By Steve Plunkett

Appeals judges have denied a request from Boca Raton to review a ruling that the City Council must hold another vote -— minus two prejudiced members -— on whether to allow a duplex to be built on the beach.

The three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal on Aug. 18 also denied the city's request to hear oral arguments in the case.

The dispute centers on a Feb. 26, 2019, council decision not to allow construction of 2600 N Ocean LLC's proposed four-story, 14,270-square-foot residence east of A1A between Spanish River Park and Ocean Strand.

In a Sept. 16, 2020, ruling, Circuit Judges Jaimie Goodman, Janis Keyser and G. Joseph Curley said emails to residents from council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte — saying they had “no intention of granting [the application]” and “[would] do all I can to prevent this from happening” — showed they were not impartial.

“This was more than mere political bias or an adverse political philosophy — it was express prejudgment of Petitioner’s application,” the circuit judges said.

Their ruling said the landowner “is entitled to a new hearing without the participation” of Mayotte and O’Rourke, who has since become deputy mayor. That would leave Mayor Scott Singer and council members Yvette Drucker and Andy Thomson to rehear the application.

The city appealed the circuit judges' decision to the 4th DCA on Nov. 18 and 20, 2020.

Each side of the proposed duplex's roof would have a pool, spa, fire pit and outdoor kitchen. The building would have special glass facing the ocean that would transmit only 10 percent of interior light, below the city’s request for 15 percent, and have only 8 percent reflectivity.

Lighting is a concern for nesting sea turtles and their hatchlings.

By Steve Plunkett

After almost 17 months of coronavirus seclusion, Gumbo Limbo's indoor nature center and gift shop, aquariums and sea turtle rehabilitation facility are open again to the public.

Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and noon to 4 p.m. Monday.

The popular destination's outdoor nature trails are open every day from 7 a.m. to sunset, though restrooms are not available when the nature center is closed.

City officials closed the center in mid-March 2020 in response to the COVID threat. Workers continued to rehabilitate injured or sick sea turtles and maintain sea creatures in the aquariums, just without public participation.

The not-for-profit Friends of Gumbo Limbo, which operates the gift shop and collects the suggested $5 donation for entrance, said last winter that it was $900,000 short in contributions and sales.

In normal times the nature center hosts more than 200,000 visitors a year.

A1A is lined with condos in Boca Raton, where 77% of barrier island condos are 40 years or older. While the City Council considers a measure to inspect buildings taller than three stories 30 years after construction, the League of Cities is pursuing an even more rigorous standard. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Related story: Plan targets buildings 25 or older for inspections, regardless of height

Residents bear rising costs of upkeep to live by water

By Joel Engelhardt

The average age of more than 300 condominiums dotting the oceanfront and Intracoastal Waterway along the barrier island from South Palm Beach to Boca Raton is 44 years, a Coastal Star analysis of property records shows.
That’s four years older than Champlain Towers South, the 12-story Surfside condo building that collapsed on June 24.
In the three towns with the most high-rises — South Palm Beach, Highland Beach and Boca Raton — the average building age is 42 and the average height is seven floors, the analysis showed.
In Delray Beach, Manalapan, Boynton Beach, Gulf Stream and Ocean Ridge, the average age rises to 47 and the average height drops to three stories.
The 19-mile strip of richly landscaped estates and glossy high-rise condos is ground zero in Palm Beach County for the newfound focus on inspections and repairs born of the collapse in Surfside, which killed 98 people.
Nearly two-thirds of the 348 condos reviewed by The Coastal Star were built in the 1970s or before.
North Palm Beach structural engineer Don Chalaire said that most are supported by concrete columns that initially resist water, a seal that eventually gives way, allowing water and air to rust the critical rebar supports within.
“Every building we look at we see spalling damages that need to be repaired,” Chalaire said.
Local governments initially indicated they were preparing to require inspections for “threshold buildings,” those defined in Florida law as greater than three stories or 50 feet tall.
Such buildings make up nearly half of the buildings analyzed by The Coastal Star.
In all the communities, 58 buildings, or 17%, are east of State Road A1A on the ocean, aged 40 or older and more than three stories tall. Boca Raton has the most of those buildings, with 18, followed by Highland Beach with 16 and South Palm Beach with 11.
Experts say older coastal buildings close to the water, particularly those that don’t routinely conduct repairs, are most at risk.
But age alone is not a deciding factor, said Ben Messerschmidt, a forensic engineer at Epic Forensics & Engineering in West Palm Beach.
“It’s how well you maintain that 40-year-old building,” he said.
Overall, about a third of the barrier island condos are east of A1A, with the most in Highland Beach, 34, Boca Raton, 27, and Ocean Ridge, 19.
Local condo leaders, sporting hard-earned expertise in the nuances of concrete repair, say they are well aware of their responsibilities to assure routine maintenance, although they acknowledge it can take years to go from inspections to a completed restoration project.
One hurdle they all face: persuading condo owners to pay the bill.
“It’s the price you pay for living on the beach,” said Vito Licata, a past president at Highland Towers in Highland Beach.
The key is to keep up with degrading conditions, said Chalaire, who has worked in the area.
“If you do small projects more often, you’ll never have the big projects. What the condos are afraid of is the big projects,” he said. “But the costs are not optional. You have to do them.
“A lot of the boards don’t fix their buildings. It’s like being told they have cancer and passing on the surgery.”

The pitfalls of selling

At Wiltshire House in Highland Beach, a seven-story oceanfront condo facing a $2.5 million repair bill, some owners sought out a developer who would knock down the structure and rebuild. But they couldn’t find a willing buyer because the site would be limited to four stories under the town’s height cap, board President Becky Schmaus said.
And even then, they didn’t have the unanimous or near-unanimous support it would take to sell out.
The Wiltshire’s $2.5 million estimate — to replace windows and sliding glass doors, waterproof and paint the 25-unit condo — came before the coronavirus pandemic and now is likely to go up. But even at $2.5 million it amounts to $100,000 per unit.
Despite the potential expense, five units sold between May 2019 and June 2021 for prices ranging from $325,000 to $749,000, property records reveal.
Although the building is listed in property records as having been erected in 1974, it actually rose as a hotel in the 1950s, Schmaus said, and was converted to condominiums in the 1970s.
Recent buyers knew about the coming assessment and, like many longtime owners, didn’t want to sell, Schmaus said.
“There are so many homeowners that would never vote” for selling, she said. “We’re willing to pay the assessment to keep it safe and to keep it going. The view we have, you don’t get that with all the new” condo buildings.

Repairs ‘never-ending’

Of the 97 buildings completed before 1970 along the 19-mile stretch of barrier island, 12 are eight stories or above: five in Boca Raton, five in Delray Beach and one each in Highland Beach and South Palm Beach.
Among the tallest, the 17-story Sabal Ridge at 750 S. Ocean Blvd. in Boca Raton, underwent $10 million in restoration work between 2016 and 2018, property manager Devin Wardell said.
Workers removed the garage ceiling, where water had been penetrating, and installed all new steel and concrete, Wardell said.
But the garage, although beneath the tower, isn’t the key structure holding up the 53-year-old building. The board restored foundational concrete columns in 2013, Wardell said, and is working with engineers now to rebuild balconies.
“It’s never-ending when you live on the ocean,” he said.

