We don’t feed livestock with them. We don’t manufacture anything using flowers. Nor are they medicinal. Who cares if they eat flowers?
Ironically, up in the Midwest, Canadian geese are a much bigger problem, yet we are not allowed to hunt or kill them. But unlike iguanas, geese are aggressive toward people. And their droppings completely saturate sidewalks and lawns.
If there is an invasive species that needed culling, it’s Canadian geese. They are a much bigger nuisance than iguanas.
Moreover, we have the most boring wildlife here. In South America, they have monkeys, llamas, jaguars, piranhas, giant bugs, spiders and all kinds of exotic birds, etc. In Africa they have rhinos, lions, giraffes, etc. In Asia they have tigers, elephants, cobras, etc. In Australia, they have kangaroos, koalas, wombats, etc.
Meanwhile, here in the States we have squirrels and sparrows. Woohoo! How boring! Iguanas are the first exotic creatures we have to break up the boredom of our bland native wildlife. I say let them live!

— Kurt Kelley
Boynton Beach

By Tao Woolfe

Starting next year, Boynton Beach firefighters and paramedics will shift from a schedule of 24 hours on/48 hours off, to one of 24 hours on/72 hours off.
The change is expected to cut down on the city’s overtime costs and result in happier, healthier public safety workers, interim City Manager Jim Stables told the City Commission at a meeting on June 7.
“Forty-eight hours off is not enough time to decompress, especially when people are needed for overtime,” Stables said.
Hugh Bruder, interim Boynton Beach fire chief and director of fire and emergency medical services, further explained in an interview after the meeting how everyone will benefit from the new schedule.
Under the existing system, firefighters work a 48-hour week. Under the new system, the firefighters’ workweek is shortened to 42 hours, but the salary will stay the same.
Overtime has been paid, and will be paid, for any hours worked beyond the normal schedule.
Under the existing system, firefighter/paramedics are given a Kelly Day — a day off for rest and relaxation — every three weeks. The new system eliminates Kelly Days, which will automatically reduce overtime, the chief said.
The other half of the overtime reduction equation, he said, is that the department will hire 21 new full-time personnel. That way, there will be sufficient staff to fill all the department’s time slots.
There may still be the occasional shift that needs to be covered by overtime, but those needs will be drastically reduced, Bruder said. Last year, due to the coronavirus and staff shortages, the city paid $1.8 million in overtime.
More important, the chief said, the firefighters and paramedics will have time to decompress, rest and exercise, so they will have less reason to call in sick and will be better able to serve the community.
The city also will benefit from its ability to recruit and retain up-and-coming professionals who are seeking the 24/72-hour schedule, which is still a rarity in Florida.
Boca Raton’s is one of only a handful of departments in the state to offer the 24/72 schedule and, as a result, it is considered a destination workplace, Bruder said. Boynton is also expected to quickly earn that distinction.
Stables told the City Commission that the conversion will cost the city about $2 million up front, but ultimately will save — estimating conservatively — $1 million a year in overtime costs.
About $823,000 of the conversion cost will be used to hire the 21 new firefighter/paramedics, Stables said. They will be hired and begin training in October.
“We had 40 applicants in the first week of recruiting,” Stables said.
The commission approved the new schedule on June 7, and unanimously ratified a new, three-year contract with the Boynton Beach firefighters, Local 1891 of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Bruder said the commission’s approval set into motion a plan that signifies a huge, positive change for the city.
“It’s an example of good governance and it’s quite an undertaking,” Bruder said. “Everyone has to work together to make this happen — the City Commission, city management, the department administration, the bargaining unit, and the city staff.”

Twelve small cottages line the north side of Ocean Avenue in downtown Lantana.

