C. Spencer Pompey, a teacher and coach, and Frank T. Hearst carry the Carver Eagles mascot in front of the school. Photos provided by Spady Cultural Heritage Museum

New plans for Carver won’t dim grads’ memories

By Larry Keller

It’s been more than a half century since the final bell sounded at Carver High School. Chain-link fencing encircles the beige and boxy two-story buildings now, but to former students, the dowdy appearance belies the profound impact the school had on their lives and their community.
Before Palm Beach County schools integrated, Carver was the only place where Black students from Delray Beach and beyond — most from low-income households — could attend high school. It offered the prospect of a better future, but it was much more than a school.
“It was the only place for us as a people to gather,” says Paula Rocker, Class of 1966. “That was the center, not just for education, but for all the things that impacted the Black community,” such as neighborhood meetings and talent shows.

As buildings on the campus deteriorated, the county School District announced plans to raze them a few years ago. Preservationists succeeded in getting the district to spare the administration building and cafetorium, and it also plans to refurbish the gymnasium.

Students take a typing class.

At the same time, the district plans to build a complex to provide a medical and technical career-oriented curriculum. It will be called Village Center, with a new 20,000-square-foot building and modular classrooms. Plans call for the gymnasium to be reconfigured as a multipurpose arts facility capable of seating 500 people.
Work is scheduled to begin this summer and be substantially done by next year.
Carver is considered historic for the age of its buildings, the architect who designed them and the luminaries in the Black community associated with the school. But its cultural impact during segregation is particularly significant.

Students gather in the library at Carver High School in Delray Beach in the 1950s.

Teachers were pivotal, not only in school but alongside parents in instilling life lessons. It was like having an additional parent — because teachers lived in the same segregated neighborhoods as their students.
“The teachers treated us as though we were their children,” Lorenzo Brooks, a 1960 graduate, said in a documentary, Old School, produced by the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray Beach more than a decade ago.
“The teachers were the same people that sat next to you in church, and that you saw when you went to the supermarket,” Rocker says. “When your teacher reported to your parent that you were misbehaving, woe be unto you. The values that many of us have today were instilled by our parents and our teachers at Carver.”
That oversight extended even further, says Ernestine Holliday, a 1959 graduate who spent her career as a home health aide.
“Everybody was your parents. Your parents would go off to work at 6 o’clock in the morning … but there were other eyes” watching children, she says.
And when kids went to school, they had better be dressed and groomed smartly. “If you went to school and you needed your hair combed or deodorant, that was addressed, but it was addressed in a loving manner,” says Rocker, a retired AT&T call center manager and adult education teacher.
Granvill Dorsett, president of the 1966 class, agrees. “We knew there was a stigma being African-Americans. We had to change the narrative. We made sure we were well-dressed, well-spoken and well-behaved.”

Small children ride a float sponsored by a nursery. Some teachers worked on farms to supplement their incomes.

Some students were bused to school from outlying farms miles away. “Most of them studied hard because they didn’t want to make that a lifetime of having to work on the farm,” Holliday says. “There were some kids that didn’t start school until they were 7 or 8 years old. They were behind, but they didn’t want to remain behind.”
Her own father was a migrant contractor during the summers when school was out. He’d take families to farms as distant as North Carolina and upstate New York, where they would harvest crops and be provided housing. Holliday would return to Carver High as late as October or November, she says.

History dates to 1896
Carver’s roots date back more than a century. In 1896, Colored School No. 4, on what is now Northwest Fifth Avenue, opened to serve Black children. It later was renamed the Delray County Training School.
Solomon D. Spady, a onetime student of agricultural scientist and inventor George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute, became a teacher and the principal at the school, grades 1-8, in 1921 at Carver’s urging.
In 1937, the school moved to Northwest Eighth Avenue. It was renamed George Washington Carver High School, with grades 1-12.

Spady — a revered civic leader — was still principal, and he also taught wood shop and agriculture courses. Some of his students cultivated crops on 10 acres that were sold to the public. These school grounds are now the site of S.D. Spady Elementary School.

Carver moved again to Southwest 12th Avenue and Southwest Fourth Street in 1958, and became a grades 9-12 school. When Palm Beach County desegregated schools, Carver merged with Seacrest High in 1970 to become Atlantic Community High School.

The Delray Full Service Center is now in a portion of the old Carver campus. It provides adult education instruction and will continue doing so at the new Village Center.
The renowned architect of Carver was Gustav Maass Jr. He designed houses throughout the town of Palm Beach, commercial buildings on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach and railroad stations in Florida, including the historic Delray Beach Seaboard Air Line Railway Station in 1927.
Much of Maass’ original design at Carver is gone now, and preservationists hope to obtain money to restore it. Ideas for use range from a trade school, to an adult education center to a culinary school.
But first they need the School District to relinquish ownership of the administration building and cafetorium it wants to renovate. No action from the district is expected, however, until June 2022.
And they want the Delray Beach City Commission to add the structures to the city’s register of historic places, making them eligible for grant money and ensuring their long-term protection.

C. Spencer Pompey (right) coached the Carver girls basketball team in 1953. The school’s sports teams excelled.

At Carver’s final location, the tenure of another towering figure in the school’s history began. C. Spencer Pompey was a coach, a teacher and a civil rights activist. He protested Delray Beach’s whites-only beach in the 1950s and was involved in the filing of a successful class action a decade earlier to eliminate disparities between white and Black teachers’ salaries. The plaintiffs’ lawyer was a young Thurgood Marshall from the NAACP. He later became the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lois Martin knew firsthand about teachers’ poor pay. After graduating from Carver in 1946, she went to college, then began teaching at her old school in 1950. She supplemented her $2,000 annual salary by picking beans at a Boca Raton farm during the Christmas holidays, she said in the Old School documentary.

Cherished memories
Carver students and the entire community were proud of the school’s extracurricular activities and events, especially the football and other athletic teams, and the marching bands. Carver’s football prowess was such that the school won several state titles in the 1960s. Even white folks ventured over to watch the Eagles play.
Football “was one of the things that kind of kept us together,” Dorsett says of the students.
So did the promise of decent jobs if they finished school. Students were told that with a proper education they could return home to become teachers themselves, Rocker says. And the school’s industrial arts courses also provided an incentive to graduate.

Carver High students take part in a graduation ceremony.

“You left there with a trade — cosmetology, carpentry, masonry, agriculture,” Rocker says.
Only nine of 127 seniors in his Class of 1966 didn’t graduate, says Dorsett, a Vietnam veteran and National Guardsman who is a retired utility mechanic for the city of Delray Beach. “The families stressed education … because they knew it was about economics” — financial betterment, he says.
“It was important because our parents were born back in the early 1900s,” Holliday says. “They weren’t allowed to get an education because most of their parents were sharecroppers and they had to work. For them, their children getting an education was important because they weren’t allowed to get one.”
Holliday is unconcerned about saving any of her alma mater’s buildings. But, she adds, “I wouldn’t trade Carver for anything.”
To others, like Dorsett and Rocker, those buildings are a vital and visible link to a cherished past.
“The love that I feel when I talk about Carver High School, it’s almost like the love I have for my son,” Rocker says. “That’s where the caring, not only for me, but for all of the students there began.”

