By Dan Moffett

The hard feelings and divisions that grew out of the March election are festering within the Ocean Ridge Town Commission.
During a contentious and sometimes angry three-hour meeting on May 3, the commission fought over filling a seat on the town’s Board of Adjustment — in other times, an obscure panel most residents don’t know exists.
The issue arose from a last-minute withdrawal by Polly Joa for a regular position on the board. Her withdrawal came shortly after Cassidy delivered a letter of application for a board seat to town hall. The deadline was 3 p.m. on April 21.
Ultimately Cassidy and Robert Sloat were appointed unanimously to the five-member panel, which is charged with resolving code disputes between the town and residents.
But in discussions beforehand some commissioners saw political meddling. Cassidy missed unseating Kristine de Haseth by 16 votes in the election and is an ally of two commissioners, Steve Coz and Geoff Pugh.
“The time line is critical,” said Commissioner Martin Wiescholek, a supporter of de Haseth, the mayor. “That all happened on the very, very last day, within hours of the deadline.”
Wiescholek said it had the look of “backroom dealing.” Vice-Mayor Susan Hulburt proposed taking the seldom-used step of suspending the town’s rules and filling the board seat by promoting an alternate.
Coz and Pugh, both former mayors, vehemently protested against suspending rules and said Cassidy should get the seat.
“I’ve been on the commission for years and I’ve never seen a moment like this,” Coz said, arguing it was ill-advised to circumvent the rules.
Pugh called the idea of overriding procedures and rejecting Cassidy “wrong and wrong-spirited.”
“It’s a very bad precedent you’re setting,” Pugh warned. “That’s something that’s been around for years and you (would be) changing it for something that’s not forthright.”
He said suspending the rules would leave the “perception of underhanded dealing” and create “division and drama” that the commissioners have said they are trying to eliminate.
Hurlburt said she thought the board’s alternates should be considered for the regular seat because of the eleventh-hour developments. De Haseth lamented that the rancor of the election had spilled over in to the town’s business.
“I’m a little taken aback by this last-minute resignation,” she said. “It’s very difficult because it’s coming on the tail end of a difficult campaign for all candidates, not just one or two.”
De Haseth said that, despite reservations about the last-minute changes, she would support seating Cassidy, in the hope of quelling the discord.
“This has to stop,” she said. “We have to end the divisiveness and put this in the rear-view mirror.”
De Haseth was the deciding vote in the commission’s 3-2 decision to reject re-advertising the BOA seats. After that, Hurlburt moved to appoint Cassidy and Sloat to the regular seats on the board. Joa moved to an alternate seat.
In other business, by unanimous consensus, the commission decided to direct the Planning and Zoning Commission to look into code changes the town made last year concerning building along the Coastal Construction Control Line.
Coz said recent ordinances the commission passed have created hardships for some homeowners, especially those building decks or walkways.
“These homeowners are being unnecessarily penalized,” Coz said. “One homeowner was told by the previous town attorney to wait for the unity of title ordinance before commencing work and then was told since the resident had waited, the CCCL ordinance would now cause the deck to require going through the variance process.”
The commission hopes to receive guidance from the P&Z board on amending the ordinances by the next regular town meeting on June 7.

By Dan Moffett

Manalapan has its own version of the building boom that is raging throughout Florida, and it comes with its own rather special complications.
People who are moving to the town are intent on building bigger homes, which necessitates the need for bigger boats to park behind them, which in turn necessitates the need for bigger docks to accommodate the bigger boats.
This is where a problem begins for Manalapan’s Town Commission.
Building permit requests for boat docks are backing up in Town Hall while commissioners and officials wrestle with old code restrictions that new homeowners hope to circumvent.
During their meeting on May 25, commissioners considered the case brought by Charles M. Adams, a tech entrepreneur from Waldorf, Maryland. Adams bought a property on Churchill Way on Point Manalapan four years ago and started building on it two years later.
The town’s code allows Adams to build a 5-foot dock into the Intracoastal cove behind his house. His attorney and engineer told the commission that in order to reach water deep enough to float his boat, the dock would have to go out about 34 feet — about 29 feet beyond the current limit.
Because of protected mangroves along the property, the dock can be located in only one spot.
Adams asked commissioners to give him a variance, an exception from the code restriction. They unanimously rejected the request, with no shortage of reasons why.
Mayor Keith Waters said a variance would be “a special privilege that would set a precedent,” opening the door for more variance requests and disruption of the town’s building rules.
Mayor Pro Tem Stewart Satter said the homeowner should have known about the cove’s shallow water when he bought the property and should have known about the 5-foot dock limit.
“The people who bought the lot should have done their due diligence,” Commissioner John Deese said, echoing Satter.
“It’s extremely shallow back there,” said Vice Mayor Simone Bonutti. “I don’t know if you can even get a boat back there.”
Waters said he had received correspondence from about 15 residents in the neighborhood, all of them opposed to allowing the variance. He said a longer dock would obstruct the neighbors’ views of the waterfront.
“We’re not getting one person who says, ‘Yeah, this is a good idea,’” the mayor said.
Manalapan residents figure to hear a lot about dock-building regulations in the months ahead. Waters wants the commission to look at the code to see what changes might be necessary for the town to respond to evolving boating and building trends.
The mayor said the town wants to be as amenable as possible to what homeowners want.
“We’re all neighbors,” Waters told Adams’ representatives.

By Dan Moffett

Boynton Beach Fire Chief James Stables has been on the job for only five months, but already he’s making a difference in Briny Breezes.
That’s the conclusion of Hal Hutchins, the Ocean Ridge police chief and Briny’s marshal.
“I’ve already started to notice that the response times have been coming down,” Hutchins told the Town Council on May 27. “We’ve seen it.”
Stables, 54, explained his philosophy to the council on getting responders to Briny quickly. He said the idea isn’t to focus so much on driving faster, but rather to emphasize getting fire-rescue and firefighting personnel loaded into their vehicles more rapidly.
“A lot of times people don’t understand about emergency response,” Stables said. “In a small response zone, you can’t add a whole lot of speed and make a meaningful impact. What you can do is get to the apparatus quicker and get out of the station quicker.”
He told the council the goal is to get responders into their fire truck or ambulance 30 seconds quicker because that’s time saved in the response. “It’s a meaningful savings of time,” he said.
Boynton provides fire services for Ocean Ridge, as well as Briny.
Stables has some 35 years’ experience in fire departments. He came to Boynton from Johnson City, Tennessee, where he served as chief for 31/2 years. Before that, he was the chief in Palm Bay and Ormond Beach.
He has a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Barry University and is working on a master’s there.
In other business:
• The council gave unanimous approval to a contract and work order to replace the town’s aging water mains.
Town Manager William Thrasher said the project should cost the town about $301,000, and he hopes that Briny can pay much of the bill with federal money from the pandemic-relief American Rescue Plan. The corporation has committed to contributing $80,000.
The town was able to piggyback onto an existing Boynton Beach contract to avoid seeking bids for the work. Thrasher said the project will take months to complete and is likely to run into next year.
• The council set its first budget workshop for July 22, beginning at 3 p.m. Council members decided to return all meetings to Town Hall, beginning with the regularly scheduled session on June 24. The council has been meeting in the Briny community center since last year because of coronavirus social distancing requirements.

County has weathered pandemic ‘very well,’ appraiser reports

By Mary Hladky

Undeterred by the coronavirus pandemic, the taxable value of Palm Beach County properties has increased for the 10th year in a row.
Estimates released by the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office on May 28 showed countywide taxable property values increased by 5.05% from 2020 to 2021, less than last year’s 5.9% jump but still a strong showing.
Last year’s numbers did not reflect any impact from the pandemic because they were based on market conditions as of Jan. 1, 2020.
“We will probably look back at COVID and see it was a health crisis but not an economic crisis, at least for Palm Beach County,” Property Appraiser Dorothy Jacks said. “We actually have weathered the storm very well.”
The taxable values are preliminary and will be revised at the end of June, when they will be submitted to the state Department of Revenue. While the numbers will change as the Property Appraiser’s Office adds more properties to the tax roll and makes final calculations, the estimates give a general idea of how taxable values fared.
Last year, for example, the countywide taxable values were estimated to have increased by 5.5% but jumped to 5.9% after additional number crunching.
With the exception of Palm Beach Shores, taxable values rose in every municipality in the county as of Jan. 1 this year.
Taxable values were estimated to increase by 2.8% in Boca Raton, 4.9% in Boynton Beach and almost 5% in Delray Beach.
The estimates also showed taxable values up 9.5% in Briny Breezes, 2.5% in Gulf Stream, 2.8% in Highland Beach, 8.8% in Lantana, 7.1% in Manalapan, 4.5% in Ocean Ridge and 4% in South Palm Beach.
Countywide, the 5.05% hike translates to a total taxable value increase of $10.5 billion, up to a whopping $220.5 billion, including $3 billion in new construction added to the tax roll.
As of mid-June last year, Jacks expected that the taxable value of commercial properties such as hotels and restaurants would take a hit from the pandemic.
But since 70% of the county’s taxable value comes from residential properties, a solid residential market would offset commercial market losses, she said at the time.
While Jacks cannot yet place a number on how commercial properties will fare this year, the upswing in the residential market at the end of last year has made up for declines elsewhere, she said.
“The fourth-quarter really strong residential market offset the commercial losses to a great extent,” she said.
She anticipated taxable value reductions for hotels and entertainment venues such as movie theaters and bowling alleys, but warehousing remained strong. Restaurants were a mixed bag, with some hard-hit by the pandemic. Yet fast-food restaurants with drive-thru did well, she said.
Local governments use taxable values to calculate how much property tax money they can expect in the coming year so they can set their annual budgets and the 2021-2022 tax rates.
The fact that the pandemic had a modest impact on taxable values is good news for municipal leaders who otherwise would have to make difficult budget-cutting decisions.