By Mary Thurwachter

The cluster of yellow, blue and pink Key West-style cottages on the north side of Ocean Avenue between Oak Street and Lake Drive has been part of downtown Lantana’s landscape for decades.
Today, many of the 12 buildings are in various states of disrepair and only one — a bungalow at 201 E. Ocean Ave. — is inhabited. It is home to Oceano Kitchen, a small but widely acclaimed restaurant with a big following.
Everyone talks about bringing in new businesses downtown, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon because of challenges faced by the town, the property owners and the businesses that would like to locate there, according to Nicole Dritz, Lantana’s development services director.
Dritz brought members of the Town Council together in late May for a workshop to address the downtown issues.
The property owners, the sister-and-brother team of Marsha Stocker and Steven Handelsman, want to rent out the buildings to businesses. Their parents, Burt and Lovey Handelsman, previously owned the cottages, which are on four contiguous property parcels.
Although potential businesses have made inquiries, Dritz said the cottages must be brought up to code — and have site plans approved if they have been vacant for more than six months — before the businesses can receive the business tax receipts needed to operate. Some of the buildings have been unoccupied since 2004.
Dritz said the inquiries include those from a jet-ski rental company, a doggie daycare and an artist village.
“One developer wanted to take all four parcels and do a unity of title so we would treat it as one, and do a very Key West-style boutique resort,” she said.
Jeremy Bearman, owner of Oceano Kitchen, had hoped to rent the former Mario’s Italian restaurant building at 225 E. Ocean Ave. to expand his business, but was unable to reach a lease agreement with the owners. He had planned to spend $500,000 for extensive renovations on the building.
Dritz said the town staff had been working with the property owners and that some improvements have been made, but “they are still not in compliance in terms of what we issued the code violations on.”
She said: “The code fines are getting up there and we have told them, ‘Listen, if you want a break on those code fines, show us what you’re going to do, get an application in, give us something to go on.’”
The owners have been fined $250 a day per parcel and those fines have surpassed $300,000, according to Dritz. None of the fines has been paid to date.
The owners prefer not to sell, Dritz said. “They would like to keep the structures as is and get tenants to rent those. They aren’t completely taking off the table working with a developer, maybe doing some kind of land lease where they lease the land and the developer comes and builds something on it.”
In an email reply to questions from The Coastal Star, Stocker said, “We are trying to work out a resolution so that these units can be rented. If we cannot come to a satisfactory resolution we will need to re-evaluate our options.”

‘Frustrating for everybody’
The empty cottages on Ocean Avenue have been a concern to the Chamber of Commerce for years.
“It’s frustrating for everybody — for us at the Chamber, for the town and for the residents. That little street could be so awesome,” said Dave Arm.
“As president of the Chamber, I’ve said I’d love to see that become a mini–Atlantic Avenue or a mini–Lake Avenue, where you could go have a drink in one place, have dinner in another, have dessert in another and go stop at a little boutique or something.
“Stroll Ocean Avenue. And right now, you’ve got a gap in there. That’s a damn shame. It’s frustrating and there just doesn’t seem to be a solution. Until the owners decide to play ball, I can’t see anything happening.”

Parking issues
Parking also has been problematic for downtown businesses. In 2019, to help the businesses, the town decreased its downtown parking requirement from 25 spaces per 1,000 square feet of gross floor area to 12 spaces. And last September, when Bearman came to the town seeking relief from the requirements that called for 49 spaces for the Mario’s site, he was granted a variance reducing the number to 18.
There are different ways to deal with parking, Town Attorney Max Lohman told the council at the workshop.
“Municipalities that have the constraint parking challenges similar to ours draw a box, they pick a zone, they change the parking requirements in that zone. Many of you have said you’ve never had a problem parking. ... Which would lead me to think that maybe, under the circumstances, the parking requirements are too strict in that area. And then, it would be something we could look at to potentially change,” he said.
“Then again ... if those vacant parcels ever become occupied, there’s a chance you might have a parking problem. But honestly, having a parking problem is a good problem to have. If you don’t have a parking problem, people aren’t coming. So, if you get a parking problem, we will figure it out.”
Lohman said it’s almost better to relax the regulations and then address the problem when it comes.
He said the town could better utilize the parking lot at Sportsman’s Park at night.
“You could potentially monetize that,” Lohman said. “Those large boat trailer parking spots could easily be chopped up into two or three.”
Another idea, he said, would be for the town to hire a valet service to benefit all the Ocean Avenue restaurants. “You could assess them (the businesses) the cost of it so they would be specifically benefiting from it. I’m not saying that’s the right solution, but I’m saying there are other solutions.”
Others suggestions are to add more parking spaces at Lyman Kayak Park or at the tennis courts at the recreation center.