The Delray Beach water treatment plant, a few blocks south of downtown, has not received a major upgrade since the early 1990s. The city says it has improved cleaning and other maintenance at the aging plant, and is watching for trouble more closely than ever before. Google Maps image

By Rich Pollack

Faced with persistent concerns from residents about drinking water quality, Delray Beach city commissioners are considering replacing the aging water plant built almost seven decades ago.
During a meeting last month, interim City Manager Jennifer Alvarez and Utilities Director Hassan Hadjimiry outlined the steps that the city will take as it prepares to replace or extensively improve its water treatment plant, built in 1952 when Delray had only 6,500 residents and Harry S. Truman was president.
With the green light from the commission, city staff members will begin assessing current and future needs and costs, a process that could mean it will be six years before a new plant is working — if commissioners continue to support that option.
“All of us on the commission are excited about moving forward,” Mayor Shelly Petrolia said. “We want to bring our water quality to the next level.”
During the presentation to the commission, Alvarez and Hadjimiry pointed out that it has been at least 25 years since the plant received a major upgrade, while also showing that most surrounding communities have already upgraded their water treatment facilities.
“We are definitely overdue,” Petrolia said. “People are wanting to have better water quality here and I think it’s time to take it to the next level.”
Others on the commission shared the mayor’s enthusiasm for moving forward with veteran water systems manager Hadjimiry leading the effort.
“I am sure our residents are most anxious to see this happen,” Vice Mayor Shirley Johnson said.
In presenting a case for a new plant, Alvarez said that several maintenance improvements have been made, but even so, much of the equipment in the plant is more than 50 years old and the technology and monitoring systems are outdated.
“We need a new plant in five to 10 years,” Alvarez said.

Type, cost to be determined
What type of plant the city will build and how much it will cost will depend on a number of variables — including the city’s ability to access enough raw water to meet demand. A reverse-osmosis plant, for example, would require more raw water than a plant with more commonly used treatment methods such as membrane filtration, filtered media or a combination of technologies.
Hadjimiry said the city will want to look at the best way to remove contaminants already prohibited by government agencies as well as those that may become more tightly regulated, include PFAs, synthetic chemicals linked to some health issues.
A study would still be needed to include population projections, what water usage demands would be put on a plant in the future and what size plant would meet the city’s needs. The city would also need to develop a timeline for the project.
“We need to determine what is the best type of plant to take us into the next decade,” Petrolia said.
The existing facility has a treatment capacity of about 26 million gallons per day and usage averaging about 14 million gallons per day.
The city’s current population of about 70,000 has added about 10,000 residents in the last 10 years, according to worldpopulationreview.com. Moving forward, Alvarez said, the city will continue with a rate study that could encourage conservation and bring usage down.
The staff will also review a Water Supply and Treatment Feasibility Study done by Kimley-Horn engineering firm in 2019 that recommended the city go to a reverse-osmosis system. That study estimated the cost of building a new plant would be between $132 million and $144 million, but Petrolia believes those numbers might be on the high side.
During their presentation, Hadjimiry and Alvarez displayed a chart that showed plants built by other South Florida communities from 1991 to 2006 with price tags ranging between $40 million and $80 million in estimated 2025 dollars.
The city will also look at funding sources, including potential grants, and will examine the feasibility of creating a public-private partnership as one funding option.
Moving forward with the project, Deputy Vice Mayor Adam Frankel said, is a high priority for Delray Beach.
“It’s one of those things that needs to be put on the top of the list,” he said.

Liz Bold, her daughter Capri, 14, and her husband, Bill, at their Delray Beach home. The mother and daughter spotted three runaway boys on State Road A1A in Delray in January, and the family fed, clothed and comforted them for a few hours before police returned the youths to the Children’s Place at Home Safe in Boca Raton. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Larry Keller

Call it a mother’s intuition. On a late Sunday afternoon in January, Liz Bold and her daughter Capri, 14, were walking south on A1A, a few blocks from their home in Delray Beach, when they passed three young boys on a bench.
“I noticed there were no adults near them,” Bold said. The boys then began walking north beside the busy road.
“They were clearly too young, in my opinion, to be walking on A1A with no adults. So I said to Capri, ‘Let’s turn around, I want to follow them.”’
Unknown to Bold, the trio had taken off from the Children’s Place at Home Safe in Boca Raton earlier that day. That’s a place for the care and treatment of abused, neglected and abandoned children.
Boca Raton police issued an alert to other police agencies along with photos of the boys. But here they were in Delray Beach, about 5 miles away.
When Bold and her daughter caught up to the boys, she began chatting with them. “The youngest one blurted out, ‘We don’t have anywhere to go tonight. We’re homeless,’” Bold recalled.
They confessed that they had run away, saying they were unhappy with how they were treated by Home Safe staff.
What ensued was a family drama of compassion, generosity and ultimately frustration at being unable to do more for three runaways, ages 9 to 12.
“I realized … they probably were hungry, so we went over to BurgerFi … and I brought my husband in to try and formulate a plan,” Bold said.
Bill Bold arrived and found his wife buying burgers and milkshakes for the boys.
“We were thinking maybe we should bring them back to our house,” Bill said. The boys advised against that, worried that he might be accused of kidnapping. “They were street smart,” he said.
One boy provided Bill with his mom’s phone number, so he called her, but she could not have cared less. “She gave me the name of a social worker,” he said.
After several more phone calls, it was clear his only option was to call police. Reluctantly, he did.
“We didn’t know what else to do. We didn’t want to leave them on the side of the road.”
Bill gave his phone number to the boys, and he and Liz assured them they wanted to remain in their lives. The boys were dressed poorly, so the Bolds took them to a nearby store and bought them flip-flops and clothing items while they awaited police.
“The lady in the store started crying too. I think she gave us a good discount because we told her what was going on. Everybody was pitching in,” Bill said.
When Delray Beach police arrived, it had been about four hours since the boys left Home Safe.
“They were really nice guys,” Bill said of the officers.
As the boys were about to be driven back to Boca Raton, “they all asked us for hugs,” Bill said.
“My daughter and I were bawling after the police took them away,” Liz added.
The Bolds — who have four children — never heard again from the boys. For weeks, they tried to figure out how they could see them again for a movie or a dinner.
But no programs were in place that permitted this, and the coronavirus pandemic made it out of the question anyway, they were told.
“We told them we were going to stay in their lives. I have so much guilt right now about that,” Liz said.
“They were charismatic kids,” her husband added. “They were excited about life, but they were also troubled. It was just heartbreaking, the entire situation.”
He’d “love to mentor them or be in their lives, if there is some creative way.”
The Delray Beach Police Department praised the Bolds for their actions, but the couple insist they did nothing special.
“I think it’s what is expected of us as human beings,” Liz said, “just to help our fellow human beings.”