A major project completed

A January message on the Facebook page for Penthouse Towers, built in 1970, said, “It was a rough day today. No power, and concrete work still continuing.”
But the rough days were scheduled to be over by the end of July as the 11-story building on the ocean in Highland Beach completed a 21/2-year project, with new windows and restoration of all the concrete walkways and balconies, board President Skip Mongon said.
“We basically plan on concrete restoration every five years,” Mongon said. The board tested a small area five years ago and was impressed by the results. The cost is in the millions but owners are willing to pay.
“Any time you live on the water, it’s a big job,” he said.

How to spot weaknesses

For signs of trouble, look for gutters installed in garages to ferry dripping water away from cars or makeshift efforts to shore up weak spots, forensic engineer Messerschmidt said.
Large cracks in concrete can indicate spalling, when rebar within corrodes and expands so much it fractures the column.
Insurers are required to appraise a property to make sure policies cover replacement costs, but they can also exercise influence by jacking up rates on buildings with aging roofs or insufficient windows, compelling condo boards to make improvements, said Allison Hertz, a lawyer with Kaye Bender Rembaum who works with condos.
“It’s difficult to be a board member. The opposition to assessments is huge but they know they’ve got to do the right thing,” Hertz said. “The vast majority do it and they do it well.”

Condos line State Road A1A in South Palm Beach, where the median age of the buildings is 47 years. One resident says ‘pretty much every building ... has been under scaffolding in the last few years,’ a sign of ongoing maintenance. The condo collapse in Surfside has put a bigger focus on inspections and construction safety. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Confidence in South PaIm

Matthew Horey, a petroleum engineer who lives at the Imperial House in South Palm Beach, isn’t concerned that the six-story condo is 60 years old.
Aside from the unlikely chance of a second major building collapse, he points to high-quality construction in the ’60s, “when people still cared about their work,” and to the building’s supports on “a forest of concrete piles.”
Since part of the building’s seawall collapsed in 2007 and high waves in 2009 threatened the building’s foundation, forcing an evacuation, he said the condo board set up a continuous maintenance program, including concrete repair.
“Living on the beach carries a cost,” he said. “The salt and water eat away at the concrete and steel.”
Neighboring condos get it, Horey said.
“Pretty much every building in South Palm Beach has been under scaffolding in the last few years. I’m glad to see people investing in maintenance.”

Inside the numbers

The Coastal Star focused its review on condos and co-ops on the barrier island, excluding townhomes, hotels and other commercial properties.
Completion dates, building names, addresses and in some cases building heights were pulled from Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office records, compared when possible with town records, Google images and property and real estate websites.
Highland Beach has the most buildings with eight stories or more, at 40, with just 13 of them directly on the ocean. Boca Raton has 36 buildings topping seven stories, with 17 of them on the ocean. South Palm Beach has nine, seven of them on the ocean.
Ocean Ridge, Manalapan and Boynton Beach have no buildings topping seven stories and Gulf Stream has just one.
Just one in 10 of the condos along the barrier island went up after 1992, when Hurricane Andrew’s destructive path led to toughening of Florida’s building code.
Two-thirds of those 39 post-1992 buildings were over three stories and 10 were taller than seven.
The condo stock is oldest in Ocean Ridge, with a median age — at which half are older and half are younger — of 52 years among its 33 condos.
Buildings are newest in Highland Beach, where the median age is 40 and the median height is seven floors. That height is matched only by those in South Palm Beach (median age 47) and Boca Raton (median age 46).
Boca has the tallest towers, led by the 22-story twins called Ocean Towers I and II at 2800 S. Ocean Blvd., and Chalfonte North and South, at 500 and 550 S. Ocean Blvd.
Also topping 20 stories in Boca: Stratford Arms at 2600 S. Ocean Blvd., and Marbella at 250 S. Ocean Blvd. All six buildings were completed between 1973 and 1975, property records show.
The tallest building in Boca, the 27-story Boca Raton Club Tower built in 1969, is on the mainland.
All but four of the 28 condos in South Palm Beach are threshold buildings, taller than three stories. Only one, the seven-story 3550 South Ocean building completed in 2019, has been built since 1995.

Oldest condos date to 1939

Delray Beach’s barrier island condos have the second-highest median age at 51 and include the two oldest buildings: The Bahama House at 72 S. Ocean Blvd. and Coral Cove at 88 S. Ocean Blvd. The two-story buildings both date to 1939, property records say. The city’s barrier island also has among the fewest high-rises in the area. Its tallest buildings, the twin Seagate Towers, are 13 stories. Nearly 90% of the city’s 93 barrier island condos are below eight stories.
Just nine of Gulf Stream’s 23 barrier island condos are over three stories, with the tallest at eight floors. Half of the condos were built before 1974 and half after, with the newest, the two-story Villas at 4001 North Ocean, built in 2014.

Mary Kate Leming, Jerry Lower, Joe Capozzi, Rick Pollack, Mary Hladky, Michelle Quigley and Kathleen Bell contributed to this story.

By Joel Engelhardt

A proposal to have the vast majority of older condos, apartment buildings, hotels and office buildings inspected in Palm Beach County is emerging from a coalition of cities studying the issue.
The group is taking aim at buildings — without regard to height — that are 25 years or older east of Interstate 95 and 35 years or older west of the highway, a draft proposal obtained by The Coastal Star revealed.
That standard is more rigorous than the 40-year reinspection rule in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Like the Broward approach, it would exclude one- and two-family dwelling units and most government buildings, including schools. While early discussions centered on so-called “threshold” buildings, which are greater than three stories tall, the draft proposal makes no reference to height. 
The draft, by a coalition under the county’s League of Cities, came in response to the June 24 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside. Despite a 2018 report outlining structural issues, the 40-year-old, 13-story Surfside condo had not addressed the issues before it collapsed in the middle of the night, killing 98 people.
More than 90% of the 348 condos along the barrier island from South Palm Beach to Boca Raton are 25 years or older, a Coastal Star analysis found. About half of those are four stories or taller.
Delray Beach has the most condos 25 or older, with 88, followed by Boca Raton, 73, and Highland Beach, 71. 
Ocean Ridge has 31, South Palm Beach has 27 and Gulf Stream 19, the analysis of county property records revealed. It also showed five in Manalapan and three on the barrier island in Boynton Beach.