Kristin and Frank Augustine were among several South Palm Beach customers in a matter of minutes to buy drinking water on Memorial Day at the Publix in Plaza del Mar. Right after they did, an employee restocked the supply with 14 cases of bottled water. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

South Palm Beach Mayor Bonnie Fischer says the city of West Palm Beach has to do a better job of notifying the town’s water customers when problems arise.
It took West Palm officials about eight days last month to announce that the city’s water had an unacceptably high level of the blue-green algae contaminant cylindrospermopsin and posed a risk to physically vulnerable customers.
“It’s very concerning,” Fischer said. “It was happening long before we knew about it and people had been drinking it for days. That’s the most concerning thing.”
West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James defended the city’s response during a news conference on May 30, saying it took eight days to confirm the problem with testing.
“I’m aware of the concerns expressed that the city should have informed the public sooner,” he said. “We stand by our decision to test to confirm the initial high test results, those supplemental confirmation tests, and we could not tell the public until we received guidance from the Florida Department of Health.”
James said not all utilities test for the toxin and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t list it among the worst contaminants. He said the advisory applies only to people with health conditions and children. He expected the advisory to not drink the water to last until the first weekend in June.
“This is uncharted territory for not just the city, but also for the state,” said Poonam Kalkat, West Palm Beach Public Utilities director.
Even after West Palm Beach officials disclosed the problem on May 28, South Palm Beach’s residents were left in the dark. Fischer said they didn’t receive text messages or robocalls from the Palm Beach County Health Department, though West Palm Beach residents did.
“It’s disturbing,” she said, “and it’s happened before.”
Over Thanksgiving weekend in 2019, a water main break in the town necessitated a boil-water order from health officials. To notify South Palm Beach residents, Fischer had to print out flyers and take them to each condo building. This time, sheriff’s deputies distributed the flyers.
South Palm Beach and Palm Beach get their water from West Palm, which opened several distribution sites for bottled water but none of them on barrier islands. Customers emptied the shelves of water products at the Publix at Plaza del Mar once they got word of the contamination.
South Palm’s Town Council has been looking for better ways to communicate with residents by phone or internet alerts, and the water problems figure to intensify the effort.

Getting around Manalapan in 1920 was difficult and primitive by today’s standards.
BELOW RIGHT: The 1891 newspaper ad promoting George Charter’s property. Photos from the Boynton Beach City Library

By Eliot Kleinberg

Across America, 1931 was a step in the morphing of a brutal economic downturn into a history-making Depression. In Palm Beach County, where the real estate boom had gone bust even before the rest of the nation crashed, people nevertheless were busy making towns.
This year marks the 90th birthdays of Ocean Ridge and Manalapan. One was named for high ground, rare in South Florida. One was named for a place up North, something that is not rare at all.

Water all around, no get out
Manalapan’s creation goes back to the 19th century.
George H.K. Charter, then 36, came to the barrier island in 1882. Five years later he became a contractor for the “barefoot mailman” delivery route. And on a 21/2-mile stretch of land, he would plant a coconut grove and build a home he called Buzzard Roost, using materials that washed up.
In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison issued Charter a homestead for 126 acres. Just two years later, Charter sold his property for $7,500 — about $216,000 in today’s dollars — to Elnathan Field, who created Hypoluxo Beach Co.
Field was one of many to employ “Hypoluxo,” the original name for Lake Worth — not the city, but the stretch of what’s now the Intracoastal Waterway that then was a closed-in lake. Hypoluxo is an indigenous word translated as “water all around, no get out.”
Three years later, in 1894, Henry Flagler’s first Palm Beach hotel opened. That same year, Field built a 21/2-story inn on stilts.
He called it Manalapan Cottage, for a township about 50 miles south of New York City in his native New Jersey. Its name is an indigenous word for “land that produces good bread.”
Two years later, Field filed a plat for Hypoluxo Beach and started selling lots.
In 1912, he sold his remaining property to a man who later sold it to Leila and A. Romeyn Pierson for $40,000, more than five times what Field had paid in 1891.
With a nod to Field, the Piersons called the tract Manalapan Estates — a neighborhood name that eventually would become a town name.
Soon the state wanted to open up the south end of Lake Worth. The logical spot on the barrier island was the narrowest, at the southern tip of the Pierson property. The Legislature condemned the tract and finished the Boynton Inlet in 1927.

Harold Vanderbilt moved from Palm Beach and in 1930 built the iconic Eastover, along with its massive seawall, that still stands today in Manalapan. BELOW RIGHT: Vanderbilt in 1930 after his America’s Cup victory.

‘The Commodore’
Then “Commodore” Harold Vanderbilt showed up.
Harold, great-grandson of railroad magnate and college founder Cornelius Vanderbilt, was the last of his family to take an active role in their empire. When his father died in 1920, Harold inherited no fewer than nine railway companies.
Harold got the “commodore” moniker through his competitive yacht racing, including a victory in the 1930 America’s Cup. He also was an avid bridge player.
He was happy being part of Palm Beach society. But after the 1928 hurricane, he and the town had a falling-out. He asked the town to abandon to him the stretch of land between his home and the beach. The town declined.
So the commodore went down the coast road to Manalapan.
There, he bought 500 feet of oceanfront. He built Eastover, later listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Later, Vanderbilt and several other owners of large estates decided to split off their own municipality.
Vanderbilt wrote a charter for the town of Manalapan, and the Legislature approved it on June 23, 1931. He included the barrier island part as well as the south end of Hypoluxo Island, where some of his relatives and friends had built their estates. As late as 1953, it still had only 60 residents.

Built in the 1890s, the Boynton Hotel is shown here in 1910 with a trio of customers dressed in coat and tie. BELOW RIGHT: Looking west from the intersection of A1A and Ocean Avenue, the old police station is still standing at the corner in 1925.

On the beach
Ocean Ridge’s founding was a bit more complicated. Its back-and-forth with Boynton Beach, and the resulting mishmash of names, sounds like the “Who’s on First” routine.
As with Manalapan, the roots of Ocean Ridge go back to the 1800s. In 1877, H. Dexter Hubel filed for a homestead for 80 acres along the coast, east of what’s now downtown Boynton Beach. At the time, the beach wasn’t worth much. It was blocked by heavy brush — and in any case, settlers came to farm, not sunbathe.
The stretch of oceanfront did have a 20-foot ridge. An ocean ridge.
Hubel built a hut of palmetto leaves and driftwood and sent for his family in Michigan. After experiencing a cooking fire soon after, the Hubels gave up and went back North.
In 1880, the keeper of the Delray Beach House of Refuge — one of several federal coastal outposts that helped wrecked sailors — paid the federal government 90 cents an acre for the tract.
In 1891, the company digging the canal that would become the Intracoastal Waterway sold off 160 acres to settler George H.K. Charter. He paid $240, or $1.50 an acre. (A buck and a half is $44 in today’s money — still not a lot for acreage now worth millions.)
Just months later, Charter turned around and sold to pioneer Byrd Spilman Dewey, who lived near what’s now West Palm Beach. She paid $700, giving Charter a nice bump.
Pretty soon the land would be worth a lot more as Flagler arrived. Among those who followed Flagler, seeking their own fortunes, were two men from Michigan: William Linton and Maj. Nathan Smith Boynton.
Linton bought Dewey's land for $6,000, and Boynton built the oceanfront Boynton Beach Hotel.
But Linton ran into money problems. In 1897, Boynton tried to make whole the people who’d bought deeds from Linton that now were worthless. But those victims were so angry they took Linton’s name off their proposed town, changing it to Delray (no “Beach” yet).
On Sept. 26, 1898, Dewey and her husband filed a plat for the town of “Boynton” (again, no “Beach”). It would incorporate in 1920.
The town included, across the Intracoastal Waterway, a piece of barrier island 3 miles long and a half-mile wide. One-third of that was under water.

The Boynton Inlet separates the present day communities of Manalapan and Ocean Ridge.
It was dug initially to provide outflow for the polluted Intracoastal Waterway, and completed in 1927.

The Deweys left Florida in 1911. In 1925, the Boynton family sold the oceanfront hotel and surrounding property to George W. Harvey, who razed the hotel for a new one. Harvey didn’t count on hurricanes in 1926 and 1928 and a crash in 1929. The new hotel never was built.
When bad blood began to bubble in Boynton, it was about — no surprise — taxes.
Boynton was reeling from the real estate collapse. Homeowners who are broke can’t pay their property taxes, and as late as September 1931, the town had collected less than half of what it was owed for the 1930 budget year. Holders of municipal bonds totaling about $150,000 (or about $2.6 million in 2021 dollars) were putting the legal screws on the town, whose total debt to all creditors, including interest, was an astounding $967,650, about $16.8 million today. The town was teetering on municipal bankruptcy.
Its eastern part had just 12 homes, nearly all owned by winter residents. The snowbirds said they accounted for a small portion of the town, but paid half the taxes. The town countered that the barrier island got fire and police service and water and plenty of other benefits.
On April 14, 1930, a municipal split that would affect hundreds of thousands of people in ensuing decades passed by a vote of 118 to 50. At the time, Boynton had a population of about 1,000.
In the divorce, the new town agreed to absorb half the old town’s debt of $1 million. The mainland would supply water to the oceanfront town.
Around the time Boynton had incorporated, it spent $6,000 to buy an oceanfront park. In 1928, it built on that spot a casino (at the time, the term could mean just a meeting place). The casino would remain Boynton property and be free from any taxes levied by the new town as long as Boynton owned it.

The inlet provided an  access point for private and commercial anglers like Lucy Bergman, owner of Busch’s Seafood Restaurant, shown in 1968. This Ocean Ridge landmark closed in 1992.