Palmsea condo residents Carmine (foreground) and Bob Scalia watch a dump truck and bulldozer work on a project that calls for delivery of up to 1,000 truckloads of sand to the dune line of South Palm Beach. As the project progressed in the cousins’ backyard on April 21, Carmine said, ‘I hope this is a once-in-a-lifetime event for us.’ Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

Hundreds of truckloads of dredged sand arrived from Palm Beach in April, bolstering South Palm Beach’s dune line and buffering condo buildings from the relentless seas.
For Mayor Bonnie Fischer, it has been an often excruciating and frustrating journey that at times seemed impossible to complete.
Fischer has spent more than 10 years pushing the project. She attended dozens of meetings and environmental conferences, made hundreds of phone calls and twisted more arms than an army of chiropractors to get the work done.
But the most important thing she did was make a friend — former Palm Beach Mayor Gail Coniglio.
“An engineer told us, ‘If it wasn’t for the relationship between their mayor and your mayor, all this would never have happened,’” Fischer says. “That touched my heart.”
Coniglio and her council allowed South Palm Beach to purchase as many as 1,000 truckloads of sand that Palm Beach dredged as part of the town’s extensive beach renourishment project.
And when things got tough, Coniglio was unwavering in her support for her southern neighbors. Two years ago, Palm Beach County abruptly pulled out of a project to install groins on the South Palm beaches, citing rising costs and objections from communities to the south.
Conigilio stepped in to offer South Palm Beach a piece of her project. It will cost the town somewhere between $700,000 and $900,000, money that has been saved in reserves for years to repair the beach.
Fischer is the first to admit it’s not a perfect solution. One strong storm could wash away much of the work.
“The groins would have been a better option,” the mayor says. “I was really disappointed that didn’t happen. But we had two options left — do this, or do nothing.”
Finding some sort of strategy to deal with the eroding beachfront became an inescapable issue in South Palm Beach in 2005 when Hurricane Wilma tore through Florida.
By the time the hurricane left Palm Beach County, South Palm Beach’s coastline was devastated and several condo buildings had nothing but battered seawalls to stand up to the relentless waves.
It took more than 10 years to actually develop the groin plan with the county and win the approval of state regulators. The original cost for deploying the network of a half-dozen concrete sand holders on South Palm’s beaches was estimated at $5 million. The state was to pay half, the county 30% and South Palm 20%.
By 2019, however, that price tag ballooned to something closer to $10 million and the county abruptly pulled out of the project. It didn’t help that both Manalapan and the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa threatened to sue over allegations the groins would steal sand destined for their beaches.
The Town of Palm Beach offered its alternative a few months later — a much more modest plan but one that was clearly more practical. Rather than a beach stabilization project, Palm Beach offered a dune restoration project, with sand and sea oats restoring what nature had eroded away.
It’s not a small paradox that South Palm wound up getting more help from Palm Beach than its own residents. Despite years of trying by Fischer and three city managers, South Palm Beach never did get all the easements it needed from condo associations and homeowners to work on the beach. They, too, lawyered up, expressing worries about damage liability and opening access to the public.
In the end, Palm Beach gained access to haul in the dredged sand on its side of the border line between the two towns.
Fischer said that the contributions of Robert Weber, Palm Beach’s coastal program manager, were invaluable. Weber effectively became South Palm’s project manager and saw the work through.
After five terms in office, Coniglio decided not to run for re-election in March. Fischer said she’s grateful Coniglio stayed long enough to help her friends in South Palm Beach.

By Dan Moffett

The South Palm Beach Town Council unanimously approved refunding to customers some $455,000 in improper sewer charges assessed since 2016. The town expects all customers to be compensated before November.
The remittances are the result of an audit by the Palm Beach County inspector general that found the town did not adequately give public notice to rate increases during that period. The inspector found “no indication of willful misconduct” in the action.
Town Manager Robert Kellogg, in his response to the county watchdog, wants the inspector to extend his audits to monitor the “franchise agreement holders to determine if the proper amount of fees are being remitted.”
A franchise agreement is a negotiated contract between a municipality and a utility service provider that grants the utility the right to serve customers in the city’s jurisdiction. South Palm Beach has franchise agreements with Florida Power & Light, Florida Public Utilities and Waste Management Inc.
Towns such as South Palm Beach collect tens of thousands of dollars a year from these utility fees. The concern is that adequate oversight is lacking.
“We don’t have the capability to audit those fees,” Kellogg said. “But the inspector general does. It would be a great service to municipalities to look into this.”

Delray Beach Fire Rescue responded to 667 calls last year within the Delray city limits from the station in neighboring Highland Beach. One ladder truck and one rescue wagon are currently assigned to the station. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