Boca Raton to be first

Building officials from the county and its 39 municipalities are participating in the drafting of the rules, which are not binding on any city. While the building officials agree on several key factors, League of Cities President Kim Glas-Castro said July 28 at a membership meeting that the final decision “is ultimately up to you, the elected officials in each of our cities.”
Boca Raton is moving forward with rules of its own, proposing a review of threshold buildings after 30 years and every 10 years thereafter. A threshold building is defined in state law as greater than three stories or 50 feet tall, with other definitions applying to buildings that offer large gathering spaces, such as churches and bus stations.
City Council members plan to vote on the rules Aug. 24, which would make Boca the first city in Palm Beach County to pass such an ordinance. 
However, the city is not opposed to tweaking its rules after seeing the league’s effort, Mayor Scott Singer said. “We will work together to harmonize and not have conflicting or confusing regulations,” he said. “The goal is safety and it is a shared goal.”
The league’s draft, which is about a month from completion and is modeled on Broward County’s rules, also calls for buildings to be reinspected every 10 years after the initial review.
The draft calls for buildings 25 or older to seek inspections according to a staggered schedule based on building size to avoid creating too much demand at one time for engineers.
Highland Beach, where more than half its 83 condos are 40 years or older and 60% rise above three stories, also is pursuing its own rules, with inspections of threshold buildings at 25 years and as often as every seven years thereafter. The rules could be in place by September. 
“The overwhelming position is, this needs to be a unified process,” town building official Jeff Rems told the Town Commission at a July 13 meeting. “We also realize we all have to customize it for where we live.”
Although county commissioners discussed countywide rules at a July 13 meeting, the county can only make rules to govern areas outside of city boundaries. That could lead to different rules in various cities and at the county level.  
County Vice Mayor Robert Weinroth, a former Boca Raton council member who now represents all of South County’s barrier island towns, initially urged cities to proceed in unison and suggested a 2022 countywide referendum to approve a single set of rules to apply to all.  
“I don’t think we need to deal with this like the next building is going to fall down next week,” he told county commissioners July 13. “God help us, I hope not.”
But, he said July 27, while he expects state action to outweigh local approaches, he had reconsidered his insistence on uniformity after speaking to city officials. 
“I don’t want to jam down the throats of any of our cities something put together at the county level,” he told The Coastal Star. 
Still, he would be concerned if too many cities make their own rules. “I wish that wouldn’t happen,” he said. “That would be confusing.”
His concerns are echoed by Michelle DePotter, chief executive of the Florida East Coast Chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America.
“We would support consistency from jurisdiction to jurisdiction,” she wrote in an email to The Coastal Star. “At a minimum, we may be supportive of something countywide. However, our desire would be something statewide.”

Who’s going to pay?

While Highland Beach is looking at some combination of the League of Cities standard and its own rules, the town wrote to condo presidents and building managers July 20 to let them know that they would soon impose a reinspection standard.
Town officials are working to determine which buildings have undergone structural inspections and when those inspections took place.
Highland Beach officials talked about helping with financing, while South Palm Beach officials talked about providing money to help condos foot inspection costs.
“There are creative ways to finance these things,” Highland Beach Mayor Doug Hillman told commissioners on July 13, citing a friend who works in finance.
South Palm Beach council member Mark Weissman suggested the town consider grants to condo boards in need. While he told The Coastal Star he agrees that condo owners should be responsible for covering the inspections, he said the town should still consider at least helping with the costs.
“They should pay for it themselves, but I don’t want a tragedy in our town either,” he said.
South Palm Mayor Bonnie Fischer also called for inspection of seawalls.
Fischer lives in the Imperial House, where pounding surf whipped by Tropical Storm Noel led to the collapse of the building’s seawall in 2007. At the time, many residents didn’t know that the condo was built in 1961 on pilings, which she said saved the building from collapsing into the sea.
“That’s a real Achilles’ heel in this town because we have no access to the beach and there’s no way for anybody to even address or repair the seawalls,” she said.

Details of Boca’s plan

In Boca, inspections must be conducted by both a structural and an electrical engineer. Owners would be given 180 days to complete the repairs, although they would have to be done sooner if the inspection identifies serious problems. 
The city’s chief building official, Michael DiNorscio, will send a “notice of required inspection” to the owners of each building requiring certification at least one year before the recertification deadline.
Owners are responsible for hiring the engineers to inspect and prepare reports which will be submitted to the city. If city officials find problems with the reports, owners will have three chances to meet city requirements.
If problems persist, cases will be referred to the Permitting and Construction Review Board, which can turn the matters over to a special magistrate to enforce the requirements.
The city plans to create a database available to the public that will list every building 30 years old or older, when it is due for recertification and whether it is in compliance, among other things.
In a memo to the City Council, City Manager Leif Ahnell said many buildings in the city will need to start the recertification process. On the barrier island, the city has 53 threshold buildings at least 25 years old, The Coastal Star analysis showed. Twenty additional buildings are less than four stories.
Ahnell expects a backlog. As a result, DiNorscio will prioritize buildings based on age, location, construction material and number of residents. Waterfront condos will be high on the priority list.

Property rights vs. safety concerns

There are no signs so far that condo owners object to recertification despite the potential for high-cost repairs. 
Contacted before she had read the ordinance, Beach Condo Association President Emily Gentile said she expected to be supportive. 
“A certified building will give confidence to the people in residence and future buyers,” she wrote in an email.
One of the challenges all municipalities face is determining just how far they can go to make sure owners keep up private property. 
“The town has responsibility to ensure the collective safety and health of the community but doing so can’t strip everyone of private property rights and responsibilities,” Highland Beach Town Manager Marshall Labadie said. 
After Surfside, many officials believe the government’s safety responsibilities outweigh private property concerns.   
“I have always felt that the responsibility for public safety lies in government,” Palm Beach County Commissioner Maria Sachs, whose South County district is west of Military Trail, said at the July 13 commission meeting. “It’s the No. 1 obligation of government.”
In a presentation to the commission during that meeting, the county’s building director, Doug Wise, urged condo boards to act. But he said if a Palm Beach County building had done nothing to fix the problems identified in 2018 at Champlain Towers South, the county would have taken action.
“There would have been a placard on that building: You fix this in so many days,” he said. 
The responsibility to maintain adequate reserves and to make repairs falls on the condo owners, he said.  
“The cost of the maintenance of the building is what it is. But if you defer the maintenance, it’s going to cost more and it might cost lives. That’s the truth of it,” Wise said. 
“People say, ‘You’re going to make it cost money for me.’ No, I’m not going to make it cost money. It is what it costs. You’re going to live on the beach, maintain it.”

Joe Capozzi, Rich Pollack and Mary Hladky contributed to this story.

In your June/July article about bicycling on A1A, you only made a short statement referencing large groups of bikers. I find it very disturbing that I have observed over the past 10 years large groups of bicycles — 30 to 90 bikers — who ride in the middle of the street and will not move over for vehicles. 
The law states they must ride one behind each other and only two side-by-side when passing and only when they do not interfere with traffic. Your article needed to put more on the laws currently on the books.
These large groups do not have a permit and are a danger to our streets. Even some of the local police have turned a blind eye to them. It leaves the local resident to maneuver around them, putting them and oncoming traffic in danger.
You mention the new laws, saying the driver has to wait till a safe time to pass. In most cases that you mean, the large groups take control of the roads. And I would have to follow them for miles at a reduced speed. Not what the roads are for. If they want to act like they are in some race then do it off A1A. Do this in a race that blocks off the roads and has the proper permit.
I would like for you to do another article on how the large groups are a huge problem.

Greg Harrington
Highland Beach

Thank you for your coverage of not just our Ocean Ridge municipal meetings but all of our neighbors’ meetings in your paper. An invaluable asset to the coastal communities.
In the article about the May 2021 Ocean Ridge commission meeting is one point I would like to clarify:
I object to the implication of my being a “de Haseth supporter.” This implies there are factions in town with voting blocs. I hope that is not the case. I, for one, vote on issues before me, not in support of one or another fellow member. Where I agree with Mayor de Haseth, she will have my support and where I agree with any of my other fellow commissioners, they will have my support.
We are five individuals mandated to make decisions with the best interest of our residents in mind. Most often they are unanimous decisions, and those that are not are done after hearing each other’s arguments for or against. It is imperative to hear the arguments on critical issues, most important those with which we do not agree. 

Martin Wiescholek,
town commissioner
Ocean Ridge

In a June/July story on the contentious Ocean Ridge Town Commission meeting held in May, two items were incorrect:
Vice Mayor Susan Hurlbert made the motion to delay nominations to the Board of Adjustment; she also made the motion to approve the nominees following the commission vote.
In a statement about the last-minute withdrawal of a BOA member, the order of what transpired was incorrect: Carolyn Cassidy hand-submitted her application for a seat shortly before board member Polly Joa’s withdrawal of her intent to remain on the board.