Going forward
Dritz asked the council to weigh in on how to proceed.
“Do you wish for us to continue to capture those site plans like we are, or do you wish to see vacancies filled quickly, keeping those existing buildings with existing spec conditions in play, so that would require a code change to just basically eliminate the need for compliance?”
By consensus, council members agreed to continue enforcing the zoning laws that require site plans, landscape plans and signage. They want to keep the six-month vacancy requirements and will review special exception uses for each zoning district. And they are open to further loosening parking requirements.
“I like what you’re doing,” council member Lynn (Doc) Moorhouse told Dritz. “A lot of those places look like crap to me. I live next door to this. They’re falling down.”
Mayor Robert Hagerty said he wanted to stay the course. “I like the site plans. I like working the way you’re doing it. The problem I’ve got is if we leave those houses ... the same way that they are, they are decrepit. People could be injured.”

By Mary Thurwachter

The Dune Deck Café, a popular open-air restaurant at the public beach for nearly three decades, will see Lantana increase its rent by 38% over the next three years.
The Town Council, at its June 13 meeting, voted unanimously to extend the lease of the concessionaire for three years, but the rent will go up each year until it reaches $65,000 annually in 2025. The breakfast and lunch restaurant currently pays $47,132 plus sales tax annually.
The higher rate is more in line with what the rent should be, according to a market rent analysis report done by Anderson Carr, a local appraisal firm, on March 28. It will take three years to get to the $64,045 rent suggested in that report. The rent, before the inclusion of sales taxes, will rise to $53,000 in 2023, $59,000 in 2024, and $65,000 in the new contract’s final year.
Council members had discussed the lease during a visioning workshop on April 22 after Dune Deck owner John Caruso had inquired about renewing the lease, which expires at the end of the year.
Besides the rent increase, the new agreement calls for the cash-only restaurant to make it more convenient for customers to pay their checks by making “reasonable efforts to begin accepting credit and debit cards as a form of payment prior to Dec. 31, 2024.”
Town Manager Brian Raducci said he thought the agreement was reasonable. “We had a very good negotiation, a very good discussion with Mr. Caruso and his attorney.”
Mayor Pro Tem Lynn (Doc) Moorhouse said he would do anything he could to support the Dune Deck, which, like the Old Key Lime House, is a destination point in town.
“Let’s face it, they’ve been through multiple hurricanes, and they are an outdoor restaurant,” Moorhouse said. “It’s not like you got walls and AC around to protect you. They don’t work when it rains because nobody comes. I think they’ve done a fantastic job.”
Council member Kem Mason agreed. “It’s a landmark location. They built it up. They made the name. They’re bringing people to our town so I’m behind them 100% and if they leave, we don’t know what we might get in there. For me, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Mayor Robert Hagerty said he understood what Mason and Moorhouse were saying but also understood the reason for the conversation.
“It doesn’t mean nobody wants you around,” he said, referring to Caruso. “It’s not that at all. Everybody enjoys your restaurant, as a matter of fact. It’s just that we have to look into the future and not everybody knows what that entails. I don’t want to get rid of it. If anything, I want to improve that location if it’s possible.”
The Dune Deck has had a home at the public beach for 26 years. During a lease negotiation with the Town Council in 2012, Caruso said he had taken “a rat-infested building that was an embarrassment and created something to be proud of.”
He invested $80,000 of his own money to get the restaurant started and made many improvements over the years, including adding restrooms, new chairs and tables, and an outdoor bar. Customers previously used the beach’s public restrooms.
There were two public comments related to the new rent increase. One was from Pastor Ken Baker of First Baptist Church of Lantana, who said the Dune Deck was a staple in the community. He said the town should focus on bringing in new businesses, meaning “you don’t hurt the businesses that are already here by trying to jack up the price.”
John Raymer, who made an unsuccessful run for a council seat this year, said the rent was too low compared to what other business were paying and the town should charge more.
“You’re doing a disservice to the town of Lantana because that could be additional revenue that could help the town fix the beach and the roads and multiple other things, like hire lifeguards,” Raymer said of a rent increase.

In other action, the council made some changes to its rules and procedures as discussed at its visioning session in April. The changes allow the town manager to format the order of the agenda and to adopt a new section allowing for a consent agenda for non-controversial matters that do not require an individual discussion. Ú