After almost 30 years of paying Delray Beach millions of dollars for fire and medical rescue services, Highland Beach is calling it quits and moving forward with plans to start its own fire department.
At a meeting last month, town commissioners voted unanimously to notify Delray Beach of plans to terminate the contractual agreement — with a price tag of about $5 million a year — with a required 36- month notice effective May 1.
“We know we can deliver better service to our residents and we know we can do it at a lower cost,” Mayor Doug Hillman said. “There is no reason in my opinion to stay with Delray fire.”
During the next three years Highland Beach will work out the details of starting a fire department almost from scratch, something that apparently hasn’t been done in Palm Beach County for at least three decades.
The move bucks a local trend in which smaller communities such as Ocean Ridge, South Palm Beach and Manalapan have been paying for services from larger departments, including Boynton Beach and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.
Although Highland Beach commissioners have said they would be amenable to renegotiating, Delray Beach commissioners signaled during a meeting last month that they don’t see that as an option.
“It doesn’t appear there is room for negotiation as far as our commission and our fire chief are concerned,” Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia said following that meeting.
The city’s position apparently has not changed in the wake of Highland Beach’s decision to end the relationship.
“I think the time for negotiating has passed,” Delray Beach Fire Chief Keith Tomey said after learning of the decision. “Highland Beach wanted to cut $1 million from the contract, but that isn’t feasible.”
Delray Beach Vice Mayor Shirley Johnson said she respects Highland Beach’s decision to move on.
“As much as we’d like to continue the relationship, the agreement isn’t working for both parties anymore,” she said. “I wish the town of Highland Beach success.”
Although Highland Beach officials repeatedly said they were happy with the exceptional service they receive from Delray Beach, town leaders balked at the costs they said were unsustainable.
The town currently pays about 40% of its annual operating budget, or about $5 million a year, for services from Delray Beach, a cost that was expected to increase by about $300,000 each year.
The current cost per call, Hillman said, is extraordinary.
“Every time someone from Highland Beach dials 911, it cost Highland Beach $7,000 to send that truck out to service the call,” the mayor said.
Tomey said measuring cost per call is a “distorted way” of looking at emergency response.
“We have to be fully prepared with staffing, equipment and training for any and all emergencies in each area,” he said. “We aren’t making widgets, we are saving lives and property.”
While a consultant estimated that Highland Beach could save as much as $2.5 million in operating costs in five years after starting its own department, the town will have to incur significant start-up costs between $7 million and $8 million, Hillman said.
Tomey said Highland Beach officials likely will be surprised by the actual costs.
“I think the town commissioners have been misinformed about the costs of creating and running a fire department,” he said. “There are a lot of things the consultant left out and a lot of things that the commissioners aren’t considering. They simply don’t know what they don’t know.”
At the same time, Delray Beach will have to find ways to fill the estimated annual income of almost $6  million Highland Beach would have to pay if it stayed beyond the next three years. The department also will have to figure out how to respond to the calls within Delray Beach that the Highland Beach station covers now.
That number was 667 in 2020, according to Highland Beach’s consultant.
Tomey said he’ll work with the City Commission, city staff and fire rescue staff to address those issues.
“My goal is for no firefighter to lose a job,” he said. “Those 667 calls will still need to be answered.”
Vice Mayor Johnson doesn’t see the coming challenges as insurmountable. “With Delray being the city that it is, I’m confident that we’ll be able to work it out,” she said.
Petrolia said she is confident the city can find ways to fill the gaps by moving personnel to meet area demands.
“Maybe we have to look at making our department more efficient,” she said.
Petrolia said she understands Highland Beach’s concerns, but does not think it’s fair for Delray Beach taxpayers to subsidize Highland Beach.
“Their millage rate is about half of ours,” she said.
She and Tomey both said that Delray Beach does not make any money as a result of the agreement, which calls for Highland Beach to pay for the cost of staffing a town-owned station with a full complement of 22.5 personnel.
During presentations to both the Highland Beach and Delray Beach commissions, Tomey pointed out that Highland Beach is considered part of the Delray Beach service area and as a result has access to all of that city’s resources should they be necessary.
He said his department provides Highland Beach with “the gold standard of medical care and fire service.”
Privately, however, some Highland Beach commissioners have argued that the town could be even more responsive to the needs of residents if it had its own department and didn’t respond to calls in Delray Beach.
While one ladder truck and one rescue wagon are currently assigned to the Highland Beach station, town leaders point out the consultant report includes the town having two rescue wagons, a ladder truck and an engine at the station.
With the additional apparatus fully staffed, a Highland Beach department would respond to simultaneous calls more quickly. Under the current arrangement, a second rescue truck usually comes from over the Linton Boulevard Bridge to handle simultaneous calls in the town.
Highland Beach commissioners recognize the amount of work and number of decisions ahead before the town is ready to launch its own department, but they say they are committed to making it work.
“The No. 1 objective and the No. 1 key point is the health and safety of our residents, not the savings,” Hillman said. “We will spend whatever we have to spend to make sure our residents get the best possible service.”

By Rich Pollack

A former town commissioner, the former director of Florida Atlantic University’s School of Public Administration and an attorney with experience in a regulated industry are among the five residents chosen for Highland Beach’s new Charter Review Board.
Charged with reviewing the town’s charter and making recommendations, the board was selected during a commission meeting last month and includes a member of the town’s financial review board and the former mayor of a Maryland village.
“This is an excellent Charter Review Board because it is so well rounded,” said Mayor Doug Hillman. “The individuals have varied backgrounds that will blend together well.”
The mayor said that it will be important for the panel to view the charter as a constitution for the town and consider how it will affect the town for years to come.
“They have to think down the road,” he said.
Following the board’s review and acceptance of recommendations by the Town Commission, some or all of the proposed changes will be presented to the voters in a referendum.
The board, which is expected to begin meeting this month and to conclude by August, will take a close look at the town’s founding document, which addresses everything from the makeup of the commission to term limits. It also will address the town’s controversial spending cap, which requires voter approval for most projects costing $350,000 or more.
Those selected to serve on the board are:
• Barry Donaldson, an architect who served as a town commissioner for a year.
• Steve Katzki, a financial adviser and the former mayor of Drummond, Maryland.
• Ron Reame, a member of the town’s Financial Advisory Board who owned and operated several businesses in the information systems and financial loan areas.
• Eve Rosen, an attorney who served as general counsel in a regulated industry.
• Khi Thai, a professor emeritus at FAU’s School of Public Administration and that school’s former director.

‘The current climate is fantastic for sellers,’ says Dave Petruzzelli, owner and partner of Petruzzelli Real Estate in Boca Raton. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Charles Elmore

A surge in home sales few could have imagined in the early stages of the pandemic one year ago is sending a relentless stream of prospective buyers from across the country at virtually every listing they can find in Highland Beach and Boca Raton.
“This is once in a lifetime,” said Carmen D’Angelo, broker and owner of Premier Estate Properties in Boca Raton. “We’ve never had this where there’s been such a demand for high-priced homes.”
A sale this year for $21.8 million in Highland Beach marked the highest D’Angelo knows about in the town, he said.
In southern Palm Beach County, the median sales price jumped 25% for single-family homes in 12 months, with buyers snapping up so many homes the inventory available for purchase plunged 63% in February compared with a year before, according to the Broward, Palm Beaches and St. Lucie Realtors organization.
Fresh inventory tends not to last long. A newly constructed home in Boca Raton’s Sanctuary community, for instance, sold within 30 days of completion for $12.2 million, D’Angelo said.
Properties in Highland Beach’s Ocean Cove neighborhood under contract for $4 million and $3.2 million represent prices 20% higher or more compared to a year earlier, said Brittany Belcher, agent for Lang Realty in Boca Raton.
“The market is going nuts right now,” she said.
Many properties are moving off the market in one to five days after listing, she said.
Homes are frequently selling for about 30% more in Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club in eastern Boca Raton compared to a year before, said Belcher’s mother and partner agent, Olive Belcher.
Most buyers are coming from other states, from New York to California to Georgia, but as pandemic restrictions begin to ease somewhat, more international buyers are showing interest as well, Olive Belcher said.
Shrinking inventories of homes for sale represent one of the few brakes on the frenzy.
But it already has been an indelible 12 months and a head-spinning start to 2021.
“Last year companywide we did $1.5 billion in sales,” D’Angelo said. With only a third of 2021 completed, he said, “we’ve already reached $1 billion.”
Since the pandemic started, buyers have often made decisions without seeing properties in person, relying on online videos, photos and Zoom calls, he said.
“Prices are up, all across the board,” D’Angelo said. “Inventory’s low.”
Nationally, March proved to be the hottest month in housing since at least 2012, according to real estate brokerage Redfin Corp. 
U.S. home prices rose 17% compared to the same month a year earlier.
And the median price climbed higher still in one of the nation’s most incandescent markets, Palm Beach County, rising nearly 18%.
In March, the number of homes sold across Palm Beach County increased 35% to 4,213 compared to a year earlier, Redfin said.
In part, that reflects a bounce from the early effects of the pandemic in March 2020. The first restrictions, closures and lockdowns initially depressed sales and stoked uncertainty and fear about how bad the economic damage might be.
But as working from home became the norm, people from all over the country who had the means to move decided Palm Beach County might not be a bad place to call home. As months passed, a steady increase in interest turned into a tidal wave.
By the fourth quarter of 2020, Palm Beach County led all major U.S. markets tracked by Redfin with a 115% increase in luxury home sales compared to the last three months of 2019. Luxury in this instance means the top 5% of costliest homes in the market, with a median sales price of $1.8 million, though sales of homes across the middle to upper price ranges in the county also registered significant increases.
“The current climate is fantastic for sellers,” said Dave Petruzzelli, owner and partner of Petruzzelli Real Estate in Boca Raton. “On the other hand, it’s frustrating for buyers, since many sellers are receiving multiple cash offers close to, or above, asking price.”
If the buyer is financing, that can be another potential obstacle when trying to compete with cash buyers, he said.
“Between extraordinarily low inventories, low rates, and a greater-than-normal influx of out-of-state buyers, there will continue to be upward pressure on pricing,” Petruzzelli said.
His firm’s last condominium listing on Boca Raton’s barrier island was on the market for only nine days, he said.
Townhouse, villa and condominium sales increased to 63 on Boca Raton’s barrier island in March, compared to 26 in the same month a year earlier, according to data from BeachesMLS that Petruzzelli cited. Single-family home sales increased to six from five.
The average sales price has not necessarily increased in every neighborhood in such a limited snapshot, where an expensive deal or two can skew the average. Still, in Highland Beach, single-family home sales increased to five from one the previous March, and the average sales price increased to $8.4 million from $4 million.
Townhouse, villa and condo sales in Highland Beach grew to 40 from 19 the previous March, with the average price slightly lower at $964,000 compared to $972,000.
Though inventory is getting tighter, pandemic restrictions and rising taxes in other states have pushed many more buyers this way, Petruzzelli said.
“The typical customer we have walk into our office is from the New York/Northeast area with an eye on now making Florida their permanent home,” he said.
Petruzzelli’s own family moved to Boca Raton in 1946, he said. His grandfather opened a real estate office at the firm’s current location on North Ocean Boulevard. He grew up on Boca Raton’s barrier island and has been licensed since 1979.
And this has been a year like no other, he said.
“We have received offers from purchasers without seeing the property via Facetime, some because of COVID concerns, others because they did not want to lose out on the deal,” Petruzzelli said. “It has been an unprecedented year in sales, and until supplies increase or some other cataclysmic event occurs, prices shall remain strong.”