A June/July story about bicycle safety incorrectly reported that charges against a man accused of reckless driving were dismissed because a Manalapan police officer failed to attend the trial. The case was dismissed because a witness failed to attend the trial. The officer was in attendance at the driver’s traffic infraction trial, which was held on Zoom.

By Mary Hladky

The massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is providing much-welcomed relief to southeastern Palm Beach County cities and towns strained by the COVID-19 pandemic, but they aren’t rushing to spend the money.
They are proceeding carefully and deliberately, soliciting input from their communities on what the biggest needs are and matching that against U.S. Department of Treasury guidance on what they can use the money for.
Cities and towns are heeding advice from both the Treasury Department and the National League of Cities to take it slow so they make the best use of the money and avoid errors that would compel them to return funds spent on ineligible projects.
They are not under pressure to make decisions quickly. The Treasury Department gives them until Dec. 31, 2024, to obligate the money and until Dec. 31, 2026, to spend it.
Municipal leaders are awaiting final rules on how the money can be spent from the Treasury Department, which accepted comments on how they would like to see the rules changed until July 16.
“We will be cautious. We will vet it out,” said Boynton Beach City Manager Lori LaVerriere.
“We are going at a measured pace,” said Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer. “We are not rushing to spend it all immediately. We are going to take the appropriate amount of time to get it right.”
Ocean Ridge Town Manager Tracey Stevens said she told her town commission, “You don’t want to make your decisions quickly. Let’s wait for the final rule and then we can move forward.”
But that doesn’t mean municipal officials are sitting on their hands. They already have good ideas on what they would like to use the money, and at least some have projects that could be implemented quickly.
But the process hasn’t been easy. The initial Treasury guidance issued in May was 151 pages long, and its list of answers to frequently asked questions kept growing over the summer.
“We have spent hours and hours reading this,” LaVerriere said. “It is really intense.
“It is going to be a tremendous amount of work. But it will also be, if we do it right, a tremendous impact on the community. We can do some amazing things with it.”
South Palm Beach Town Manager Robert Kellogg said in early July that he had read the guidance at least four times and finds it understandable.
His issue is that the rules provide his town with limited opportunities to spend the money, and he hopes the Treasury Department makes them more flexible.
Kellogg thinks that other small towns likely are facing the same problem. “I am hopeful as this progresses, they will ease up on restrictions,” he said.
Stevens was considering hiring a grants administrator to ride herd over the process and keep up with reporting requirements. The legislation allows cities to use some of the money they receive to do that.
For Briny Breezes Town Manager William Thrasher, any headaches that come along with ARP funds are manageable considering the town stands to gain about $242,000.
“I am sure I can work through the problems for that,” he said. “That is a lot of money for Briny.”
The ARP allocates $130.2 billion for cities and counties, with cities and towns receiving half of that. The first tranche of money already has gone out, with the rest arriving next year. Of that, southeast Palm Beach County cities and towns will get almost $48 million.
The amount going to the biggest cities has been revised from the initial estimates released by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Boca Raton will receive $12.2 million, Delray Beach $11 million and Boynton Beach $13.6 million.
The process is different for small towns. The Treasury Department is sending money they will receive to the state, which will divvy it up largely based on population and send it out.
The ARP allows municipalities to use the funds to cover costs incurred responding to the COVID-19 public health crisis and to replace tax dollars lost during the pandemic. If cities laid off workers because of budget shortfalls, the money can be used to bring them back to work.
Money can go to provide “premium pay” for essential workers who worked long overtime hours and were subjected to health risks because they could not work remotely.
The ARP supports economic recovery by allowing municipalities to provide financial assistance to households, small businesses and nonprofits, and to impacted industries such as tourism, travel and hospitality.
Municipalities also can make investments in improving water, sewer and broadband infrastructure. But since these types of infrastructure aren’t necessarily neatly located within a city’s boundaries, a regional approach might be needed.
One example of the range of expenses and programs that can be paid for under the bill, approved by Congress on March 10, is the category of COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
They include vaccination programs, testing, contact tracing, isolation or quarantine expenses, personal protective equipment, giving vulnerable populations access to medical or public health services, surveillance of coronavirus variants, enforcement of public health orders, communication to the public, expanding health care facilities, prevention programs in schools and congregate living facilities, improving public health data systems, and ventilation improvements in health care facilities.
The ARP also spells out what the money can’t be used for.
Cities can’t cut taxes and then replace the lost revenue with ARP money.
They can’t make a deposit into a pension fund to reduce an accrued, unfunded liability. They can’t use it to pay off financial indebtedness such as a loan.
Other ineligible uses include using the money to fund debt service, pay legal settlements or judgments, or to put the money into rainy day or reserve accounts.
Infrastructure spending is limited to water, sewer and broadband.

By Jane Smith

When Terrence Moore stepped into his city manager position Aug. 2, he was the fifth manager in eight years for Delray Beach. When interim staffers are included in the count, the number jumps to 11.
“I can provide stability,” Moore, 51, told The Coastal Star on July 20. When he left his city manager position in College Park, Georgia, on March 2 he was that city’s longest continuous serving manager.
The College Park City Council offers only one-year contracts for its city manager. Moore, who had been with the city for eight years, decided against asking for another year and put himself on the city manager market.
His city manager experience also includes a five-year stint in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and a six-year run in Sebastian.
In addition, he will live up to his promise to buy a home in Delray Beach. He has selected a townhouse in the Legacy community, west of the interstate. Moore said the closing would take place at the end of August.
“I will be a true, vested stakeholder by owning and living in the city,” Moore told commissioners in early June. “I can be more effective and responsive. … Delray deserves nothing less.”
His base salary is $230,000, less than those of the two previous city managers, who were both fired by the commission. Mark Lauzier made $235,000 and George Gretsas started at $265,000.
At the June 10 special commission meeting held to vote on Moore’s contract, City Attorney Lynn Gelin said, “Negotiations went very smoothly. It was actually a pleasure. It’s fair to him and very fair to the city.”
Gelin also negotiated the compensation package for Gretsas. She told commissioners it favored Gretsas, not the city. But they hired Gretsas.
Moore also will receive 14% of his salary, or $32,200, into his retirement account, $600 monthly for a car allowance, moving expenses from College Park not to exceed $7,500, and $2,000 a month for six months for temporary living expenses.
He initially faced three challengers for job. His competitors were: Michael Bornstein, ex-city manager of Lake Worth Beach and former town manager of Lantana; Joseph Napoli, city manager of Cooper City in Broward County and one of the Delray manager finalists in 2019 when the job went to Gretsas; and Leonard Sossamon, Port Richey interim manager who was fired in August 2019 as administrator of Hernando County, just north of Tampa.
The morning of the commission interviews, June 8, Napoli unexpectedly dropped out. He sent an email at 7:48 a.m. that day saying he wished no longer to be considered.
Vice Mayor Shirley Johnson, who supported Napoli, gave a cryptic comment at the start of the June 8 meeting, congratulating all those who were involved in getting him to pull his name from consideration.
Johnson then grilled Bornstein, who has 23 years of city manager experience in Palm Beach County, about his role in clearing out immigrants and senior citizens from mobile home parks in Lake Worth Beach.
Bornstein said, “There were lots of un-permitted additions and health and safety violations. … It was never the intent to move people out of their homes.”
Moore, though, tugged at the commissioners’ heartstrings when he talked about growing up on the South Side of Chicago without a father and being raised by his grandmother. She recently died, he said, his eyes watering.
He earned his undergraduate degree in economics and a master’s in public administration from the University of Illinois.
In Delray Beach, Moore plans to spend time on community assessment, which he defined as “matters related to roads, finances and visiting job sites to find out how Delray Beach is viewed. … I will address all concerns about utilities.”
The city faces a proposed $1.8 million fine from the Palm Beach County branch of the Florida Department of Health for its botched reclaimed water program. Delray Beach also needs a new water treatment plant and is in the process of figuring out how to pay for it.
Moore, who was on a house-hunting trip during the first week of July, came to the July 6 commission meeting with his two sons and proudly introduced them. Parker, an incoming sophomore, is a dean’s list student at Texas A&M, and Grant is an incoming high school sophomore who plays football. Moore is divorced. His sons will spend school breaks in Delray Beach.