By Joe Capozzi

A $9.5 million budget proposal for Ocean Ridge would hold the tax rate next year while paying for rising public safety costs and enhancements to town flood prevention strategies. 
Even if commissioners on July 5 approve Town Manager Tracey Stevens’ request to keep the current tax rate of $5.50 per $1,000 of taxable value, residents can still expect higher tax bills next year because of rising property values across town. 
Preliminary estimates from the Palm Beach County property appraiser show Ocean Ridge’s taxable values rising 18.3% to $1.4 billion. As a result, commissioners don’t expect to pull money from reserves to balance the budget as they have done in previous years. 
Stevens’ spending proposal is nearly 8.4% higher than the current budget. One of “the driving forces” of the spending increases, she said in a memo to commissioners, is the “town’s commitment to funding enhanced maintenance and drainage infrastructure projects that were deferred for many years.’’ 
Other factors include increases in salaries and benefits for public safety services, along with a rise in insurance rates and solid waste collection costs.
At $3.464 million, the Police Department comprises the biggest chunk of the budget followed by the town’s contract with Boynton Beach for fire rescue services, at nearly $1.4 million.
On June 6, commissioners spent nearly half of a budget workshop reviewing $1,438,758 in capital improvements for infrastructure and maintenance, including stormwater issues.
Among more than $320,000 in flood-prevention projects included in the plan: 
• $85,000 for upgrades to the catch basin and valve replacements on Spanish River Drive to reduce “abnormally long-standing stormwater” in certain areas. 
• Up to $75,000 for repairs to the Tropical Drive pump station, where leaks in at least two of the five flap-gates are causing stormwater to backflow in the system.
• $70,000 in maintenance to the Tropical and Woolbright pump stations.
• $45,000 for pipe grouting beneath roads in Inlet Cay. 
• $15,000 for wet well maintenance at the Tropical, Woolbright and Coconut Lane pump stations.
During a discussion about nuisance flooding issues, Vice Mayor Kristine de Haseth asked, “What can residents do to mitigate standing water, especially after a rain event?”
Town engineer Lisa Tropepe said residents can turn off their sprinklers during heavy rain, trim their sod (which is often higher than the crowns of some streets), and make sure swales don’t erode. 
A few hours later, the commission in its regular meeting received a petition signed by 17 residents of Tropical Drive asking the town to install automatic shut-off valves to reduce flooding there.
Commissioners will shape the 2022-23 spending plan this summer before holding public hearings for the budget at 6 p.m. Sept. 6 and Sept. 19.

By Joe Capozzi

Nothing brings neighbors together in South Palm Beach like a good party. That’s the idea behind a plan to honor the town’s most senior resident with a celebration at Town Hall in August.
Who will the guest of honor be? That’s what town officials want to know. They’re asking residents to help them identify the oldest person in town.
“We need to find them and celebrate them,’’ said Vice Mayor Bill LeRoy, whose idea for the party, pitched at a June 14 Town Council meeting, was met with enthusiasm by his fellow council members. 
“It’s just another event for the town to bring everyone together,’’ he said.
LeRoy has long been a proponent of the town hosting community events where residents, the majority of whom live in condos, can mingle and meet neighbors.
Happy with the success of two public events hosted outside Town Hall this year — a Memorial Day celebration and a wine-and-sliders party — LeRoy said he wants Town Hall to host more public gatherings. “Otherwise, you never see each other,’’ he said. 
One day in June, LeRoy said he was chatting with a golfing buddy. “He happened to ask, ‘Who is the oldest person in South Palm Beach?’ And I said, ‘I have no idea but we need to find out. And we need to have a party for them.’ I was also looking for a good reason to bring the people together in August.’’
If the inaugural birthday celebration is a success, LeRoy wants to make it an annual event.
“We can do the tent, get a big cake and some beverages, a lovely event to bring us all together.’’
To identify its most senior resident, the town plans to spread word through social media and in notices posted in condo lobbies. 
Someone at the June 14 meeting jokingly suggested reaching out to Al Roker, the Today show weatherman who offers tributes to centenarians, but LeRoy said he’s confident residents will be able to identify the guest of honor. 
“Somebody has got to know who the oldest person in town is. We need to find them, get them out and celebrate them,’’ he said.
In other business, the council in July will review Town Manager Robert Kellogg’s budget proposal for 2022-23. Property values in town are expected to exceed half a billion dollars, a 12.7% increase Kellogg said would generate an additional $193,900 in revenue for next year’s budget under the current tax rate.