A town is born

After the Legislature approved the new town, it became official on May 15, 1931.
Now it needed a name. Suggestions included Royal Palm Beach, West Palm Beach South, and Coconut Grove. Residents picked “Boynton Beach.”
It wasn’t hard to understand why a town wanted “Beach” in its name. It was a walking enticement for freezing Northerners.
And what could go wrong?
But “Boynton Beach” would have been wise to limit its order of town stationery. The name lasted just six short years.
The problem was the post office. Town leaders discovered postal clerks were confusing “Boynton Beach” with “Daytona Beach.” Leaders also worried about natural confusion with nearby Boynton.
The muddle of towns with similar names is not new to Palm Beach County. Palm Beach and West Palm Beach had been around for decades. And in ensuing years, the county would include Royal Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, and Palm Beach Shores.
In April 1937, Boynton Beach Mayor Michael White declared a contest for a new name, with a $100 prize.
The winner turned out to be none other than the mayor’s daughter. She had suggested a name that went all the way back to that stretch of high ground encountered by settlers in the late 1800s: Ocean Ridge.
The name would become official in 1939 by a vote of 14 residents. Then things got really complicated.
Soon after, the town on the mainland started thinking that, since Ocean Ridge didn’t need “Beach” anymore, it was a shame for it to go to waste. So, in 1941, that town changed its name from Boynton to — wait for it — Boynton Beach.
Meanwhile, the barrier island’s name game wasn’t over.
In 1951, some Ocean Ridge residents said they didn’t like the name after all. They wanted to play off Palm Beach, just to the north. There was a push for “South Palm Beach.” But the idea failed. The vote was 10 to 7.
“South Palm Beach” didn’t sit unused for long. In May 1955, the town of that name was incorporated just up the road.
Boynton Beach/Ocean Ridge didn’t just change names in the 1930s. It also shrank.
In December 1937, the Florida Supreme Court ruled the 40-acre mobile home park known as Briny Breezes could separate from the town of Boynton Beach and become part of unincorporated Palm Beach County. The judges said the park successfully argued it was getting no benefits from the town. (Briny Breezes would itself incorporate in 1963 as one of the county’s smallest towns.)

What’s in a name?
The Boynton-Boynton Beach-Ocean Ridge-South Palm Beach merry-go-round is just part of the identity mess along the barrier islands.
Boynton Beach doesn’t extend to the ocean, right? What about Oceanfront Park? Isn’t that part of Boynton Beach?
Actually, no. Boynton Beach bought that property back in the 1920s. The municipality is a landowner, just as an individual is, but the property is in Ocean Ridge!
There is one piece of Boynton Beach along the waterfront. On Aug. 15, 1972, the city annexed the planned $10 million — in 1972 dollars — St. Andrews golf course and condominium, saying it would be a tax boon.
But part of its tennis courts are in Gulf Stream. And the road in front of it is the jurisdiction of Palm Beach County. In fact, St. Andrews is in a 3/4-mile-long strip on either side of State Road A1A that’s sliced up among five governments: Boynton Beach, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream, Ocean Ridge and the coastal pocket of unincorporated Palm Beach County.
Longtime Gulf Stream Mayor William Koch, who died in 2012, would call it “the pizza.”

Sources: The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times, Miami Herald, Palm Beach County Historical Society, Boynton Beach Historical Society, city of Boynton Beach, town of Ocean Ridge, town of Manalapan, New Netherland Institute, www.officialdata.org, and The History of Ocean Ridge, by Gail Adams Aaskov.

Leonard Cohen and his wife, Florence, collect teddy bears and give them to children at the Connor Moran Children’s Cancer Foundation and St. Mary’s Medical Center and other cancer patients. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Leonard Cohen grew up fast in the hardscrabble neighborhoods of Newark, New Jersey, in the 1930s and ’40s. He was 4-foot-8 and 85 pounds at age 13 when he had to navigate those mean streets, walking to and from Weequahic High School in south Newark.
“You want to talk about growing up tough?” Cohen asked. “And my father was a master sergeant in the U.S. Army who’d say, ‘Don’t come crying to me, because you’ll have more to worry about than them.’ And I never did.”
Now closing in on his 91st birthday, Cohen proved his pugilistic talents in becoming a Golden Gloves champion in high school.
Since he and his wife, Florence, left the Garden State in 1976, he’s become such a fixture in South Palm Beach that Mayor Bonnie Fischer calls him for advice.
“Bonnie calls me all the time,” he said. “Sometimes I’d call her, too. When the pandemic started I’d call 15 or 20 people every day to check in on them, and I still do it.
“I’m a father figure,” added Cohen, who has two children — Linda and Jeffrey — three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
He attended Town Council meetings for years but stopped when the pandemic hit.
Cohen, who can see the skyline of New York City from his summer home in the mountains of New Jersey, has worked to help families of the first responders to the 9/11 tragedy. He said the money originally set aside for their aid ran out years ago.
“When people need help, we want to help. We’re lucky,” Cohen said.

— Brian Biggane

Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: Before going to Weequahic, I went to Hebrew School and had to go through an Irish, German and Italian neighborhood. I had no choice but learn how to take care of myself.
I was 11 when World War II broke out and my mother went to work as a riveter, putting together dashboards for airplanes. I became the head of the household at that point. So I guess I was forced to grow up young.

Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: My wife and I eloped as teenagers and my first job was at an icehouse in Neptune, New Jersey, moving 300-pound bricks of ice. Then a family friend saw me there and invited me to work as a milkman for Sheffield Farms.
Soon, I was working in the produce business for the potato king of New Jersey, lifting 100-pound bags of potatoes. I wound up with a broken back and a ruptured disk. They put a full-body cast on me.
Next, I was peddling greeting cards on Ferry Street in Newark. I walked into an appliance store, Rothhauser Radio and Appliance, and Jack Rothhauser hired me. My first day at work, he went to lunch and a customer walked in. Jack was out, I was alone and he wanted to buy a refrigerator, so I sold him one. Within a year I was managing the store.
Not long after, I borrowed $5,000 from my two brothers-in-law and we bought a 5 & 10 store. I was the victim of a hit-and-run accident and I was in the hospital once again with a broken back and ruptured disk.
I was lying in the hospital and got the idea of putting what we were selling in the 5 & 10 store in supermarkets, because in the ’50s the only thing you could buy in the supermarkets was food. I started with the Food Town and Shop Rite markets and it grew until we had about 4,000 stores. I had Maybelline, Foster Grant, everything, and it grew until 1984, when we got bought out. Our company was L and C Sales Corp.
I was going to retire, but started a potpourri business, which went big and I gave to my son-in-law after a while.
About 25 years ago, I got into real estate. I decided to go to school and the only one available was real estate school. I sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth, mostly in town here because everybody in town knew me.
I hosted the ice cream socials in town. For 20 years I was doing that and people still recognize me. Just the other day I went to physical therapy, and as I was walking out a woman said, “Hey, it’s the ice cream man!” Same thing when I was standing in line to be vaccinated.

Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: If you have an idea, don’t let anybody discourage you. Everybody told me I couldn’t do it, and I did. The worst thing that can happen is you fail. And if you don’t do it, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.

Q: How did you choose to make your home in South Palm Beach?
A: My sister lived in South Palm and I came to visit. She encouraged me to buy here in 1976. We’ve been happy ever since.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about living in South Palm Beach?
A: It’s a nice community, a very small community. I know everybody in town. Nowadays, the younger people all think we’re their mother and father. And they did so much to pay us back during the pandemic. As they say, what goes around comes around.
I sold an apartment in our building to Mark Harris, who was an EMT from Staten Island during 9/11. Five or six times they went into the buildings that day, taking people out. The last time he went to the left and everybody else in his crew went right; the building collapsed and they lost the whole crew. He didn’t have any parents down here, so we became his parents. He was in his 50s when he died. I miss him.

Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I’ve read all the books of the South African author Wilbur Smith. Lately, I’ve been reading the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child.

Q: What music do you listen to when you want to relax? When you want to be inspired?
A: The music of the ’40s. There’s nothing like it. They don’t make it anymore like that. Bands like Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Doris Day.

Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: My parents. But also Jack Rothhauser, who had a huge impact on me. We were desperate when he hired me. He put me on the right path and I gave him everything I had. He was a real gentleman. One thing he told me was always give somebody else a chance. Pass it forward. I always remembered that.

Q: If your life story were to be made into a movie, who would play you?
A: Steve McQueen. Everybody used to say I looked like Steve McQueen.

Q: Who/what makes you laugh?
A: Everything. Seriously. I watch M*A*S*H on TV all the time, because it takes me back to the early ’50s. If you watch it and listen to the background music, when there’s a love scene it’s always the music of Again. That was the first song we danced to back in 1949 or something like that.

By Dan Moffett

It took plenty of hard work and some last-minute scrambling, but South Palm Beach saw its beach project completed on budget and on time during the first week in May, avoiding interference with the height of turtle nesting season.
“We put 20,000 cubic yards of sand within the confines of South Palm Beach,” Mayor Bonnie Fischer said during the Town Council’s meeting on May 11. (Consider that a typical dump truck can carry between 10 and 15 cubic yards of sand.)
Fischer added a note of concern, however: “We all know it is the luck of the draw on whether this is going to last.”
The hope in South Palm is that nature will be kind and not send a tropical storm to tear up the dune line that has just been rebuilt. Meanwhile, the town is committed to doing its part to give nature a hand.
The council unanimously approved a $15,000 contract with Earth Balance to plant sea oats along the beach to protect it against erosion. Based in North Port, the company has done coastal restoration and environmental management projects for dozens of municipalities and governments around the state.
“We need to get the sea oats on it to stabilize it,” said Town Manager Robert Kellogg. “I realize this is a significant amount of money. But we’ve invested over $700,000 in this project, and $15,000 is a small price to pay to preserve and keep what we have.”
Fischer again offered thanks to the town of Palm Beach, which dredged the sand and sold it to South Palm Beach, and to former Mayor Gail Coniglio and Robert Weber, Palm Beach’s coastal coordinator.
“Without them, none of this would have happened,” Fischer said.
Vice Mayor Robert Gottlieb commended Fischer for her years of effort to bring the project to the town.
“Mayor, I want to congratulate you on working, after 10 years, to get this beach project done,” he said. “It’s the first time we’ve done anything — anything — to our beaches.”
The Town Hall chambers erupted in applause.
In other business:
• The council, on a 3-2 vote, approved a civility policy for behavior during the town’s public meetings.
Gottlieb and Councilmen Mark Weissman and Bill LeRoy supported the measure, saying it was necessary to maintain decorum and keep people from being accosted. Fischer and Councilman Ray McMillan voted against the resolution, worrying the language might be too restrictive and make the town vulnerable to legal challenges.
“I think a pledge of civility is enough,” Fischer said.
Officials said the policy is similar to what neighboring municipalities use.
• The town’s staff is beginning work on the budget for fiscal year 2021-2022, and Kellogg told the council one of the proposed expenditures for consideration is incentive payment for condo buildings to install onsite charging stations for residents with electric vehicles.
Kellogg said Florida Power & Light, with the approval of the Lantana Town Council, is going to pay for and install two supercharging stations at Lantana Beach Park. So, electric vehicle owners may soon have more options.