Lauzier’s trial coming up

Although they haven’t been in the manager’s office for months, Delray Beach’s two previous city managers are still around the area.
Lauzier, fired on March 3, 2019, sued the city in April 2019 for wrongful dismissal. He asked for a jury trial. Those trials were suspended for much of 2020 after the city and counties nationwide shut down because of the coronavirus. His lawsuit has an Aug. 6 hearing, and the trial is expected to be scheduled for sometime between Aug. 16 and Sept. 10.
Gretsas, fired on Nov. 20, could not be reached for comment. He resides in Fort Lauderdale with his family.
The next position for interim City Manager Jennifer Alvarez will be determined by Moore.
Alvarez recently received a 5% increase in her salary that was converted to 13 sick days. The City Commission gave her the raise at its July 13 meeting in recognition for her “stepping up” to fill the city manager role. Alvarez had asked for six weeks’ worth of sick days. Commissioners also agreed to evaluate her work by mid-August.

By Mary Hladky

The taxable value of Palm Beach County properties jumped higher than Property Appraiser Dorothy Jacks estimated in May, defying fears that the coronavirus pandemic would deal a harsh blow.
The preliminary tax roll that Jacks’ office submitted to the state Department of Revenue on June 24 showed that countywide taxable values increased by 5.8% from 2020 to 2021, just under last year’s 5.9% rise and above the May estimate of 5.05%.
That translates to a total countywide taxable value of $222.1 billion, up nearly $12 billion from last year and including $3.2 billion in new construction added to the tax roll.
This marks the 10th year in a row that taxable values have increased.
Jacks had expected last year that the taxable value of commercial properties such as office buildings, hotels and restaurants would take a hit because of the pandemic.
That proved true but not across the board. Hotels and entertainment venues such as movie theaters and bowling alleys were hit hard, but warehousing remained strong. Restaurants suffered, but fast-food eateries with drive-thru did well.
The commercial declines were offset by an increase in the taxable value of residential properties which began to improve at the end of last year.
“It may be difficult to recall the uncertainty of COVID-19’s disruptions on real estate markets last spring, especially as residential values saw a strong rebound at the end of 2020,” Jacks said in announcing the updated numbers. “However, other sectors continue to recover at a slower pace.”
The valuations are good news for municipal officials, who are in the process of crafting budgets and setting tax rates for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Officials use taxable values to calculate how much property tax money they can expect in the coming year. A decline in values would have meant less tax revenue coming in, which would have forced difficult budget and tax rate decisions.
All 10 cities and towns in southeast Palm Beach County realized taxable value gains, although seven saw smaller increases than last year’s.
Boca Raton was up 3.8%, Boynton Beach 5.2% and Delray Beach 5.3%.
Briny Breezes increased by 10.4%, Gulf Stream 2.5%, Highland Beach 3.5%, Lantana 9.3%, Manalapan 7.2%, Ocean Ridge 4.5% and South Palm Beach 4.4%.

By Rich Pollack

As Highland Beach moves forward with its plan to start its own fire department and sever its service contract with Delray Beach, both sides are discovering that breaking up is hard to do.
In recent weeks, two complaints about how Delray Beach handled emergency calls have surfaced at Town Commission meetings, leading Delray Beach Fire Chief Keith Tomey to wonder out loud if there was a concerted effort to discredit his department.
At the same time, the two governments could be heading into a contract dispute over whether Delray Beach has the right to add four lieutenants to the 22.5 personnel assigned to the station it operates in Highland Beach, which would increase the town’s cost in the next fiscal year by 17%.
“Separation from a long-term contract isn’t always easy to do,” said Highland Beach Town Manager Marshall Labadie. “Emotions tend to take hold during the process.”
The emotions are surfacing at a time when Highland Beach is charging ahead with its plan. The town hired Glenn Joseph, a former Boynton Beach fire chief and Boca Raton deputy fire chief, as a consultant to help with implementation. It hired a marketing firm to help develop educational materials and coordinate events.
Commissioners in early August also developed ballot language that will come before voters in November and, if approved, would authorize the town to spend up to $10 million to implement a new fire department. A second option on the November ballot would authorize the town to spend funds necessary to operate the department.

Complaints surface

As the transition continues, Tomey has come forward to defend his department’s personnel and reiterate that the high level of service Highland Beach receives has not changed.
In July, Tomey appeared before the Highland Beach Commission to voice his concern about a letter written to the town and included in the publicly available agenda package. In the letter, resident Stewart Perlow complained about seeing a neighbor fall as he got out of the fire department’s rescue truck.
Perlow wrote that the crew on the truck was negligent in allowing the resident to get out unassisted.
But Tomey said the paramedics on the truck told the resident to wait for them to help and he did not do so. The chief said he believed the town should not have posted the letter publicly and may have violated HIPAA requirements in doing so.
“This complaint and the way it was handled was to publicly disgrace the department,” Tomey said.
The town did remove the name of the resident from the letter, but Labadie said that Highland Beach was simply honoring Perlow’s request to have the letter included in the public comment section of the commission meeting.
At an earlier meeting, Vice Mayor Natasha Moore noted that she was jogging in early June when she saw a bicyclist get hit by a turning car across the street from the fire station.
She said she rang the doorbell at the fire station at about 8:15 a.m. and knocked on the door but got no response for several minutes. Police officers from the town responded and paramedics from the station were eventually dispatched and gave aid to the bicyclist, who suffered only minor injuries.
Tomey, at the meeting, acknowledged that the doorbell at the station was broken — which he said was the town’s responsibility — and that signage pointing to a call box that would have connected Moore to dispatchers was not as obvious as it should have been. Both issues have since been addressed.
After researching the call, Tomey said that the paramedics were dispatched at 8:20 and were treating the bicyclist by 8:21.
Moore said she believes it was important for her to raise her concerns about the response so any issues could be addressed.
“When something doesn’t go well, we need to give specific feedback,” she said. “I agree that Delray provides a high level of service and my expectation is that they’ll continue with that level of service.”
Tomey says that is exactly what will happen and wants the town to know that his firefighters and paramedics are just as committed to that goal as he is.
“Delray Beach Fire Rescue is providing the high level of service we always have,” he said. “We’re going to be professional.”