Mike Landis rides his bike east along Palmetto Park Road. The presence of bikes, cars and pedestrians in tight proximity poses safety concerns. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Call for upgrade gets council’s ear

By Mary Hladky

City Council members are being pressed to improve the safety and appearance of Palmetto Park Road, one of the city’s major streets and a gateway to the downtown from the beach.
Beachside residents who live near the intersection of Palmetto Park Road and State Road A1A, and members of the Planning and Zoning Board have advanced ideas for changes that council members will discuss at their May 12-14 goal-setting sessions.
The focus of beachside residents is the section of the road from the Intracoastal Waterway to A1A. The planning board is looking at the span from A1A through downtown to Fourth Avenue two blocks west of City Hall.
Both agree on the need for traffic-calming devices, bicycle lanes, more trees, better walkability and safety improvements.
“It is the grand gateway to our beaches, but not welcoming,” Katie Barr MacDougall, president of the Riviera Civic Association, told the council on Feb. 22 about the eastern section of the road.
In her presentation, MacDougall cited safety problems caused by the absence of crosswalks. She proposed installing them at Olive Way and Wavecrest Way. The city recently added four crosswalks between Federal Highway and the Intracoastal Waterway.
The lack of bicycle lanes creates a big safety issue involving cyclists who use the sidewalks instead of competing with cars on the road.
The narrow sidewalks are another issue, a problem worsened by the recent installation of FPL poles on the south side of the road that eat into sidewalk space. “Walkability is a huge issue,” MacDougall said.
Beachside residents also want to reduce parking on both sides of the road, but MacDougall recognized that would be difficult because there is too little parking to meet demand.

Eastbound traffic backs up on Palmetto Park Road at Ocean Boulevard in Boca Raton. Palmetto Park Road has no lanes for bicyclists, who frequently use sidewalks, and the area has too little parking to meet demand.

But even if the city wants to act on these matters, the county would have to agree to any changes because that section of the road is under county jurisdiction.
Council member Andy Thomson said he would talk with the county’s Transportation Planning Agency about possible joint funding of a planning study for the road and to figure out a way to pay for improvements.
The city planning board first broached road problems on Dec. 3 and followed up with a Jan. 7 memo to City Council members suggesting updating the road design to include bicycle lanes, enhanced landscaping, more shade for pedestrians, and possible elimination of some on-street parking spaces and reduction of travel lanes from four to two.
“The whole street needs a makeover … to bring it into current times,” said board member Larry Cellon.
Speaking of the need for bicycle lanes, he said, “This is horrible. Boca Raton has higher standards than that. It is dangerous.”
In response, the City Council asked board members for more details on what changes they proposed.
Brandon Schaad, the city’s development services director, suggested that board members take a crack at redesigning the road themselves, using a software tool.
“You caught me by surprise,” Chair Arnold Sevell replied at the board’s March 18 meeting.
“I question the capabilities of this board to lay out streets and redesign Palmetto Park Road.”
The actual redesign would be done by an urban planning consultant, Schaad said. But the board’s conceptual design would help the City Council better understand what the board had in mind.
After mulling this for a bit, the board agreed to give it a go. “Can we see your design first?” Cellon quipped to Schaad.
Cellon jumped into the task with alacrity, presenting his concepts at the board’s April 15 meeting.
His plan’s emphasis was on slowing traffic, adding bike lanes, improving walkability and adding shade trees.
He proposed two westbound lanes and eliminating one eastbound lane. The lanes would be narrowed slightly to slow traffic. The other eastbound lane would be replaced by a center lane reserved for emergency vehicles that could double as an evacuation lane in the event of hurricanes.
One unanswered question was whether fire-rescue personnel would think the emergency lane actually is a good idea.
Four-foot-wide raised bike lanes would flank both sides of the street, and sidewalks would be 10 feet wide. Shade trees would be planted on both sides of the emergency lane, and would be incorporated into the sidewalks.
“It’s a great concept,” said board member Joe Panella. “The emergency lane is cool.”
But he cautioned that Palmetto Park Road should be considered as three sections, divided by Federal Highway and the Intracoastal. One conceptual drawing will not solve the different issues along the three sections of roadway, he said.
Panella also proposed recommending that the council hire an urban planning consultant soon so that planning moves quickly and avoids a “12-year design project.”