Mounds of naturally occurring sargassum are upsetting some of the visitors to Lantana’s beach. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Mary Thurwachter

It’s that time of year again, when sargassum blankets the beach, encroaching on beachgoers’ space. It’s nothing new, but nonetheless irritating to people looking for ample room to spread out beach towels, anchor umbrellas and feel the hot sand beneath their feet as they make their way to the ocean.
The problem is not unique to Lantana, but when the brown seaweed hogs so much of the compact — just under 800 feet — town shoreline, tempers rise. And beachgoers are not shy about voicing complaints.
“My granddaughter says ‘it stinks,’” says Karen Lythgoe, vice mayor pro tem. And young Sadie is not alone. Eddie Crockett, the town’s director of operations, and Town Manager Deborah Manzo have gotten an earful from disgruntled sunbathers.
Some municipalities have their shorelines mechanically raked regularly, but Lantana doesn’t.
The matter came up at the town’s May 24 meeting, when Crockett asked the Town Council for direction ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.
“Right now we are having one of those very challenging times,” Crockett said. “There’s so much sargassum and beachgoers are the ones most directly impacted.”
“We don’t have a whole lot of space for our beach,” Manzo said of the sargassum. “We bury as much as we can, and then, at some point, we run out of space. The reason we added this to the agenda is the holiday is coming up and we just wanted to start it happening and made sure we brought it to council.”
Mayor Robert Hagerty, who has been on the job since mid-March, asked what prevented the town from having some type of mechanical device raking the beach.
Crockett said a 2016 directive from the council prohibits the removal of natural debris such as sargassum and allows the use of a mechanical rake only to the east side of the median high tide line traversing the beach. Often, that is only a small portion of the beach. And when raking is done, space for burying the seaweed quickly fills, so the extra sometimes is tossed back in the sea.
To the point raised by Lythgoe’s granddaughter, Crockett explained that “as the seaweed starts to decompose, it gives off an unpleasant smell and the tiny organisms that live in it may irritate the skin if a person comes into contact with it.”
Lythgoe said the sargassum would always be a problem.
“It’s normal,” she said. “It goes all the way from Brazil to the coast of Florida. All the action to mitigate it has to be done locally. We have to do something. When it decomposes on the beach, it smells. If it goes back into the water, it kills sea grass roots, which is what the turtles feed on. So we’ve got to weigh the nuisance versus the environmental impact.”
During a phone conversation with Ligia Collado-Vides, associate chair of the marine biology department at Florida International University, Lythgoe learned of things that can be done, but said the one thing not to do is to put sargassum back into the sea.
“If you’re going to do something at all with it, she said the best option is to bury it,” Lythgoe explained. “But you have to protect the sea turtles. For the long term, we can contact Heather Armstrong from Recycle Florida Today. There are a number of research projects going on about how you can reuse and recycle sargassum. There’s bioplastics, biofuel and research about using it for cosmetics and soaps.”
But what to do now? Hagerty entertained a motion to rake the beach twice a week between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Lythgoe made the motion, but it failed when it didn’t get a second. Council member Lynn Moorhouse was absent.
“Since the Town Council rejected the beach raking initiative, we will not be conducting any mechanical or manual beach raking operations this summer unless otherwise directed by Town Council,” Crockett said in an email after the meeting. “With Memorial Day coming and the manner in which tides come and go, it is very difficult to predict how much sargassum seaweed will accumulate on the beach at any given time. Last year, Town Council authorized mechanical beach raking operations from the Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.”
In other business, the council approved a contract not to exceed $81,000 with Pro Construction Consultants to install an alum-inum railing at the beach.

By Mary Thurwachter

The Town Council agreed in May to hire a third-party consultant to create a new master plan for Lantana using information gathered from residents during two recent workshops.
The move follows through on a goal of Mayor Robert Hagerty, who was elected in March. He said during his campaign it was time for a master plan update and that input from residents was essential to the process.
During the workshops, one of the residents who urged the town to hire a third-party consultant for the master plan was J.J. McDonough of Hypoluxo Island. He said the town should focus on utilizing its assets — the beach and Ocean Avenue. Among his suggestions were to add retail space at the beach and increase parking near the beach.
Karen Lowry, also of Hypoluxo Island, said the town needs a more embracing entrance from Interstate 95.
“Let it be welcoming,” she said. “Let it signal that this is a place where businesses want to do business and people want to live.” She suggested planting berms of overflowing lantana, the flower for which the town got it name.
Ted Cook of The Moorings said the town needs to address the empty buildings on East Ocean Avenue that once were home to restaurants and shops. “The restaurants on the avenue do well, but there are not enough,” he said.
Cook likes the idea of installing a gazebo in Bicentennial Park for concerts and gatherings and said the town needs a high-end banquet hall near the beach as a way to draw more visitors.
Developer Steve Dworkin told the council he favors a master plan that implements public art structures, technology, infrastructure improvements and beautification throughout the town. He talked about the unprecedented high level of property investments taking place in the county, the large infrastructure funding bill proposed at the federal level and taking advantage of funding that may become available in the future for these improvements.
Chamber of Commerce President Dave Arm brought up the lack of parking in the downtown/Ocean Avenue corridor. He suggested turning the northern tennis courts at the Recreation Center and the old Development Services Building into a municipal parking lot with a shuttle service to Ocean Avenue.
Vice Mayor Pro Tem Karen Lythgoe proposed adding a water feature at Maddock Park, doing a full review of the Code of Ordinances, working with volunteer groups to organize trash pickups and starting a community garden in Lyman Park.
She proposed providing veterans with free parking at the beach and other places in town, and would like the town to hire a community outreach officer.
Town staff members shared ideas, as well. Among these were adding a water taxi service to attract visitors from surrounding areas to Lantana’s downtown, adding a fitness park to one of the town’s existing parks and building a municipal marina with a small-town fishing vibe.

About 30 members of the Seagate neighborhood south of Atlantic Avenue gathered to hold a farewell party for their mail carrier, Lester Flowers, who retired after delivering to their neighborhood for 35 years. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

The postcards began arriving in the Seagate neighborhood of Delray Beach around May 10.
They bore no postage. They had no cancellation stamp.
The message, printed in a graceful script, sat within a red, white and blue border.
“Rain, Sleet, Snow, Hail …Farewell
“Someone else will deliver your mail.
“Retirement May 31.
“It has been a pleasure to be your mailman for the last 40 years.”
Lester Flowers was born in Delray Beach. He was 30 when he went to work for the U.S. Postal Service in 1981. He’s 70 now.
Flowers spent those first two years as a mail handler at the distribution center on South Military Trail, then three more delivering a route around West Atlantic Avenue.
In May 1986, he took over Route No. 20, the Seagate neighborhood, and never left.

Lester Flowers posed with Andrew and Sheppard Parrott (above), repeating the gesture from 2010 (below right).

For 35 years, he has delivered the mail to about 550 homes — the credit card bills, the junk ads, the Christmas and Hanukkah and birthday cards, and more.
He has brought smiles, too, friendly waves and cheerful greetings and, when he heard a customer was ill, even prayers.
On the afternoon of May 27, some of those longtime customers brought best wishes, memories and gratitude to Lester Flowers.
In Larry and Nora Rosensweig’s front yard, a banner hung across the shrubbery by Seagate Drive.
Happy Retirement Lester
Beneath the mammoth live oak tree, a table was spread with refreshments, including customized sugar cookies frosted to resemble mailboxes, 4-cent stamps and envelopes.
“During the pandemic, we didn’t go out much,” Larry Rosensweig recalled as he waited for the guests to arrive, “so we cleaned out the attic.
“I found a box of letters from around when my sons were born, and there was a letter from my dad congratulating me on my parenting. Lester delivered it.”
When the Rosensweigs moved here in 1985, their son Clark wasn’t 2 years old and Drew wasn’t even born yet. Clark is 37 now, and Drew 33.
If they have a package, Nora Rosensweig said, Lester always knocks on the door. If there’s no answer, he leaves it to the side, by the bushes. Then, rather than push their letters through the mail slot, he balances them in the slot as a sign that there’s a package waiting.
“He’s always got a smile and a warm hello,” she said.
When Flowers arrived at 3 p.m. he brought the smile and warm hello, along with his son Baakari, 17. He also has two older boys, Bryan, 35, and Justin, 40.
“This is one of the best routes in the city,” he said. “We have a seniority option to change routes if we want to, but once I got to know the people here, I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Now the customers who had become friends ambled over to the shade of the live oak tree. Some shook hands. Some hesitated. Was it all right to hug a mailman? They decided it was. They chatted, they sipped, they snacked. They posed for pictures. They reminisced.
When Debbie Cohen arrived in Seagate a month after Flowers, her sons, Lee and Ben, weren’t yet part of her life. Lee is 34 now, and Ben 31.
“I don’t know any other mailman,” she said. “I didn’t know there was such a thing. Lester has seen me through nine yellow Labs, two at a time, and both sons. It’s been like having a happy constant in the neighborhood.”
Reeve Bright has owned as many as five dogs at a time.
“But they never bit Lester,” he said. “He’s too kind.”
No, Flowers said, he was never bitten by a dog. “I’ve been blessed. I’ve been chased by a couple of dogs, but they didn’t catch me.”
Dogs didn’t scare him, he said, and Florida gets no snow.
It gets lightning.
“They tell us don’t be stupid, shut it down,” he explained. “I’ve seen trees fall in lightning, so I wait out in people’s carports. The people know me.”
Flowers had been delivering mail to Anna Parrott’s house for 18 years before Andrew was born, and 20 before his brother, Sheppard, joined him.
Their mother has a photo of them both with their mailman in 2010, when Sheppard was 4 and Andrew 6.
Andrew is 17 now, and Sheppard 15. On this afternoon, they stood with their arms around Flowers to pose again a decade later.
“Lester knew me since before I was born,” Andrew Parrott said. “Forever. He’s really caring, and the sweetest soul ever.”

Lester Flowers pauses to greet Stella, a golden retriever who belongs to Sheppard Parrott and his mother, Anna.