Dispute about rising cost

To continue that high level of service, Tomey and his staff say it’s important to expand the number of personnel on the rescue vehicle from two to three, which is how other stations operated by Delray Beach are staffed.
He said that had a third person been on the rescue vehicle during the incident Perlow cited, the man probably would have been prevented from leaving the vehicle unattended and falling.
In sending Highland Beach the budget projection for service in the coming fiscal year, Delray Beach officials included the four additional lieutenants, resulting in a 17% cost increase over the current amount, or about $782,000 more.
In response, Labadie sent a letter to Delray Beach saying the town is not interested in paying for the additional personnel and asking for a revised budget projection without the 17% increase. Delray Beach recently responded to Labadie by saying it continues to request the 17% increase.
Delray Beach has argued that under the contract it can adjust staffing as it sees necessary. Labadie doesn’t disagree but doesn’t believe the financial responsibility for that change would fall on Highland Beach.
“They can change staffing but they can’t unilaterally change the cost structure of the contract,” Labadie
said.

By Steve Plunkett

The town may take a loan to shave a year off its ambitious 10-year capital improvement plan for better streets and drainage.
Town commissioners on July 9 discussed borrowing perhaps $2.6 million to speed work in the Core area from three years to two.
“Money’s available — it’s inexpensive,” Commissioner Paul Lyons said.
Gulf Stream has borrowed money only once before: $2.43 million in 2012 to get its undergrounding project started.
The idea of a short-term loan arose after Baxter & Woodman consulting engineer Rebecca Travis reviewed the status of the plan and recommended splitting work in the Core area into west and east portions instead of the original north-south division.
“I know some of the residents, not all, are going to be like, ‘Why can’t you do it all at once if we’re going to have the disruption?’” Vice Mayor Thomas Stanley said.
Commissioner Joan Orthwein agreed.
“People on the west side are going to have a beautiful new road,” she said, “and the people on the east side are going to be, ‘Well, what happened to us?’”
Baxter and Woodman’s revised plan includes replacing a 24-inch drainage pipe with a 48-inch pipe next year from the road to the canal behind 3500 Polo Drive. To sweeten the odds of getting permission from the South Florida Water Management District, the engineers propose enlarging a .25-acre lake at The Little Club to .5 acre. The district does not consider a lake smaller than .5 acre as helping drainage.
Both projects will add $710,000 to the $10.3 million capital improvement plan. Gulf Stream also spent $305,000 last year for minor drainage work.
The engineers and town officials are negotiating with The Little Club on how to minimize effects on the golf course from expanding the lake.
Also in 2022, the revised plan calls for reconstructing roadways and installing new water mains on Old School Road, Polo Drive, Middle Road and Golfview Drive west of Polo, Palm Way, Banyan Road west of Gulfstream Road, and Wright Way. Projected price: $3.2 million.
In 2023 the engineers will design and get permits for similar work on Sea Road, Gulfstream, Bermuda Lane, Oleander Way, Middle Road and Golfview east of Polo, Banyan east of Gulfstream, and Lakeview Drive. Construction would follow in 2024. Price tag: $2.6 million.
Options if commissioners decide to borrow money include pushing the design of the east portion up to 2022 with construction in 2023. Lyons and Rebecca Tew, the town’s chief financial officer, will crunch numbers for the commission’s Aug. 13 meeting.
In other business:
• Commissioners set a tentative property tax rate at the rollback rate, $3.67 per $1,000 of taxable value, which will generate the same $4.6 million in taxes as last year. Town Manager Greg Dunham said his budget includes $10,000 for new carpet in the commission chambers and a 4% cost-of-living raise for town employees. Gulf Stream has adopted the rollback rate or below for the past six years.
• In June, Assistant Town Attorney Trey Nazzaro told commissioners that a majority of Gulf Stream’s 10 police officers have petitioned the town to unionize and the county Police Benevolent Association filed a similar request with the state Public Employees Relations Commission. Once PERC decides what union would represent the department, the officers will vote on whether to join. Nazzaro had no update in July.
• Assistant Town Clerk Renee Basel was promoted to deputy clerk in July after earning her certified municipal clerk designation the month before.
• The town anticipates receiving $413,000 in American Rescue Plan funds.

By Rich Pollack

The water is once again flowing during early morning hours in Jim Gammon and Margo Stahl Gammon’s fourth-floor apartment at the Gulfstream Shores Condominium.
For months the couple, as well as most other residents in the 54-unit oceanfront community, struggled to get water to come out of the faucets — usually between 4 and 6 a.m.
But now, thanks to some pre-dawn sleuthing by town police, the pressure is strong enough to ensure water streams through the pipes.
“It’s not great, but at least we have water,” said Stahl Gammon. “It’s getting better and it will get better.”
The cause of the low water pressure, it seems, may be a combination of Mother Nature turning off the rain spigot in April and May and residents watering lawns when they shouldn’t have been.
“We found that the most prevalent explanation is that people are not paying attention to when they’re allowed to water lawns,” Town Manager Greg Dunham said.
Under the current town restrictions, irrigation is permitted only three days a week during non-daylight hours. Addresses ending in odd numbers may water on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday while even-numbered addresses may water on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
Irrigation is prohibited on Friday, but that hasn’t stopped some residents from running the sprinklers on that day of the week.
“We found some houses that water every day,” Dunham said.
To determine which homes may be in violation of the town rules, Dunham dispatched police officers working in the early morning hours to keep a record of where sprinklers were running when they shouldn’t have been.
“There are some houses that we know are in violation,” he said. “We’ll be contacting them personally.”
The improved water pressure at Gulfstream Shores could be a result of residents turning off their irrigation systems because of the increase in days of rain.
Dunham thinks it could also be that some residents are paying attention to a message in the town’s newsletter reminding them to follow the watering restrictions.
“We encourage all property owners to disable scheduled irrigation when rainfall increases and to follow the mandatory conservation measures,” the town wrote.
“That probably has registered with some homeowners,” Dunham said, adding that the town will keep an eye out for those who aren’t following the rules.
Although the town could fine people who violate the water restrictions, the town manager said that’s unlikely.
“We don’t anticipate having to do that,” he said. “Our goal is compliance.”
A project about to begin in town, the installation of smart water meters, may help Gulf Stream get a better handle on water usage by homes since information from the meters will be accessible remotely.
Dunham said that because it appears over-irrigation plays a role in water pressure problems at Gulfstream Shores, the town will no longer consider asking its engineering consultants to investigate the issue.
The board at the condominium, however, is continuing to look seriously into purchasing booster pumps that would help ensure residents like the Gammons have water even during times of heavy irrigation.
If they decide to go that route, board members hope to have the pumps installed prior to the return of winter residents who own the majority of units.

By Rich Pollack

Crime in the small towns of coastal South Palm Beach County remained low in 2020, thanks in large part to a reduction in burglaries that could be attributed to more people staying home during the pandemic.
The number of serious crimes dropped in Highland Beach and Manalapan, according to statistics compiled by Florida Department of Law Enforcement, while the number of crimes in Gulf Stream, South Palm Beach and Ocean Ridge — which includes Briny Breezes — increased.
The five towns accounted for a total of 96 crimes, 21 fewer than the 117 reported in 2019, with larcenies and auto thefts accounting for the bulk of the incidents.
In the small towns, there were 14 reported burglaries — 10 in Ocean Ridge — compared to 17 the previous year.
The area’s larger cities all saw decreases in burglaries, while Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and Lantana all saw decreases in the total number of crimes reported. Delray Beach had a slight increase in total crimes, in large part due to auto thefts and larcenies.
Highland Beach reported the biggest drop in crime from 2019, with only 12 incidents reported compared to 44 the previous year.
Overall, Palm Beach County reported a 10.3% drop in serious crime, while the state reported a 14.1% decrease.