By Steve Plunkett

Downtown’s planned Wildflower/Silver Palm Park will have cheaper pavers and fewer trash bins, but City Council members looking to cut costs said they would find money to keep a $395,000 interactive water feature and a $556,000 restroom relocation on the blueprint.
A possible source of cash: the city’s imminent $65.75 million sale of its municipal golf course, Mayor Scott Singer said at the council’s April 26 workshop.
Jennifer Bistyga, the city’s coastal program manager, alerted council members two weeks earlier that construction estimates for the park, on the Intracoastal Waterway just west of the Palmetto Park Road bridge, had jumped to $10.3 million, or $2.5 million higher than the budgeted $8.8 million.
Negotiations with contractor Burkhardt to set up a “field office” at the city’s Municipal Services Complex instead of on-site, plus reductions in scope and profit trimmed $565,000, Bistyga reported.
Council members easily approved saving $433,000 through “value engineering changes” that Bistyga promised would not alter the look and feel of the project. Those revisions included the less expensive pavers, installing 10 garbage cans instead of 13 and seven recycling bins instead of 10, and keeping an existing entrance sign rather than ordering one engraved in stone.
At the April 26 meeting they also agreed to spend only $330,000 on landscaping, saving $203,700, and to install less expensive light poles and pocket $69,800, making the total cost roughly $9 million.
But they balked at city staff’s other cost-saving suggestions. And still to be decided is how much to spend on public art.
Deputy Mayor Andrea O’Rourke called the Wildflower project “an opportunity to provide an amenity of excellence” to residents.
“The city can handle the cost of creating a phenomenal destination,” she said.
Council member Andy Thomson was the only person on the virtual dais to favor leaving the park’s restroom where it is, squarely in the way of the planned connecting walkway, and other reductions.
“Two million dollars right now to add to our budget is a bridge too far,” he said.
But O’Rourke said the council had told constituents they would get certain park features via statements and a sign posted prominently at the site two years ago.
“Let’s move forward, let’s get our promise done,” she said.
The council will vote on the cost reductions May 11. Bistyga said the council’s decisions would also reduce the contingency fund needed for the project, but could not say immediately by how much. Construction work should take about a year, she said.
In other park business, the council authorized Bistyga to apply for a second grant from the Florida Inland Navigation District for the planned renovation of Lake Wyman and Rutherford parks. FIND typically awards grants in the fall.

Boaters of all shapes and ages wade through the shallow waters of Lake Boca Raton,
surrounded by thousands of boats, personal watercraft and paddleboards. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

 Boca Raton: Boca Bash: Thousands of boats, plenty of alcohol and skimpy suits | Boca Bash 2021 Photos | More Photos

Evan Golden sports gold lamé shorts, gold- framed sunglasses and a bathrobe as he dances with other partiers.

Joey Alexander and Madison Arnold do back flips from the roof of a friend’s boat.

Plenty of beer, a lack of fabric and a sunny day brought out a variety of reactions. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

 Boca Raton: Boca Bash: Thousands of boats, plenty of alcohol and skimpy suits | Boca Bash 2021 Photos | More Photos

By Joe Capozzi

After a one-year, pandemic-imposed hiatus, the massive wet and wild party flotilla known as Boca Bash hit the water again on April 25, leaving a wake of controversy and concerns.
Thousands of vessels of all sizes — from yachts, cigarette boats and skiffs to pontoons, paddleboards and inflatable flamingos — crammed into Lake Boca Raton for the traditional daylong alcohol-fueled scrum.
“After dealing with COVID for a year, everybody wants to go crazy,’’ Racquel Scott of Boca Raton said as she waded in waist-deep water through a gauntlet of anchored vessels. 
Though the pandemic is far from over, no one wore a protective mask. And social distancing was practiced in reverse, with revelers crammed together in the shallows and along bows and sterns of boats, many of which were tied up side-by-side at anchor. 
Some revelers said they’d been vaccinated. Others said they weren’t worried, an attitude that sparked concerns among city officials of a Boca Bash superspreader event.
City Council member Monica Mayotte lamented that the city has no control over the event on state waters and that taxpayers foot the bill for the large law enforcement and fire-rescue presence at the event.
“I feel the partygoers have no accountability or responsibility,” she said at the April 27 council meeting. “They are partying and doing dumb things and the first responders are there to make sure they don’t harm themselves. ...
“I just need to get out there I wish we had some control.”
Lake Boca, which connects the Boca Raton Inlet with the Intracoastal Waterway, is under state jurisdiction. On the Sunday of Boca Bash, it was patrolled by city police boats as well as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Coast Guard.
At least 12 people were arrested. The FWC made 10 arrests for boating under the influence and one for disorderly intoxication. Boca Raton police arrested one person for resisting arrest without violence. 
Controversy has followed Boca Bash since its modest inception as a birthday party in 2007. Every year it has grown organically, attracting more overzealous merrymakers.
In 2018, a 32-year-old man drowned while trying to swim out to dozens of boats tied together in the middle of the lake. That prompted authorities to crack down the following year, when the FWC made 14 arrests — more than double the previous year’s total — including 12 for boating under the influence. 
Lake Boca is ringed by homes, condos and hotels, including the Boca Raton Resort and Club. And it’s impossible not to hear the collective Boca Bash roar, especially music blaring from multiple boat speakers.
“I wouldn’t say people who live by it are a fan of it, but I don’t get major complaints to stop it,’’ Deputy Mayor Andrea O’Rourke said. “I live in that location myself and there’s an aspect of fascination, I think.’’ 
Some regulars said they’re not trying to make waves with anyone. The arrests and incidents are not representative of the many people who party responsibly, they said.
Nick Probo of Lighthouse Point rented a pleasure boat with more than a dozen friends, whom he pointed out. 
“A lot of these guys work at Pratt Whitney. My brother is a cop in Charleston. There are doctors here. It’s not all irresponsible kids,’’ he said. 
Parents could be seen towing their children on floaties. Twentysomethings tossed footballs. One woman did yoga on a paddleboard. Another blew soap bubbles not far from a group playing beer pong on red Solo cups arranged on rafts.
“It’s a well-organized mess,’’ Rich Rose said as he waded in the water. “It’s not a bunch of drunks. I mean, look at some of these boats. You’ve got to have money to come out here.’’
But the scenery at times was too saucy for a PG rating. 
Many bikinis were teeny-weeny and a few female partiers were seen topless. In some parts of the lake, the odor of marijuana intermingled with boat exhaust. 
A blow-up doll and an inflatable shaped like a part of the male anatomy were attached to the flagpole of one boat. Some boats flew “Trump” flags. Other flags had a four-letter word in front of “Biden.” 
A posse of water scooter riders wore creepy clown masks. Some revelers did back flips off the upper levels of vessels and others leaped from one bow to another. 
Jay Sanders offered a more conventional recreation activity: His double-deck Premier Pontoon, which he piloted from Miami, came with a water slide. 
“I was invited to a party on a double-deck pontoon boat with a water slide. Why say no?’’ said Dan Carey. 
The common complaint from revelers: stubbed toes from tripping over anchors wedged in sand. 
“It’s a fun group of people,’’ said Joey Alexander, 21, of west Boca. “We are just living the South Florida dream.’’
Mary Hladky contributed to this story.