The Little Club golf course has a number of lakes. Gulf Stream wants to double the size of a small, quarter-acre lake to provide additional drainage for a town capital improvement project. Photo provided

By Steve Plunkett

A demand by The Little Club to have a separate engineer review the town’s drainage plan may cause a three-month delay and add a year or more to the Gulf Stream capital improvement project, officials said.
Town Manager Greg Dunham told commissioners on June 10 that for the past year Gulf Stream’s consulting engineers at Baxter & Woodman have been “laboring under the assumption” that The Little Club would let the town enlarge one of its lakes to filter stormwater.
“But recently in meeting with The Little Club, they’ve expressed the need for them to use a golf course architect and their engineer to review this,” Dunham said.
And worse, the club’s engineer has other work booked and cannot start this review for two or three months.
Mayor Scott Morgan was not happy with The Little Club’s leaders.
“They spoke before the commission in June of 2021, one year ago this month, and made statements that they’re in agreement with that (proposal) and that the pond that was selected was the perfect place to do it without interfering with golf play,” Morgan said.
Baxter & Woodman engineer Rebecca Travis is supposed to present a draft design of the drainage and roadwork at the commission’s July 8 meeting, with 60% completed plans due in December and final plans next April. Dunham said perhaps she can provide another option.
“The schedule that we’ve got really can’t wait two or three months,” Dunham said.
No one from The Little Club attended the meeting, and club manager Rob Lehner did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
Gulf Stream wants to improve the streets, drainage and water mains on both the west and east sides of its Core area. Part of the plan includes replacing a 24-inch drainage pipe from Polo Drive to a canal off the Intracoastal Waterway with a 48-inch pipe. In order to gain permission from the South Florida Water Management District, the engineers have proposed enlarging a quarter-acre lake at The Little Club to a half-acre. The district does not consider a lake smaller than a half-acre as helping drainage.
“Part of the main reason that we’re redoing the roads is to eliminate the flooding that’s been occurring for decades,” Morgan said.
Commissioner Paul Lyons said he hoped to outlive the construction phase.
“This CIP plan — it’s taking a long time. I just want to be sure I have an opportunity to enjoy it,” he said of the town’s capital improvement plan. The town is in year five of the 10-year plan and wants the Core phase of the drainage project completed in three years.
The mayor said he and Dunham would continue discussions with club leaders.
Dunham said if negotiations with the club fail, Gulf Stream’s Plan B would be to use “water filtration trenches” all around town.
But that option also has potential problems.
“These trenches are rather large and our rights-of-way are full of other utilities,” he said.

More than 100 people gathered along Atlantic Avenue to protest the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision of the court that established the constitutional right to an abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. The court’s June 24 decision shifted abortion rights decisions to state legislatures, with the likelihood that abortions would become illegal or face severe restrictions in about half the country. The decision brought out people for and against it nationwide. Jerry Lower/ The Coastal Star

Kenny Brown holds a rescued pelican that was suffering from a fishing hook injury in 2010. Now people are helping Brown, who has lung and heart ailments. Coastal Star file photo