Statewide honors include 9 first places

By Larry Barszewski

The Coastal Star took home 20 Florida Press Association awards during ceremonies July 16, including the top investigative prize for its coverage of Delray Beach’s troubled water system.
Judges in the annual competition said the paper’s reporting on Delray’s water situation “provided a valuable public service that showed how the government ineptitude put people at risk.”
In addition to receiving the Claudia Ross Memorial Award for investigative reporting, The Coastal Star won eight other first-place awards, including four for feature writer Ron Hayes. The paper received five second-place and six third-place awards.
The investigative award was a staff award because of the number of people involved in the coverage, which occurred over an eight-month period. Coastal Star Executive Editor Mary Kate Leming said two reporters played the largest roles.
“This project wouldn’t have happened without Jane Smith doing excellent digging and Rich Pollack doing exemplary explanatory journalism,” Leming told colleagues in announcing the award.
“This was an extensive dive into a complicated story of public malfeasance and incompetence over a public water system,” FPA judges said. “As The Coastal Star reported, people and pets were sickened, but the city did not report the problems to health authorities until long after they realized what had happened.”
The Coastal Star, a monthly publication, competed in the 2021 FPA Weekly Newspaper Contest Awards against large weeklies in the state with circulations above 15,000.
“Covering the people and governments of our coastal community is our mission and it was encouraging to see these efforts recognized by judges from across the nation — especially during a global pandemic,” Leming said. “The experience and talent our journalists bring to the newspaper deserve awards every single issue. Congratulations to them all.”
The complete list of award winners from The Coastal Star:
Ron Hayes: First place for Community History (100 Years of Boynton), Faith & Family Reporting (Lessons from “Happy” and “Kind,” two nuns named Elizabeth at St. Vincent Ferrer); Feature Story Non-Profile (Meals on Wheels goes extra mile to serve WWII vet); and Feature Story Profile (HERbert: Rescued legless crab becomes internet sensation).
Charles Elmore: First place for General News Story (Overdose deaths double in Delray during pandemic).
Larry Barszewski: First place for Agricultural & Environmental Reporting (The great Sea Grape debate).
Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley: First place for Serious Column (Hallowed ground, the evolution of the National Cemetery).
Rachel S. O’Hara: First place for Photo Series in One Issue (Paws up for pets, drive-up pet blessing).
Larry Keller: Second place for Agricultural & Environmental Reporting (for three stories about sea turtles) and for In-Depth Reporting Non-Investigative (Feds accuse doctor of $681 million fraud in substance abuse treatment billings).
Steve Plunkett: Second place for Local Government Reporting (for articles about the Ocean Strand and about a duck that died) and third place for Roads & Transportation Reporting (for articles about Interstate 95 and about Tesla car popularity).
Mary Hladky: Second place for COVID-19 General News Story (Empty reality of virus fallout hits home).
Mary Thurwachter: Third place for Arts, Entertainment & Review Reporting (Tabloid Tattle: Former National Enquirer staffers tell all in “Scandalous”).
Rich Pollack: Third place for Outdoor & Recreation Reporting (for articles about local parks).
Staff: First place for Investigative Reporting (for articles and graphics about water woes in Delray Beach); second place for Page Design; and third place for General Excellence, Overall Graphic Design, and for COVID-19 Feature Story (Reflections from the front line).

One of the provisions in the new law is that bicyclists riding on substandard-width roads, ones without designated bike lanes, must ride single file except when passing each other. Renderings provided by Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency

Seeking consistency in enforcement, chiefs ask state for clarity

By Joe Capozzi

Police chiefs in Palm Beach County’s coastal communities are seeking clarification on how changes to state law affect bicyclists on State Road A1A. 
The law that took effect July 1, following the passage of Senate Bill 950, has a host of new regulations for bicyclists and motorists, including a requirement for bicyclists to ride single file in substandard-width lanes, such as those found along most of State Road A1A, and no more than two abreast in wider lanes.
“We want to make sure everybody is on the same sheet of music,’’ said Ocean Ridge Police Chief Hal Hutchins. 
“Everybody wants to do it [enforcement] in the same manner so there is consistency and there is no confusion. Once we nail everything down, we will start to get our officers involved with it and do some public service campaigns.’’
When the legislation went into effect July 1, the chiefs reached out to the Florida Department of Transportation for an explanation of how it affects their enforcement.
“We told them. ‘It’s a state road and how do you want this enforced? What’s the message? What’s the law if the law is modified?’’’ said Highland Beach Police Chief Craig Hartmann. “We all deal with the same FDOT roadway that runs through our towns. We are trying to get some response from FDOT and how they assist us — because it’s not a one-municipality issue. It’s a state road issue from Broward County on up.’’
Ocean Ridge, Manalapan and Highland Beach are among the police departments planning to attend a virtual meeting Aug. 11 with the FDOT and the offices of Sen. Lauren Book and Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, who co-sponsored the legislation.
“Our hope is that a productive conversation can be facilitated to help everyone come to a mutual understanding of the current laws,’’ Angel Gonzalez, a legislative assistant to Book, wrote July 14 in an email to Manalapan Police Chief Carmen Mattox. 
The new legislation “makes it clear that bicycles shall ride in a single file while traveling on substandard roads’’ like the stretches of A1A in Manalapan, Ocean Ridge and Highland Beach, Mattox said July 16 in a report to the Town Commission. A1A in Gulf Stream also fits the definition of substandard.
Mattox said he asked FDOT to post new signs “mandating single-file travel” but the agency would not. He then reached out to Book’s office for help. 
“This issue affects many more towns than Manalapan. I have reached out to other coastal communities to request their involvement to help me find a solution,’’ he said in his report. 
A “substandard-width lane is a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and another vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane,’’ according to the law. The FDOT design manual lists 4 feet as the minimum width for a designated bike lane. 
On substandard-width lanes, “persons riding bicycles may temporarily ride two abreast only to avoid hazards in the roadway or to overtake another person riding a bicycle,’’ the statute says.
Mattox sent Book’s office a series of photographs, taken on a Saturday morning in July from town cameras along A1A, showing packs of bicyclists in the vehicular travel lanes.
“My goal is to have FDOT install signage informing the bicyclist to travel in single-file lanes,’’ he said in his report. 
“This is a multi-jurisdictional issue occurring on a state roadway. I believe it requires the assistance of the state police to address and enforce the new law. Enforcement is difficult due to the large number of bicyclists overwhelming the number of officers enforcing the law.’’
A unified message from FDOT will help coastal towns educate the public, the chiefs say. 
“The bicycle clubs ride legally and correctly. It’s some of the loosely affiliated groups that come through that get together in a pack and end up in the roadway,’’ Hartmann said.
Hutchins said some FDOT signs along A1A say bicyclists cannot ride more than two abreast. He wondered if those signs are in conflict with the new law. 

Motorists are allowed to cross a yellow center line when passing cyclists, making sure to keep at least 3 feet of separation from the cyclists.