And so it went, best wishes, memories and a bit of sadness, too.
“I know these people,” Flowers said. “They’re like family. I’m a Christian all my life, and a deacon in St. John’s Baptist Church, so I do the job the way I want to be treated.” When Nora Rosensweig told him they might have to head north because her husband’s father was battling cancer, Flowers assured them he’d hold their mail.
“And I’m putting you on my prayer list,” he added. They are not the only customers who have been on his prayer list.
After about 25 people had arrived, the Rosensweigs poured the champagne and they raised their plastic cups.
“It’s not like we’re losing a mailman,” Nora said. “We’re losing a family friend. We love you, and we wish you nothing but the best.”
For four decades, 35 years here in Seagate, Lester Flowers has come to the distribution center at 6 a.m. to pick up the mail he will deliver to 550 families in this neighborhood. Usually he was finished by 6 p.m., except around Christmas, when there’s so much more mail. Then he might not get home until 8.
“You’ve got to work till it’s done,” he said.
And now it’s done. Officially, his final day was May 31, but that was Memorial Day, so Friday the 28th would be it. This party, then one last delivery and on Saturday his son Baakari’s high school graduation from St. John Paul II Academy.
“Thank you to everyone,” Flowers told the gathering after the toast. “I could do this for a while more, but I need to spend time with my family before the kids get away.
“I’m not going to miss the job,” he said. “But I’m going to miss all of you.”

By Mary Hladky

The city and the Boca Raton Arts District Exploratory Corp. are moving closer to inking a deal that would allow a $130 million performing arts complex to be built on city-owned land in Mizner Park.
City Council members made clear that they favor BRADEC as they brushed aside two rival proposals on May 10 and directed city staff to continue negotiations.
The city was legally required to request additional proposals because it would be leasing city land to BRADEC for many years if an agreement is reached.
Naftali Group, a New York City-based development company, said it would redevelop and redesign the Mizner Park Amphitheater and build a mixed-use project on an adjacent 1.8 acres of city-owned land. That could include residential, retail and offices.
But none of the company’s many projects has included a cultural arts center, Executive Director Gary Cohen said.
AEG Presents, a Los Angeles-headquartered national concert promoter and venue management company that provides programming at the amphitheater, said it would operate and do programming for the amphitheater and develop cultural venues on the 1.8 acres.
Both companies said they would not request any funding from the city. AEG Presents said it did not intend to share event revenues with the city, although this could be negotiated.
Their proposals were not specific. Cohen acknowledged being “late to the game,” saying his company only recently learned the city was accepting proposals and did not have time to present a more comprehensive plan.
BRADEC’s submission, in contrast, ran to 242 pages, including appendices.
After the presentations, a long line of BRADEC supporters urged council members to complete a deal with the organization.
All five council members said they favor BRADEC because it is a local company with ties to many of the city’s cultural organizations.
“I like the fact they are a community-based organization and they have support from our arts-based organizations,” council member Monica Mayotte said.
BRADEC has “unbelievable community support,” Deputy Mayor Andrea O’Rourke said.
“Your zeal and passion and support is clear,” said Mayor Scott Singer. “My concerns are financial. You have addressed that by forgoing city funds.”
“BRADEC. Let’s get going on that,” said council member Andy Thomson.
BRADEC proposes completely renovating the existing 3,500-seat amphitheater and adding indoor and outdoor performing arts spaces, a rooftop terrace and more parking.
This would be financed by donations from cultural arts supporters and corporations that have long wanted such a facility in the city.
The $130 million price tag includes a $12 million endowment, $4 million reserve and $4 million for working capital.
In its most recent submission, BRADEC said it has identified 147 “high-potential” donors, including 19 who have the ability to contribute well in excess of $1 million and 17 who could contribute at least $1 million. A majority have shown an interest in becoming involved in the project.
Another 359 potential donors don’t have a connection to the project but have a “philanthropic track record” in Boca Raton and Palm Beach County, the submission states.
In another Mizner Park matter, council members on May 11 gave the go-ahead to the Boca Raton Museum of Art to demolish the western portion of the colonnade that runs along both sides of the amphitheater.
Eliminating the colonnade will improve access to the museum and its sculpture garden. Museum officials also plan to add landscaping and new lighting and to repave the museum’s entryway.
The city is requiring the museum to put a fence in place when the amphitheater is hosting events to prevent people from slipping in without buying a ticket. The fence can be removed when it’s not needed.
Art museum Executive Director Irvin Lippman expects the work will be completed in September, just ahead of the Oct. 16 start of the Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru exhibition that begins its world tour at the museum.

Jason Miele, a marine interdiction agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, retrieves evidence from a fishing boat that ran aground at the St. Andrews Club on May 2, loaded with 28 Haitians. Officers from Gulf Stream, Ocean Ridge, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and the county Sheriff's Office also responded. Efforts to free the boat that day failed and fuel leaked from it, prompting authorities to close Gulfstream Park for two days. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By May 7 a recovery crew with floats and a backhoe was brought in to drain water from the boat and free it from the submerged rocks. On May 8 the crew pulled the boat ashore for demolition.

The Florida League of Cities has honored Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer as a 2021 Home Rule Hero for his work and advocacy efforts during the 2021 legislative session.
“Singer worked tirelessly throughout the session to promote local voices making local choices, protect the home rule powers of Florida’s municipalities and advance the League’s legislative agenda,” the League said in a May 26 release.
During the recently completed legislative session, lawmakers continued efforts they have made in previous years to strip cities and counties of governing powers enshrined in the state constitution and known as “home rule.”
“I am honored to work with local elected leaders across the state to defend the principle that cities should be able to decide local matters without undue interference from Washington or Tallahassee,” Singer said.
Singer, who was elected mayor in 2018 and re-elected in 2020, was also named a Home Rule Hero in 2018 and 2020.

— Mary Hladky

By Rich Pollack

LANTANA — Soon after she moved into a sixth-floor apartment with an ocean view at the Carlisle Palm Beach five years ago, former Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Jacqueline “Jackie” Winchester became an active member of the assisted living facility’s residents association.
Mrs. Winchester, who was 91 when she died April 24 after treatment for a form of blood cancer, was president of the association, serving as a liaison between the Lantana facility’s residents and management and coordinating the Christmas drive to provide gifts for staff members.
That came as no surprise to family members and to those who worked with Mrs. Winchester — Palm Beach County’s first female elections supervisor — while she headed the elections office from 1973 to 1996.
“If you asked those who worked with her, they would say they could always count on her,” said her son Jon Winchester.
A former Belle Glade middle school and high school English teacher who was a member of the group that started the Belle Glade library, Mrs. Winchester was a leader in the county’s League of Women Voters and was well-respected for her integrity and for her finely honed organizational skills.
“She knew how to get things done,” said Theresa LePore, who succeeded Mrs. Winchester when she retired after being re-elected to the office six times. “She was detail-oriented and always looked for ways to be more efficient.”
Maintaining the integrity and professionalism of the office was a priority for Mrs. Winchester, who focused on the task at hand while maintaining neutrality.
“She was a strong woman who was very ethical,” Jon Winchester said. “She was someone who always wanted to do the right thing. She stood by something when she believed in it.”
Although soft-spoken with a slight hint of a Southern drawl, Mrs. Winchester could be tough, using a no-nonsense approach to achieving a goal.
Her decades running elections in Palm Beach County began when Mrs. Winchester’s predecessor, Horace Beasley, died shortly after being elected to a third term. She was appointed by then-Gov. Reubin Askew.
At the time, all of the election records and registrations were kept on paper, with names handwritten and stored in leather-bound books.
After Mrs. Winchester arrived, bringing a refreshing hands-on approach to the role, she began transforming the office and modernizing it.
“Her legacy is bringing the office from paper to computer,” LePore said. “It was 1,000% better than what it was.”
An avid traveler, Mrs. Winchester continued to put a priority on fair elections — even after she retired — serving as an observer in Albania, Kosovo and Ukraine.
Her decision to leave her home of 47 years and move to an assisted living facility came after she was diagnosed with macular degeneration and knew her vision would fail. Leaving Lake Clarke Shores and moving to a coveted top-floor apartment at the Carlisle was her choice, according to Jon Winchester.
“She made all of her own decisions right until the end,” he said. “She wanted to be in control.”
Mrs. Winchester is survived by her four children, Jim Winchester (Jane), Jon Winchester (Melynda Melear), Sterling Winchester (Julie) and Melissa Winchester (Andy Winer), as well as seven grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.
A celebration of life was held on May 8 at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in West Palm Beach, and another celebration of life was held at the Carlisle later in the month.

DELRAY BEACH — Adlyn Foster Sherman, 99, died May 11 of natural causes.
Adlyn Foster was born in Utica, New York, on Jan. 6, 1922, the daughter of Harry Foster and Elsie Pfleeger Foster. Raised in New Hartford, New York, she attended New Hartford High School, where she met her future husband, William L. Sherman.
Adlyn and Bill married in 1944 at Saint Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco where Bill, an officer in the U.S. Navy, was being shipped out to the Pacific theater. When World War II ended, Bill joined Adlyn in Utica to start their family.
The couple moved to Philadelphia in 1953 then to Baltimore, where they lived for 38 years.
Mrs. Sherman was a cartographer for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, where her main focus was mapping the Chesapeake Bay.
She was also active with Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, PTA, Junior League, and bridge and garden clubs.
Upon retirement, the Shermans moved to Delray Beach, where they lived on the Intracoastal Waterway for 18 years.
Family always came first, and Mrs. Sherman is survived by the couple’s four children: Lynda Sherman-Strand and husband Robert of Carmel, California; William L. Sherman Jr. and wife Lynne of Las Vegas, Nevada; James M. Sherman and wife Sharon of Boynton Beach; and John P. Sherman and wife Sara of Rye, New York. Survivors also include seven grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
Mrs. Sherman was preceded in death by her husband, her brother Ralph Foster of Utica and sister Dorothy Whitney of New Hartford.
The family would like to thank Abbey Delray and all of the caregivers who made Mrs. Sherman comfortable.
A memorial service was held in Delray Beach and burial will be in Utica.