By Larry Keller

Kenny Brown, aka “the pelican man,” has spent the better part of two decades responding to calls in South County and beyond to help the whimsical yet graceful birds and other wildlife when they’re sick or injured.
Brown’s fee: Nothing.
“I appreciate him because he’s always willing to help, no matter what,” said Monica Slazinski of Delray Beach. Most recently it was to check on a wan wading bird called a limpkin.
“He was at my house within 30 minutes,” Slazinski said.
Now it’s Brown, 59, who needs medical assistance for serious lung and other maladies.
Treatment is far from free. So Slazinski established a GoFundMe page to help Brown, who has no health insurance and no income to pay bills. As of June 27 it had raised $7,863 from 172 donations.
Brown has been hospitalized three times lately, and was admitted to the intensive care unit once, he said in an interview shortened by his shortness of breath. He is now taking blood thinners for clots on his lungs, and medicine for an enlarged heart. He is dependent on portable oxygen.
“I can’t talk much longer,” he said in the interview from his home in west Delray Beach. “I keep coughing up stuff. I’m going to be out of breath … it’s very scary.”
Brown used to earn a little money with a for-profit no-kill animal trapping service, and doing carpentry jobs. His health has halted that, but he still has to make truck payments, pay rent and feed his two cats, two birds, a dog and himself.
It’s not just individuals like Slazinski who call Brown. So do towns without budgets to cover animal rescues and rehabs.
Ocean Ridge police have called Brown well over 100 times in the past 10 years, Chief Richard Jones said.
“We rely on him a lot … but Kenny is always there, and he never says no,” Jones said. “He’s been a huge asset to our department and our community. We’re obviously heartbroken that he’s ill and in a predicament where he needs help.”
While Brown doesn’t charge anybody to relocate animals not seriously hurt or to transport those that are to a place that will treat them, a nonprofit Ocean Ridge police support group has donated $500 to $1,000 annually to help him offset his expenses, Jones said.
“He’s had financial struggles over the years,” Jones said. “At one time he was driving an old vehicle that was breaking down all the time, and we’d call him and he’d say, ‘Hey, I can’t get there right now because the truck’s broken down, but I can get there tomorrow.’”
When he bought a newer truck a couple of years ago, Brown was pleased that it would enable him to respond to calls more quickly, Jones said.
In Manalapan, police also regularly rely on Brown.
“He has provided a service to us for over 20 years for free,” said Chief Carmen Mattox. “If there’s an injured animal in our community, we call ‘the pelican man.’ The pelican man’s response is ‘I’m on the way.’ He always comes.”
Beachfront towns like Ocean Ridge and Manalapan most often call Brown to assist seabirds in distress. But Slazinski has asked for his help with mammals too. “Kenny would, I think, save a rat if he had the ability to,” she said.
“Coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, possums — every animal there is in Florida, I’ve rescued,” Brown said. “You have to understand something. There is nobody to rescue injured wildlife.”
Local and state agencies “all call me because nobody will help them. You see an animal that’s injured or dying that’s been hit by a car or hanging in a tree, I’m going to go rescue them and bring them to a hospital.”
Now all he can do is hope that somehow he becomes well enough to resume helping shorebirds entangled in fishing line and four-legged critters smacked by motor vehicles.
“I sure hope so,” he said, “because I’ve already had many, many calls. I couldn’t do nothing and it breaks my heart.”
To many who have counted on Brown’s help, it seems only right to repay his kindness.
One GoFundMe donor wrote: “Kenny came to my home twice when wildlife were in danger, very late into the evening. He wasn’t well then with his breathing, but seemed tireless in efforts to save God’s creatures in trouble. Kenny is one of God’s creatures in trouble right now and needs our help.”
Slazinski added, “If we all want a better place, we have to chip in. He’s one of the few people who has truly dedicated his life to making this place more habitable for animals and people alike. The least we can do is help him out.”

Brown’s GoFundMe page is at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-help-kenny-brown?qid=49e499215acd78f83e33b59165c1de10

Kaufman Lynn Construction executive Ben Baffer, chairman of the Delray Beach Historic Preservation Board, believes that historic buildings and sites ‘are our community’s collective legacy, and our link to our past.’ This photo mural of projects — including the historic Miami Freedom Tower — graces the Kaufman Lynn conference room. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Perhaps no one is more aware of the importance of preserving historic buildings in our communities than someone who builds new ones for a living.
That is one of the elements that has made Ben Baffer an excellent choice for chairman of the Delray Beach Historic Preservation Board. His two-year term in that role will come to an end in August.
Baffer, 57, recently rejoined Kaufman Lynn Construction as senior vice president after spending the last three years with a Miami firm. He also spent two years (2010-12) with Kaufman Lynn in Miami working on the restoration of the Freedom Tower, one of South Florida’s most iconic buildings, dating to 1925.
Considered one of South Florida’s leading experts on historical restoration projects, Baffer initially joined Kaufman Lynn in 2007 as a senior project manager before a promotion to vice president of operations. He and his family have lived in Delray Beach for 21 years.
“There is so little history in South Florida, compared to other parts of the country,” Baffer said. “That makes the few historic buildings we have become so precious, especially in areas that are attractive for development like Delray Beach.
“Historic buildings and sites are our community’s collective legacy, and our link to our past. This is critical to our identity as a community, regardless of whether you are a newcomer, a part-time resident of Delray Beach, or if your family has been here for generations.
“And from a purely economic standpoint, it is a well-known fact that communities with a strong commitment to historic preservation are able to sustain significantly higher property values.”
Baffer said as he nears the end of his final term, he is particularly proud of the way “we have furthered the mission of historic preservation by incorporating things like landscaping, sustainability and resiliency to our purview.”
Also, “the fact that we have been able to conduct our business as a board in a manner that has always been civil, collaborative and supportive of one another, the city staff and the applicants who come before us.”
“The paradox of historic preservation is that for it to be sustainable, property owners must be able to continuously maintain, improve and invest in their historic properties. If not, historic properties will be left to deteriorate and the historic resource will be eventually lost.
“Our job as a historic preservation board is to help property owners to improve and maintain their historic properties in a way that is consistent with the land development regulations, and the Secretary of the Interior’s standards for historic preservation. In other words, we are here to help people make good decisions.”
Baffer’s wife, Kathy, spent 14 years as president of the Seagate Neighborhood Association and is a Realtor in Delray. Their daughter Grace, 19, is a sophomore at the University of Florida, and Ava, 16, is a junior at American Heritage School.
The Baffers bought a small travel trailer camper during the pandemic and have used it extensively for family trips.