By Mary Hladky

Erik Silver, the Boca Raton Resort and Club’s director of tennis, and a business partner are proposing a 10-acre recreation center on the former Ocean Breeze golf course property.
The privately funded plan calls for 10 indoor clay tennis courts and four pickleball courts. Outdoor facilities would include 20 pickleball and six tennis courts. Other facilities would be two basketball courts, a paddle tennis court and two hitting walls.
Shaded rest areas and a walking path with exercise stations would surround these facilities.
Silver’s partner is Robbie Wagner of Robbie Wagner Tournament Training Inc., which builds and operates indoor tennis facilities in the Northeast.
Silver did not respond to phone messages and an email seeking additional information on the plans.
The proposal is among more than 230 responses the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District received to its call for ideas on what to do with Ocean Breeze now that the 212-acre property is no longer slated to become the Boca National golf course.
Most of the recommend-ations came from residents advocating for a golf course, pickleball courts, disc golf, walking and biking trails and green space, and even a botanical garden.
In addition to the Silver/Wagner plan, three other larger-scale proposals came from Eric Ah-Yuen, president of Elite Sports and Recreational Management and director of the Pickleball Athletics Club; Jiri Jasko, owner of Brno Investment; and Lynn Peterson Glover.
Ah-Yuen suggests a privately funded pickleball complex on 5 to 7 acres with 36 lighted courts, including as many as 24 covered courts, a multipurpose building for activities such as ballroom dancing and yoga, an indoor teaching academy, and a walking and jogging trail around the complex.
Jasko proposes eight tennis padel courts, clubhouse, and outdoor refreshment seating.
Glover calls for a Rhino Golf Center, a golf learning and practice facility with a lighted driving range, 18 putting greens that could also be used for miniature golf, and a two-story clubhouse.
The proposals are bare bones, offering few specifics.
Golf was the top amenity suggested by respondents, followed closely by walking, running and cycling trails. Those were followed by disc golf, pickleball courts and tennis courts.
Of golf options, a 9-hole executive course appeared to be the most popular, with 234 people saying they wanted one with a driving range, 18-hole putting green, golf learning facility and practice area.
A number of residents said a shorter course is needed because the 18-hole course at the Boca Golf and Tennis Country Club, donated to the city last year by the Boca Resort, is too difficult for many golfers.
A sizable number of people insisted the district should resurrect plans for the Boca National course at Ocean Breeze.
District commissioners discussed the responses only briefly at their April 19 meeting.
“I think these are all great ideas,” said Commissioner Steven Engel. “We need to figure out a way to mold them together.”

By Steve Plunkett

The city will hire a consultant to determine whether a pickleball center similar to Delray Beach’s Tennis Center should go on the recently donated Boca Golf and Tennis Country Club or the former Ocean Breeze golf course.
City Manager Leif Ahnell guessed the country club could accommodate 16 to 20 pickleball courts. But City Council member Andy Thomson liked the “clean slate” offered by Ocean Breeze.
The decision to explore pickleball opportunities came April 26 after an assessment of recreation needs presented to council members and Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District commissioners by PROS Consulting.
Neelay Bhatt of PROS said Boca Raton and the district had an older population, with an average age of 48.6 years compared to the national average of 38.5 years.
And it will get older in coming years, he said, with people 55 years old and up growing from 45% of the population to 52% while those ages 18-54 decline from 41% to 36%.
The seniors 75 and up are more passive and self-directed when they recreate, he said. But the 55-74 age group does not fit the senior citizen stereotype.
“This is a very active adult population,” Bhatt said.
The community’s most pressing needs are for 12 more pickleball courts, 3.5 miles of multi-use trails, about 59,000 square feet of indoor recreation space and 66,000 square feet of indoor aquatic space, he said.
Bhatt also encouraged park officials to spend more on marketing the facilities and services they already offer. His pre-COVID survey of 432 city and district residents showed a high lack of awareness of programs, he said.
Sugar Sand Park is the No. 1 destination for park-goers, Bhatt said. “But for many of the smaller sites people don’t even know what they don’t know.”

In other business, city officials said they would ask the Friends of Gumbo Limbo to sign an agreement promising to give part of its donations to offset the nature center’s expenses. The not-for-profit group, which does not pay rent for its gift shop there, currently contributes about $300,000 a year but is not required to do so. 