— Obituary submitted by the family

OCEAN RIDGE — Velden Paul Colby died April 21, following an auto accident in Citra, where he lived. He was 86.
The man known to everyone as “Colby” was born Dec. 17, 1934, in Fairview, Oklahoma, to Paul and Ruth Sheffield Colby. He was preceded in death by his parents, siblings Vona, Verlyn, Vinton and Veleta, who was his twin sister, as well as his youngest son, Chris Colby of Louisville, Kentucky.
Mr. Colby graduated in 1953 from Cheyenne Valley Consolidated High School, then joined the U.S. Army, serving in the 526th Armored Infantry, Fort Knox, Kentucky, 1953-1955. While he was at Fort Knox, a friend introduced him to Jeanette Drury. They married and together had five children, settling in Louisville.
Realizing early on he wanted to be his own boss, he enrolled in Kentucky College of Barbering, graduating in 1958. Soon after he opened Colby’s Barber Shop. That suited him perfectly because he loved people, he loved making friends, listening to their stories and telling his.
Time passed, lives changed and Mr. Colby eventually moved to Boynton Beach, opening another barber shop in Ocean Ridge. He became an avid dancer, dancing his way into the heart of Elaine Lee and she into his. They could clear any dance floor, even when he was into his 80s.
He ultimately realized his dream of owning some land, orange trees, horses and dogs at his aptly named “Happy Feet” homestead in Citra. He was able to enjoy his “little piece of heaven” for a large part of his retirement years. Mr. Colby is survived by his best friend and dance partner of 30 years, Elaine Lee; his children Dennis Colby of Boynton Beach, Cheryl (John) Wellerding of Louisville, Deana (Billy) Craycroft of Louisville, Glen Colby of Reading, Massachusetts; a daughter-in-law Kathleen Colby; grandchildren Brent, Ryan, Evelyn Grace, Ethan, Elias, Cooper, Gavin and Julia; and many other nieces, nephews, family and friends. His wishes were to have his body donated for research. A celebration of his life will be held 2-4 p.m. June 12 at the VFW, 4805 NE 36th Ave., Ocala. Expressions of sympathy may be made in his honor to any U.S. veterans organization or an animal rescue center.

— Obituary submitted by the family

By Larry Barszewski

If you’re at the beach and you have a medical emergency, rescue crews say they will do what it takes to get you the help you need.
That’s not what Kim Jones experienced when she and a friend were snorkeling off the coast of Ocean Ridge near the Ocean Club of Florida and a man-of-war wrapped itself around her friend’s ankle, stinging the woman with its venomous nematocysts. The two headed directly to shore, where Jones had someone call 911 after her friend’s condition worsened.
Jones, who lives in Ocean Ridge, says the Boynton Beach Fire Rescue paramedics didn’t head straight to her friend when they arrived. Instead, she says they were waiting for the woman to be brought off the beach to them or — as ended up happening — for the arrival of an Ocean Ridge police ATV to bring one of the paramedics with oxygen and a medical box to the woman.
“This woman is definitely in anaphylactic shock. She’s on her way to hyperventilating. Her pulse is rapid. Nausea’s setting in. I need help,” Jones says of the Feb. 10 incident, in which private lifeguards from the club tried to assist. “I’m there and I’ve got nobody coming to help me. As a visual thing, it was horrible, because all these members are looking at three EMS standing there doing nothing and I’m screaming for help.”
Boynton Beach Fire Rescue officials say their records show a paramedic was with the patient a minute after the crew arrived. That doesn’t mesh with Ocean Ridge police dispatch reports that show more than six minutes elapsed based on fire rescue’s reported arrival time.
Boynton Beach Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Hugh Bruder says a fire-rescue inquiry based on Jones’ complaint found no negligence. The woman recovered after being treated at a hospital.
“Everyone did the right thing,” Bruder says. “To my knowledge, they were there for a very short period of time until the crew [member] was brought to the patient.”
The explanation seems at odds with one Jones had received earlier from Assistant Chief Jarvis Prince, which was in defense of having a patient brought off the beach to paramedics if at all possible.
Prince said many times it’s easier and quicker for patients to be brought off the beach to them. Paramedics have up to 80 pounds of equipment with them — equipment usually placed on a stretcher that has wheels that can’t be used in beach sand, he said.
“If it’s a life-threatening situation, we bring ourselves down to the patient,” says Prince, whose department also serves Briny Breezes. “It’s based on the severity of the call itself.”

Other departments describe how they work
Other fire-rescue departments serving south Palm Beach County beach communities say their crews have no hesitation about going onto the beach to treat patients.
“We’re going to treat them in the best manner possible, wherever they are and then move them if we need to move them,” says Palm Beach County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Tara Cardoso, whose department serves South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Lantana, Lake Worth Beach and the Boynton Inlet. “We’re completely mobile. We have to move our gear all over the place. We have backpacks.”
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue responded to 30 calls to 911 last year on or near the South County beaches in its coverage area. Cardoso offered these tips for people at the beach in case an emergency arises:
• Know where you are on the beach relative to your surroundings, so 911 crews can quickly find you.
• Heed all beach warnings, including for rough surf, rip currents or marine life.
• Know if the beach is guarded and if so, at what time lifeguards leave for the day.
Dani Moschella, spokeswoman for Delray Beach Fire Rescue, which also provides emergency services in Highland Beach, says hard-to-get-to places come with the job — and the beach is no different.
“Think of all the difficult spots paramedics go to reach patients. They’ll go anywhere,” Moschella says. “They’ll go on a roof or to someone hanging from a scaffolding. They’ll go into confined spaces, say to someone trapped in a pipe. … They go in canals. They extricate people from cars.”
Delray paramedics, who responded to about 40 beach emergencies in 2020, are often assisted by the city’s on-duty lifeguards, who are certified emergency medical technicians and who may already be on the scene. In some situations, lifeguards may bring people to a meeting point that’s more accessible to paramedics.
“It’s always going to be a game-time decision by the paramedic based on what that person requires,” Moschella says. “For example, if there is someone showing signs of heat stroke, and the person can walk, it might be smarter to have him or her taken to the pavilion and wait for the rescue in the shade.”
Delray Beach lifeguards will also respond to emergencies in Highland Beach, even though no lifeguard towers are there, Moschella says. “If they become aware of a swimmer in distress in Highland Beach, either from a 911 call or by seeing the person with binoculars, they would respond on an ATV and assist the person or assist firefighters with the call.”
As in Delray Beach, Boca Raton Fire Rescue frequently works in tandem with its city’s lifeguards, who are also trained as emergency medical technicians and who have ATVs that can transport patients.
“All our Ocean Rescue personnel are EMT certified and capable of rendering aid, again depending on the severity. We have situations where the lifeguards will begin treatment at their level and then bring the patient to us,” Boca Raton Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Jason Stout says in an email to The Coastal Star. “It may not be easy or conducive for the lifeguards to move the patient, therefore FD personnel would go to the patient.”
Stout adds: “Each call and patient is different and unique, so there is no set standard. The goal is to get immediate help to the patient.”

Reports disagree on response times
Three months after the Ocean Ridge incident, Jones and the Ocean Ridge police said they still had not received any update from Boynton fire rescue about the investigation of its handling of the February incident.
Ocean Ridge Police Lt. Richard Jones, no relation to Kim Jones, says the February situation was not typical. Usually, a paramedic is already making his way to a patient when given a lift by the police ATV, not waiting to be picked up, he says.
“I’ve never seen that happen before,” Lt. Jones says. Ocean Ridge has had nine beach emergencies so far this year and eight each in 2020 and 2019.
During the February incident, private lifeguards from the nearby Ocean Club were with the woman and had a device to help her breathe before the paramedic was brought down, according to police and fire rescue.
But Kim Jones feared her friend needed more attention and other treatments sooner and says more concern should have been shown by the waiting paramedics.
According to fire-rescue reports, the crew arrived on the scene at 11:32 a.m. and a crew member was with the woman at 11:33 a.m. after being transported to her by Ocean Ridge police. But Ocean Ridge police reports show the ATV officer didn’t even leave from the garage until 11:33 a.m., wasn’t on the scene until 11:39 a.m., and didn’t take the paramedic to the woman until 11:40 a.m.
Both say the other’s times don’t make sense. If fire rescue is correct, then it took the ATV officer only a minute to get from the police station to the beach, pick up the paramedic and take the paramedic to the woman, Lt. Jones says.
But Bruder says he doesn’t see how paramedics could assess and treat the woman for just five minutes before leaving to take her to the hospital, as the police timing would indicate. Both police and fire-rescue reports say the scene was cleared at 11:45 a.m.
Kim Jones says she wouldn’t have had to ask the lifeguards twice to go up to the paramedics to get one of them to come down, if one was already with her friend within a minute of arriving. The whole incident has made her wary of being involved with another beach emergency.
“If I ever am an onlooker and do a rescue on the beach again, I’m basically going to have to count on myself, because I’m not sure if EMS is going to get down to me and how quickly any transportation is going to arrive,” Jones says. “It’s been a big eye opener for me.”

Old high school’s new uses reflect wider push for preservation

By Larry Barszewski

The Boynton Woman’s Club made an impressive move almost a century ago, when it left its original Ocean Avenue location for a clubhouse designed by famed Palm Beach architect Addison Mizner.
At the time, back on Ocean Avenue, students were attending the Boynton School. The new high school next door — then at the western fringe of town — was a year away from opening. Just east of the schools, the Jones and Magnuson families were enjoying their recently built homes.
Those two schools, the clubhouse and the homes from Boynton’s past are still part of its present, with all but one of them receiving significant renovations and repurposing for the modern era:
• The 1927 high school building reopened in October as the Boynton Beach Arts & Cultural Center.
• The 1926 Woman’s Club building, whose ownership transferred from the Community Redevelopment Agency to the city in March, is being marketed as a venue for weddings, parties and other social events.
• The 1913 Boynton School has operated as the Schoolhouse Children’s Museum & Learning Center since 2001.
• The 1924 Jones cottage was moved by the CRA to a different spot on Ocean Avenue in 2011 and has since been home to several restaurants. It may reopen this year with new culinary fare.
• The Magnuson house, built about 1919, faces a less certain future. Hopes of turning it into a restaurant, brew pub or other gathering spot have been all but erased given the cost of the restoration work that would be needed.
Still, Boynton Beach has not been quick to give up on its history. The five buildings have all been owned at some point by the city or its CRA, which have sought to have them preserved and incorporated into downtown redevelopment.