— 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 Newport News, Virginia, which is in the southeastern corner of the state where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. Growing up there, I got to know humidity, mosquitoes and the smell of low tide. I grew up on the water, and I knew at an early age that I could never live far from the coast. So, it should come as no surprise that I eventually ended up in Delray Beach. I went to college at Virginia Tech, and then graduate school at the University of Florida.

Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: I have only worked in one profession, as a general contractor in the construction industry. On the advice of my older sister, who was majoring in architecture, I majored in building construction. This turned out to be the right decision. I was hired by a general contractor immediately after college, and this is all I have ever done.
Construction is one of the few careers where we have lasting, tangible proof of our efforts and accomplishments, and so much of my professional identity is wrapped up in the buildings and projects that I have built, and I am proud of them all.
However, in 2010 I had the opportunity with Kaufman Lynn Construction to perform a two-year historic restoration of the Miami Freedom Tower. This is the one project I am most proud of since this building is so meaningful to Miami and the Cuban community. This project won numerous local and national restoration awards, including Engineering News- Record’s “Best Project of the Year.” A decade later, people still send me photos of the Freedom Tower lit up at night.

Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: Instead of chasing the money, find something that you really like to do, because you will spend a lifetime doing it. On the other hand, never forget that your job is still work. They call it work for a reason, and if it was fun all the time, it would be called a hobby. Never underestimate the value of showing up on time and giving an honest effort every day. This will pay off in the long run, in ways you cannot imagine. 

Q: How did you choose to make your home in coastal Delray Beach?
A: My wife, Kathy, is a Florida native who grew up in Boca Raton. She owned a small cottage in the Seagate neighborhood before we were married. After we were married and started having children, we realized we needed more space. We did not want to leave the Seagate neighborhood, so in 2003 we built a larger home, and we have been here ever since.

Q: What is your favorite part about living in coastal Delray Beach?
A: Delray Beach is a special place. It has everything you would ever want or need, but still has a small-town feel. Not to mention, the 2 miles of accessible, public-access beach. I also love to remind myself that we are so fortunate to be able to live, work and raise our families in a place where people from all over the world want to visit on vacation. Because of this, I try to make a point to live a little bit of vacation every day. 

Q: What book are you reading now?
A: The Storyteller, by Dave Grohl. I am a big fan of the Foo Fighters, who in my opinion are one of the last of the great American rock bands. Dave Grohl is about my age and grew up in Springfield, Virginia. I guess he’s living out my rock and roll fantasy life. I started reading his book before Taylor Hawkins died, so this just makes it so much more poignant.
 
Q: What music do you listen to when you want to relax? When you want to be inspired?
A: My musical tastes are pretty much stuck in the two decades of the 1970s and 1990s. When I want to be inspired, I like to listen to my daughter Grace, who is an accomplished classical pianist, and to my daughter Ava, who is becoming an excellent guitarist. I love to listen to both of them play, since as a parent, there is no prouder moment than when you realize your child is really good at something that you cannot do.

Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: Yes, too many to mention, starting with my father, from whom I inherited my work ethic, and to Mike Kaufman, who taught me the business side of the construction business. As far as life decisions go, I have found it is usually best to listen to my wife, Kathy, who keeps me grounded. She is a great sounding board, and she helps me to make good decisions.

Q: If your life story were to be made into a movie, who would play you?
A: Vince Vaughn. Mainly because of his height, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously. Vince Vaughn is known for his comedy roles and doesn’t necessarily have leading man looks, but he can carry a heavy role when he needs to.

Q: Who/what makes you laugh?
A: I’m not proud of the fact that I still have the sense of humor of a 10th-grader. Totally unsophisticated, basic, stupid humor. Caddyshack, Fletch and Animal House make me laugh hysterically, no matter how many times I’ve seen them.