The new law also spells out changes affecting motorists, including:
• No passing zones no longer apply to motorists who drive to the left of center to overtake a bicycle, provided the motorist gives at least 3 feet passing clearance.
• A vehicle making a right turn while passing a cyclist can do so only if the cyclist is at least 20 feet from the intersection and at a safe distance for the driver to make the turn.
• Cyclists riding in groups, after coming to a full stop at lights, may proceed through an intersection in groups of 10 or fewer. Motorists must let one group pass before proceeding.
Many people aren’t aware of the new law, but public agencies are starting to get the word out. 
The Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency offered a presentation to its governing board in July. 
“I typically ride in a group of two, just me and my husband, or up to about six to eight, and we are always considerate, always following the rules of the road,” West Palm Beach Commissioner Christina Lambert said at the TPA presentation. “But many times we are met with aggressive drivers who do not want bicyclists on the road, so I think the more we can do to help educate to keep everyone safe, the better off we
will be.”

By Joe Capozzi

Hoping to tap grant dollars available due to the coronavirus pandemic, Manalapan commissioners are trying to get a head start on an ambitious project they believe is inevitable — replacing the town’s septic tanks with a municipal sewer system. 
“It’s going to happen and we already have word coming down” from state agencies “that sooner or later all barrier islands will be forced to make that transition. We want to do it before we are being forced to. We want to control our investment,’’ Mayor Keith Waters said. 
What kind of system, how much it will cost and who will pay for it won’t be known until the engineering firm Mock Roos completes an analysis of all options. 
The report is due by Jan. 23 at the latest, according to a $93,350 consulting services agreement approved by the Town Commission on July 23.
The town started seriously considering the project two years ago before deferring those discussions. 
“Now with COVID, suddenly there are all these piles of money out there for infrastructure, so we are trying to capitalize on that,’’ Waters said in an interview after the July meeting. “We’ve never really taken it to this point.’’ 
The costs will depend on what type of sewer system the commissioners choose and whether they include moving or adding other utilities — such as power lines, fiber-optic cables, natural gas pipes, stormwater drains — underground while the streets are torn up.
Construction alone could take four years and require tearing up every street in town at one time or another.
“The preference is to do everything at one time if possible. It’s just a matter of finding the money to do it,’’ Waters said. 
Waters said he’d like to avoid a special assessment on residents. Some portion of it could be paid for with property taxes. But the hope is to cover most if not all of the costs with state or federal money. 
Mock Roos will consider three collection systems: gravity, vacuum and low pressure.
“It’s likely the low pressure system is gonna be the right system for the town,’’ John Cairnes, a senior project engineer for Mock Roos, told commissioners. “The low pressure system gives you the ability to have people connect later on. You put the main trunk in the road and people can connect to it whenever they need to.’’
The firm’s final report will guide the town as it applies for grants.
“We will get the funding to make this happen. But it’s going to be a process and the biggest process is looking at the overall cost and choosing the right system,’’ Waters said. 
The report “allows us to go and start making the formal requests that we are not able to right now.’’
In other business:
• Commissioners approved a tentative tax rate of $3.17 per $1,000 of taxable value, the same as the current one, for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Budget hearings will be held Sept. 17 and Sept. 28. 
“I like the thought of keeping the millage rate exactly where it is, maybe a little bit lower. We may even contemplate taking that down just a touch,’’ Waters said at a budget workshop July 22. 
The town’s taxable value increased 7.2% to just under $1.5 billion ($1,493,978,117), according to the latest estimates from the Palm Beach County property appraiser. 
• Town Manager Linda Stumpf said negotiations on a police contract are at an impasse and will be referred to a special master. The union objected to the town’s coronavirus policy. “They felt it was prohibitive when cases were going down, which is not the case,’’ she said.

Ocean Ridge Police Chief Hal Hutchins is retiring in August after serving as chief since 2015. Hutchins has spent 39 years in law enforcement, having retired from the Palm Beach Police Department in 2005. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Hal Hutchins was still a sergeant in the town of Palm Beach Police Department when he pulled over the wife of a community leader for speeding.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked.
When Hutchins nodded that he did, she told him that she was running late for her hair appointment.
Hutchins then spent the next 25 minutes explaining why for her own safety she shouldn’t speed and then, rather than write a ticket, offered to call the salon and reschedule her appointment. She declined the offer, but they parted on such good terms that the woman’s husband called Hutchins that night to thank him.
For Hutchins — Ocean Ridge’s police chief, who will retire Aug. 20 after 39 years in law enforcement — that incident illustrated what it’s like to be a police officer in a small coastal community.
“The beauty is you have the time to be actually involved on a personal level,” says Hutchins, 59, whose entire career — except for a few months of driving a doughnut delivery truck — has been as a law enforcement officer dealing with people living in or visiting either Palm Beach or Ocean Ridge. “We have the luxury of being able to be more service-oriented.”
Even so, the image of small-town coastal cops as glorified security guards is a far cry from reality: The jobs require the discipline and training to enforce laws and make arrests. Still, officers in these often-affluent communities have time for getting to know residents, rather than just racing from call to call.
“Law enforcement becomes just part of the job,” Hutchins says. “Once we become only the enforcer, we lose touch with the greatest segment of our community.”
Hutchins believes it’s important for cops to build mutual trust within the community. One way to build that trust, he says, is to talk to people.
“I pride myself in getting to know as many people as possible in every place I’ve worked,” he said. “There is much more value in policing that way, because you can avoid having to write tickets and arrest people.”
Police officers in coastal towns also have the responsibility for ensuring residents’ safety in the event of a hurricane. They are trained to respond to incidents on the beach or in the water. They must sometimes handle dangerous situations.
Hutchins remembers receiving a call one night shortly after he was named Ocean Ridge police chief, telling him a man had barricaded himself inside a home and was threatening to shoot at officers and others.
Hutchins drove to the scene and, with other officers, spoke to the man through a window, calming him down and waiting until the man — who had been drinking — dozed off.
“We were able to resolve the situation without incident,” Hutchins said.
Hutchins acknowledges that small coastal towns are safe for the most part and that makes it possible to do small things for residents — checking on homes when residents are away or driving homebound seniors to the polls on Election Day.
“Customer service is the most important thing I can think of in my whole career,” Hutchins says. “It sets the stage for the expectations of the entire community.”

From high school to law enforcement

That career for Hutchins began in 1981 when he was fresh out of Lake Worth High School and looking for a job. He had offers from the West Palm Beach Fire Department and the Palm Beach Police Department at the same time. The law enforcement job paid $1,000 a year more, so he took it.
“I think I made a great decision as far as my life goes,” he said.
He stayed with Palm Beach, rising to the rank of sergeant, and after retiring in 2005 took a part-time job delivering doughnuts for Krispy Kreme.
But he missed law enforcement. “At 43, retirement wasn’t for me,” he said.
So he started in Ocean Ridge as a volunteer reserve officer. Eventually he was hired by then-Chief Ed Hillary and rose to lieutenant before being named chief in 2015.
At the reins, Hutchins continued putting the focus on customer service, encouraging the staff to “treat everyone special.”
Hutchins also mentored the man who is set to become chief, Richard Jones, a lieutenant who joined the department in 2014. Jones had worked in the Glades County Sheriff’s Office, where he rose to the rank of major.
“Chief Hutchins is leaving this department in a much better position than it has ever been before,” Jones said.
Hutchins also gained the respect of fellow police chiefs and in January was elected president of the Palm Beach Police Chiefs Association.
For his part, Hutchins said he’s leaving his career as a coastal police officer — perhaps until he comes out of retirement once again — with no regrets.
“Everything has led me to something better,” he said. “This town provided me with more than I provided it.”

Lantana Police Chief Sean Scheller presents Deborah Manzo with an Achievement Award at her last town meeting as manager. She left to become the administrator of Okeechobee County. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star