Boynton School (Boynton Elementary School)
The Schoolhouse Children’s Museum was one of the city’s first major history-saving projects on Ocean Avenue. The city received the building from the school district in 1994. That same year, the school joined the Boynton Woman’s Club on the National Register of Historic Places, the only two Boynton structures on the list.
City officials in the 1990s could see how Old School Square in Delray Beach was helping turn around that city’s downtown — anchoring the redevelopment of Atlantic Avenue. They sought to use their old elementary school for Boynton’s own downtown rejuvenation and embarked on a $14 million restoration of the two-story structure designed by Baltimore architect William Maughlin.
The city kept the school’s focus on children. The nonprofit Boynton Cultural Centre operates the downtown museum at 129 E. Ocean Ave. Interactive exhibits teach children about the area’s past, including the city’s first hotel, the exploits of the Barefoot Mailman and how the arrival of the railroad fueled South Florida’s growth.
The museum was selected this year for a $100,000 grant from Impact 100, a women’s charitable organization that funds nonprofit initiatives in South Palm Beach County.

Boynton Woman’s Club
Fortune smiled on the Boynton Woman’s Club in the 1920s when it decided to build a new clubhouse to meet its need for more space. The family of Maj. Nathan Boynton, the city’s namesake, had been looking for a way to honor the major and pledged $35,000 — more than $500,000 in today’s dollars — in his memory toward the building’s construction.
Mizner, meanwhile, donated his design services to the project.
Built in the architect’s now-famous Mediterranean Revival style, it also included features designed specifically for the Woman’s Club. Its low-rising, wide stairs, for instance, made it easier for women decked out in elegant gowns and other finery to ascend to the second-floor ballroom.
In 1979, the building at 1010 S. Federal Highway earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, a first for the city. It is the only Mizner building in the city.
The Woman’s Club sold the building to the CRA for $110,000 in 2017 because the cost of upkeep had become too great for the organization. The building is now called the Historic Woman’s Club of Boynton Beach.
“It was our identity. We poured so much into it and I don’t just mean monetarily,” former club President Kay Baker said. “They poured their hearts and souls into getting this building built, then modernizing it and keeping it there.”
Historic preservation wasn’t part of the club’s original mission, though preservation work took up increasingly significant amounts of the club’s time and resources in recent decades.
“Our focus is on education, giving scholarships, charitable contributions. It was difficult having that focus and also maintaining the property,” Baker said.
The CRA, in deciding to transfer ownership of the building to the city, committed to spending $250,000 a year for the next three years for additional repair work in and around the building. In May, the CRA agreed to also pay up to $87,000 to cover the professional design costs of those improvements.
The CRA previously spent about $700,000, including $127,000 in grants, on a new clay barrel-tile roof, refinishing the wood floors, painting the building and other improvements.

Old Boynton High School
The $10.6 million renovation of the original Boynton High School building into the city’s arts and cultural center is part of the ongoing Town Square development that includes a new city hall — named City Center — across Ocean Avenue from the school.
The building served as a high school until 1949, and later as a junior high and then an elementary school before closing in 1990. It was added to the city’s list of historic places in 2013, but stayed vacant until the arts and cultural center opening.
Some rooms remain to be restored in the historic building at 125 E. Ocean Ave., but its luster is back already. The transformed main hallways on the upper and lower levels are now exhibit space. Remodeled and combined classrooms are used for art and dance instruction.
The southern yellow pine ceiling of the second-floor gymnasium has a new roof overhead and vinyl flooring tile underneath, which replaced the gym’s original, unsalvageable hardwood flooring. The city eventually plans to rent out the gym — which was also the school’s auditorium and includes a stage — for events.
Sue Beaman spent a lot of time in that gym. Beaman and her brother, Pat McGregor Murphy, were members of the Class of 1949, the last high school graduating class at the school. Their graduation took place in the gymnasium, where Beaman doesn’t think she missed a single one of the school’s basketball games.
“It was just good being out with the other kids and having fun,” Beaman said. “High school kids during that time had little recreational opportunities other than basketball games and going to the beach.”
Beaman remembers the school as “a wonderful place” and is grateful to everyone involved in giving new life to the building that she said “was within a tiny minute of being destroyed.”
An official grand reopening has not yet been scheduled, city officials said. The center currently is hosting an art exhibit, Upcycled Fashion. It features the works of two artists who take discarded materials — including plastic bottles and tire inner tubes — and create art and wearable garments. The exhibit runs through June 25.
The recent work on the school wasn’t its first restoration. That came little more than a year after it first opened, after the Hurricane of 1928 badly damaged the building and caused the gym walls to collapse, injuring people who were sheltering inside from the storm.
“The building is significant architecturally as it is a fine example of the Mediterranean Revival style of architecture combined with elements of the early Art Deco style,” Michael Rumpf, the city’s development director, said in an email to The Coastal Star.
After the hurricane damage, there was an effort to retain the building’s character and style, Rumpf said. “Both the original design and reconstruction of the damaged building was attributed to William Manly King, the architect of many Palm Beach County schools and other notable buildings,” he said.

Oscar Magnuson House
The CRA attempted without success to find a restaurant or other use for the two-story Magnuson house at 211 E. Ocean Ave. The house’s future looked promising in 2016, when a Philadelphia entrepreneur bought it with plans for a restaurant, but the CRA took it back two years later after the project fell through.
Renovations will be expensive, and no one has been willing to take on the task.
City commissioners, who serve as the CRA board, have decided to let the house be for now, at least until something happens with the land. Demolition has not been ruled out.
“The CRA has made numerous attempts to dispose of the property for reuse/redevelopment purposes via the Request for Proposal process,” CRA Executive Director Michael Simon said in an email to The Coastal Star. “However, once a selected entity performs their due diligence and determines the large amount of money needed to convert the residential building to a commercial use such as a restaurant, they terminate their interest. Future plans for the property will most likely involve its participation in the redevelopment of the adjacent parcels under a larger project scope.”
The Magnuson house was added to the city’s list of historic places in 2012. It is built in the frame vernacular style, just like the Jones cottage. Both are examples of local homes during Boynton Beach’s pioneer days. The Magnuson house was also used as a commercial plant nursery in the 1980s.

Ruth Jones Cottage (Little House)
The Jones home, built at 201 E. Ocean Ave., now sits as vacant restaurant space at 480 E. Ocean Ave. It is also referred to as the Little House, the name of the first restaurant that it contained, or the Ruth Jones Cottage — although Ruth didn’t marry into the Jones family until the 1940s.
The now privately owned cottage has an addition attached to it that makes it more functional as a restaurant. The building still bears the name of the last restaurant to operate there — Chez Andrea Gourmet Provence, a French restaurant with the unfortunate luck of opening in February 2020 just as the pandemic struck. It closed its doors in January.
Property co-owner Richard Lucibella, a former vice mayor in Ocean Ridge who purchased the building from the CRA in 2016 with Barbara Ceuleers, said he expects a new restaurant to be in operation later this year.
“We’re entertaining three or four lease offers,” Lucibella said during a May 12 interview with The Coastal Star. “I think we’re going to have a lease signed in the next 30 to 60 days, and an operating tenant by the end of summer.”
As for the building itself, Lucibella said he plans to make sure its exterior continues to exude its century-old feel. The building doesn’t have an official historic designation, he said.
“It’s still the Ruth Jones Cottage. As owners, we’ll always control the general look of the outside,” Lucibella said. “It’ll remain the look of the little yellow cottage, I can guarantee you that.”

After working 60 to 70 hours a week at Woolbright Farmers Market for the past 20 years, Jesse Goldfinger wants to spend more time with his wife and three kids. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Christine Davis

Woolbright Farmers Market, a longtime produce stand and garden center at 141 W. Woolbright Road in Boynton Beach, closed in May. The closing came as owner Jesse Goldfinger, 40, who took over the business from his parents, Howard and Michelle, retired.
“It’s time to move on,” Goldfinger said. “I’ve been working 60 to 70 hours a week for the last 20 years, and my kids don’t get to see me enough.”
A year after his parents bought the market, he joined them right out of college in running the business, he said. “Then, my father bowed out in 2007, and my mom worked with me up until COVID.”   
The 800-square-foot center carried local vendors, including Lake Worth Beach’s Upper Crust pies and Delray Beach’s Old School Bakery. Fruits and vegetables accounted for the bulk of sales, with about half of them organic.
In later years, the market also sold smoothies, cold-press juices and milkshakes.
“We also made a mean guacamole, and we sold fresh-cut flowers, Christmas trees and pumpkins,” Goldfinger said. “We sold the good stuff. That was the key.”
The property, which had been owned by members of the Neumann family since the 1980s, originally had a house as well as the market. They lived on the site and farmed out west.
Over the years, the property changed hands. It was also owned by Harvey E. Oyer Jr., a descendant of one of South Florida’s pioneer families, as well as Ridgewood Groves of Palm Beach.
Goldfinger, who plans to hold onto the property, recalls that it was a farm market before his family owned it.
“The emotional part of me says, I would love for it to be carried on as a farm market, but the business part of me says, ‘He who pays the rent gets to choose,’” he said.
Goldfinger and his wife, Jessica, have sold their house and are ready to hit the road, maybe eventually settling back down in upstate New York, closer to Jessica’s family. In the meantime, they, with daughters Kate, 12, and Quinn, 5, and son Collin, 10, are preparing to take off in an RV.
“We plan to take a long trip,” Goldfinger said. “It’s an opportunity for us to see the country together and offer our children this educational opportunity.”
He is going to miss the “fresh stuff,” though, he said. “We like it and believe in it, so, of course, we use it. We have great tomatoes when we want them.
“My wife texts me what she needs, and I bring it home. That is a convenience we will also miss.” 

After a year and a half of dealing with the ramifications of the coronavirus, local chambers of commerce predict a rosier summer.
Some businesses were hit harder than others, said David Arm, president of the Greater Lantana Chamber of Commerce. 
Lantana Fitness, 700 W. Lantana Road, which Arm owns with his wife, Renee, “was shut down by the state early on, but reopened with stringent COVID protocols, and is only now seeing business improve as vaccination rates increase and people feel more comfortable about going to the gym,” Arm said.
As an example of a business that managed better than most, Arm points to the Old Key Lime House, 300 E. Ocean Ave., Lantana.
 “Its entire facility is outdoors, which made people feel more comfortable than going into an indoor restaurant,” Arm said. “Mario’s restaurant, on the other hand, moved from 225 E. Ocean Ave., Lantana, to 707 Lake Avenue, Lake Worth Beach, because most of its dining was indoors, and they didn’t have enough business to sustain a facility of that size. After they moved to the smaller location, they are doing very well.”
Other developments that Arm noted: After finishing renovations, Uncle Louie G Lantana, an ice cream shop at 204 E. Ocean Ave., opened during the pandemic.
After American Spirit Cheer & Dance closed at 211 S. Third St., Superior Window Treatments and Installation constructed a new showroom and opened there.
Saglo, owner of the Kmart Plaza site, 1201 S. Dixie Highway, and the Morgan Group, a national residential real estate developer, have resumed discussions on plans to build about 200 upscale rental units.
At Water Tower Commons, 1199 W. Lantana Road, the Related Group has completed the first phase of residential units and has begun work on its second phase. The commercial segment, owned by Lantana Development LLC, with Kenco Communities and Wexford Capital, is moving along with road improvements, Arm said. Commercial businesses there will include Aldi and Wawa.

Stephanie Immelman, president and CEO of the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, said, “As of now, the season won’t be ending anytime soon.”
According to her members, “the pent-up demand is driving hotel stays, attraction visits and high restaurant capacity. The booking pipeline for hotels is stretching out past July 4.” 
Delray is booming, she said. “Florida is the place to be right now, because many other states are opening up more slowly. Cruises are not opened yet either. Even if our part-time residents go back up North, there will be significant demand from the drive market and local patronage of our businesses. For now, it’s good news.”
Immelman points to Crane’s Beach House, at 82 Gleason St., as an example.
Cathy Balestriere, Crane’s general manager, said: “After a difficult and challenging year for our industry, we are happy to report that we are seeing a very strong return of both new and loyal guests here at Crane’s, whom we are welcoming back safely and with new services. …
“We’ve seen many weeks of very high occupancy” even with in-season prices “and continue to see positive bookings even into the summer.
“We were fortunate to be able to remain open throughout the pandemic and retain our entire staff, thanks to a lot of very rigid precautionary measures and flexible stay options and are incredibly grateful to see our hotel filled with happy and satisfied guests once again.”

“Boca is well on the road to recovery,” said Troy McLellan, president and CEO of the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce. “The general economy in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and south Palm Beach County is much healthier than when the floor fell out from under us.”
He said government funding helped businesses, so much so that some were doing well enough financially that they did not need to apply for more recent government funding options, such as the Restaurant Revitalization Fund.
However, his members are having a hard time finding employees, and he predicts that will continue until September.
“That’s unfortunate, because summers are challenging for businesses,” he said. “They are paying more and incentivizing” in an effort to attract workers, “but that’s not a sustainable strategy to identify, recruit and retain their workforce. Almost all of our member hotels — Boca Marriott, Renaissance Boca and Wyndham Boca — as well as our member restaurants are looking for workers.”

Owners of Under the Sun products, Delray Beach residents Lauren Donald and Julie Peyton, have offered their hair-care line at salons as well as online since 2012. Today, three of their products, Shampoo Treatment, Conditioning Treatment, and Leave-In Conditioner, are also offered on Amazon Prime, with a percentage of their sales donated to local charities.
Their products can be purchased at Amazon.com  or alwaysunderthesun.com. Products are also available curbside at Bond Street Salon, 25 NE Second Ave., Delray Beach. To find other stores that carry them, call 855-888-4247.

Alison Kirsten has joined Eau Spa as director of spa and leisure at Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa. Previously, Kirsten was spa director of the Peninsula Hotels in Beverly Hills, and prior to that, she ran spa and fitness operations at Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons hotels. 

As of June 1, Van Williams is provost and dean of student services of the Boca Raton campus of Palm Beach State College. He is a member of President Ava L. Parker’s executive leadership team.
Williams joined the college in 2009 as director of TRIO programs before becoming assistant dean of student services on the Lake Worth campus in 2013 and dean in 2017. He serves as an adjunct instructor of “Introduction to the College Experience.”

Kaufman Lynn Construction, a Delray Beach-based builder, recently added two executives to its leadership team. Russell Anderson became the firm’s executive vice president of preconstruction and Jason Patrizi became senior vice president of operations.
Anderson has received industry awards that include the Design-Build Institute National Award for Best Overall Project. His portfolio covers more than 300 projects. Patrizi has extensive knowledge in the multifamily, hospitality, criminal justice, public works, entertainment, and industrial market sectors.

Bonnie Heatzig has joined Douglas Elliman Real Estate’s Boca Raton office at 444 E. Palmetto Park Road. Focusing on waterfront real estate, she has sold more than $80 million in the past two years and has more than $100 million in contracts with the Boca Beach House development in Boca Raton. Heatzig is also a licensed attorney in Florida, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Thomas and Michelle Marra, individually and as trustees of a land trust, sold the home at 1111 S. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach, for $21.1 million to 1111 Ocean LLC, a Delaware corporation managed by Randal Perkins, according to public records dated May 20. Records show that Perkins’ entity borrowed $10.55 million from First Horizon Bank, and that he owns the house next door at 1141 S. Ocean.
The seven-bedroom estate is sited on 1.14 acres with 120 feet of ocean frontage, according to its listing on Realtor.com, which said that Nick Malinosky, an agent with Douglas Elliman, represented both the buyer and seller in the transaction. The home was originally listed in February for $23.5 million. The Marras bought the 13,712-square-foot mansion in 2015 for $15.45 million, records show.
Perkins in 1992 founded Deerfield Beach-based AshBritt Environmental, a national rapid-response disaster recovery and special environmental services contractor that has managed and executed more than 230 disaster recovery missions as well as special environmental projects, according to the company’s website.

A property at 1800 S. Ocean Blvd., Manalapan, sold for $14 million, according to public records dated May 17. The estate was owned since 1996 by entities linked to the late pharmaceutical entrepreneur John D. Copanos. Mercedes Chaves sold the estate as a successor co-trustee of a trust in the name of Copanos, who died in 2019. Her co-trustee was Carol H. Bilotti, president of All Florida Tax Consulting Inc. in Broward County.
The buyer was a Georgia-based limited liability company, ADE 925 LLC, which lists Ron Raitz as its agent. Raitz, a real estate entrepreneur, is president and founder of Atlanta Deferred Exchange Inc.  
The 1976-era house with a beach cabana is sited on almost two acres with about 152 feet of water frontage on both the ocean and Intracoastal Waterway.
Real estate agent Shelly Newman of William Raveis South Florida handled both sides of the sale.
Newman also just listed neighboring properties. A four-bedroom estate at 1860 S. Ocean Blvd., listed for $29.9 million and sited on 2.5 acres with 200 feet of water frontage on both the ocean and Intracoastal, is offered for sale for the first time since 1978, according to Newman’s listing.
The property at 1840 S. Ocean Blvd. is listed for $29.5 million. It sits on two acres with 150 feet on both ocean and Intracoastal, has a 11,953-square-foot residence with terraces and a pool, and room to build a 1,200-square-foot cabana. 

Louis Campisano and Jeanette Frankenberg, individually and as trustees of the Gulf Stream Family Trust, sold the home at 3813 N. Ocean Blvd. in Gulf Stream for $11 million to the 3813 N. Ocean Trust. The sale was recorded April 23.
While it’s not clear who owns the latter trust, Ronald Kochman, an attorney at Kochman & Ziska PLC in West Palm Beach, is listed as trustee.
The 5,813-square-foot, five-bedroom house was designed by Randall Stofft and built in 2001.
Campisano is president of New Jersey-based Louis Campisano Insurance Agency, according to his LinkedIn page.
Frankenberg, an attorney, is the managing member of the New Jersey firm Stern, Lavinthal & Frankenberg LLC. According to Zillow, Corcoran agent Thor M. Brown represented the seller, while Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates represented the buyer.  

Kevin and Doris Mattus Hurley sold the Boca Raton waterfront home at 4400 Sanctuary Lane as trustees of the Doris Mattus Hurley Living Trust for $8.65 million to Darielle Singerman, according to public records dated April 22. Doris Hurley is the daughter of the late Reuben and Rose Mattus, the founders of Häagen-Dazs. Singerman is the wife of Aaron Singerman, founder and CEO of the sports supplement company Redcon1.
The Hurleys purchased the 1985-era, 12,974-square-foot mansion in 2003 for $4.6 million and extensively renovated it in 2017.
John Poletto and Mark Nestler of One Sotheby’s International Realty represented the seller, and Brad Schwartzman with Vue Real Estate represented the buyer.

Delray Beach’s Downtown Development Authority celebrated its 50th anniversary during a reception that included past and present board members. FRONT ROW: Rocco Mangel, board member; Dr. Alan Costilo, board member; Frank Frione, board member; Dr. John Conde, board member; Mavis Benson, board member; Bonnie Beer, past board member; Fran Marincola, past board member; Roy Simon, founder and past board chairman; Laura Simon, executive director. BACK ROW: Sandy Zeller, past board member; Peter Arts, board chairman; Ryan Boylston, past board member; Rita Ellis, past board member; David Cook, past board member; and Albert Richwagen, past board member. Photo provided

The Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority celebrated its 50th anniversary on May 22 with a reception.
The DDA was created in 1971 at the request and unanimous vote of the merchants and property owners downtown, with the goal to establish a governing body to increase the parking and commerce for the district. The DDA was founded by then Chamber of Commerce President Roy Simon, who is the father of Laura Simon. She was hired as assistant director in 2010 and promoted to executive director in 2015.
The Florida Legislature passed a law establishing the DDA and authorized that 1 mil of its property value be taxed to fund redevelopment and promotional efforts in the DDA district. It mirrored Delray’s central business district at that time, including businesses from Swinton Avenue to the Intracoastal Waterway.
In 1993, the DDA boundaries were expanded eastward to include properties along Atlantic Avenue to State Road A1A and north and south blocks along the original Central Business District area.
The boundaries were expanded again in 1998 to the west from Swinton Avenue to I-95 to include the newly designated West Atlantic Redevelopment Area.
Over the years, the DDA has invested tax dollars back into downtown through the creation of the public parking lots, the downtown bypass, beautification programs, marketing materials, the DowntownDelrayBeach.com website, merchant promotions, tourism efforts, economic development and by helping facilitate the Clean & Safe program with the Police Department, Community Redevelopment Agency and the city.
Its office is at 350 SE 1st Street.

Send business news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com.