By Mary Hladky

Susan Haynie easily won her second term as mayor in 2017. She then set her sights on a bigger political prize: running for a seat on the Palm Beach County Commission.
But her successful political career spanning nearly 20 years imploded on April 24, 2018, when she was arrested on public corruption charges, a development that shocked other City Council members and threw the city into turmoil.
Haynie’s attorney proclaimed her innocence and said she would never accept a plea deal.
Until she did.
On April 1, Haynie pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts, of misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflicts.
The plea deal allowed her to avoid four felony counts that, had she been convicted, could have landed her in prison for more than 20 years. The State Attorney’s Office also dropped a third misdemeanor.
“I want to convey my sincere apology to all the citizens of Boca Raton for my actions and any negative light that my case cast upon our city,” Haynie said in a statement to residents.
“Throughout my personal and professional career, I have prided myself on taking responsibility for my conduct and performance,” she said.
“The citizens of Boca Raton should accept nothing less than the highest level of ethics from their elected officials. I failed to live up to that standard and today, accepted responsibility by entering my guilty plea.”
Haynie, 66, will be on probation for 12 months but will serve no jail time.
She cannot seek public office during probation. But even after that, Haynie said, her political career is at an end.
Bruce Zimet, Haynie’s criminal defense attorney, said the decision to accept a plea deal “was made because there was a reasonable offer from the State Attorney’s Office.”
That offer, he said, eliminated counts that alleged corruption.
“She never would plead to a felony or misdemeanor involving any allegation of corruption,” Zimet said. “This was framed as a quid pro quo case, and that never happened. Any plea deal that involved that would be a total nonstarter.
“There was no corruption from her,” he said. “Her vote was never sold.”
Chief Assistant State Attorney Alan Johnson said Haynie “could have been convicted on each and every one of these charges.”
Yet he did not dispute Zimet’s assertion that Haynie never sold her vote. “There was no indication there was any kind of bribe or quid pro quo for her votes,” Johnson said.
A number of factors prompted him to reach out to Zimet to see if a plea deal could be worked out, Johnson said.
The coronavirus pandemic has slowed the court system to a crawl, serious felony cases are backlogged and Haynie’s case likely would not have gone to trial for many more months.
Haynie has been out of office for nearly three years, and was willing to forgo future political roles. And while Haynie failed to report significant amounts of income on financial disclosure forms, it was not clear that corrupt intent was the reason, he said.
“To put some closure on a case that is old and getting older, to a person who was no longer in office, I thought this was an appropriate and just resolution,” Johnson said. “She will always have this on her record.”
It was also important, he said, that Haynie “accepted responsibility. That was a major factor in resolving the case.”
Al Zucaro, a Haynie adversary who lost to her in the 2017 mayoral race, filed complaints about her to both the Palm Beach County and state ethics commissions that led to investigations by those bodies and then by the State Attorney’s Office. He also provided information to prosecutors.
Yet he had no objection to the plea deal.
“I have no problem with how this resolved itself,” he said. “Susan Haynie paid dearly for what was a self-induced error. Her political career ended because of it. I don’t see any utility to require her to suffer any more.”
Zucaro said his opposition research during the 2017 campaign uncovered Haynie’s failure to report income. When her campaign team sent out mailers about him that he termed “character assassination,” he shared what he knew with ethics officials and prosecutors. But they were the ones who found solid evidence of criminal behavior, he said.
Shortly after the election, Zucaro dropped out of politics and ended his BocaWatch blog.
In charging documents, prosecutors contended that Haynie used her position on the City Council to vote on four matters that financially benefited James Batmasian, the city’s largest downtown commercial landowner, and concealed income she received from him.
The investigation found that Haynie failed to report $335,000 in income on financial disclosure forms, including $84,000 from Batmasian or his company Investments Limited, from 2014 through 2017.
The payments went to a property management company formed by Haynie and her husband, Neil, that managed a large apartment complex where a majority of units were owned by Batmasian and his wife, Marta. Marta Batmasian signed the checks that went to the management company.
The property management company also was paid at least $64,000 by Investments Limited in 2016 and 2017 for installing security cameras at several properties owned by the Batmasians.
Haynie did not divulge that income when she voted on matters benefiting the Batmasians, investigators said.
Three of the now-dismissed official misconduct felony counts alleged Haynie falsified financial disclosure forms and did not disclose her compensation by the Batmasians and their businesses.
The fourth dismissed felony charge, for perjury, accused her of lying in testimony to county and state ethics investigators.
The dismissed misdemeanor, corrupt misuse of official position, was for four votes on matters that benefited the Batmasians while she was being paid by them.
Haynie pleaded guilty to misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflicts for those same votes.
Before her arrest, the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics reached a settlement with her in which she was reprimanded and fined for failing to disclose a conflict of interest. A second allegation that Haynie misused her public office was dismissed.
The Florida Commission on Ethics found probable cause that Haynie violated state ethics laws in eight instances, but that case has been on hold while the criminal case proceeded.
The state commission said that Haynie failed to disclose income, acted to financially benefit herself and her husband, and improperly voted on matters that benefited the Batmasians without disclosing a conflict of interest.
Commission advocate Elizabeth A. Miller minced no words in a stinging 2018 report to the commission.
Haynie “consistently voted on measures benefiting the Batmasians and/or their affiliates between 2012 and 2016 while surreptitiously reaping the financial rewards of their business association,” she wrote. “When confronted with the possibility of impropriety (Haynie) consistently denied any association, involvement or knowledge. The bank account records revealed her deception. These acts and omissions indicate a corrupt intent.”
Kerrie Stillman, a spokeswoman for the state ethics commission, said the criminal case outcome has no bearing on the ethics case.
In instances where probable cause has been found, the commission must either hold a full evidentiary hearing, or the commission advocate and Haynie’s ethics attorney could reach a settlement agreement, Stillman said.
But the commission’s role is now limited. Its power to seek her removal from office is moot. It also can impose fines up to a maximum of $10,000 per violation.
While much investigatory effort has been directed at Haynie’s votes on matters involving Batmasian, Johnson acknowledges that Haynie was not paid for them.
The investigation found at least two additional votes beyond the four outlined in the charging documents.
But prosecutors did not pursue those because the statute of limitations had expired, Johnson said.
The six votes were uncontroversial at the time, and the City Council approved all but one of the matters unanimously or near-unanimously.
Haynie’s vote made a difference in only one minor instance. In an appeal to the City Council of a Community Appearance Board denial of the approval of two signs, the council reversed the CAB’s decision by a 3-2 vote on Jan. 10, 2017, with Haynie in the majority.
But her effort to get the blessing of the county ethics commission to vote on matters involving Batmasian have raised eyebrows.
City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser obtained an informal opinion from the commission in 2011 that Haynie had no conflict of interest in voting on Batmasian matters. In 2013, Haynie asked her to seek a formal written opinion.
A draft opinion found Haynie could vote but included a recommendation that she abstain based on an “appearance of impropriety.”
Frieser told the commission that recommendation was not warranted. More back-and-forth followed over five months until the final opinion determined Haynie could vote.
But the opinion was narrowly written and was based on a specific instance in which Batmasian was neither the applicant nor the developer of a project coming to the council for approval.
Mark Bannon, the ethics commission’s executive director, has said Haynie should have understood the opinion to mean she should not vote when Batmasian was the applicant or developer.
Two City Council members at the time, including now-County Commissioner Robert Weinroth, were critical of how Frieser handled on Haynie’s behalf the request for an ethics opinion. Weinroth said Frieser was “aggressive” in pressing for an opinion that allowed Haynie to vote.
Frieser denied that she sought an outcome that favored Haynie, and said she had done nothing that altered the conclusion in the draft and final opinions that Haynie could vote.
Haynie has maintained a low profile since her arrest, and her only public comment was the statement of contrition after the plea deal.
“She plans to move forward and put all this behind her,” Zimet said when asked about Haynie’s plans. “She is a vibrant person who has a lot to offer her community. She plans to enjoy her life in the years to come.”

By Rich Pollack

Saying they want to send a message that what they do is a job and not a hobby, Highland Beach town commissioners are moving ahead with plans to increase their salaries by 20% and add an annual cost-of-living increase.
In approving a recommendation from the town’s Financial Advisory Board, which noted that the commission salaries had not been raised since 2004, commissioners instructed staff to move forward with an ordinance that would increase commissioner salaries by $2,400 and the mayor’s salary by $3,000.
Highland Beach commissioners are currently paid $12,000 and the mayor, who is a voting member of the commission, is paid $15,000. Those are the highest salaries for commissioners and a mayor of coastal towns from Palm Beach south, with several of the small towns offering no financial incentive to elected officials.
While agreeing that the increase is necessary, commissioners say the move isn’t about the money but instead is about recognition for the work and responsibility that come with the job.
“If there was no compensation all five of us would still be here,” Mayor Doug Hillman said. “Still, 17 years is too far for a commission to go without a raise.”
In discussing the issue during a meeting last month, commissioners said that the increases will help ensure that people who might consider running for a town office know that a lot of work comes with the position.
“We have to look down the road and make sure people in the future understand that this is a job and it’s generally more work than you think it’s going to be,” Commissioner Evalyn David said. “The salary and the increase send a message that this is a job, it’s not just sitting here. This is work and if it wasn’t work, we wouldn’t be paid for it.”
In supporting the change, Vice Mayor Natasha Moore said that the increase will help attract qualified candidates for the job in the future and could affect how current elected officials see their roles.
“I think by paying a little more we might continue to attract expertise,” she said. “I think that is really important.”
The increase, she said, can also send a message to the incumbents.
“It elevates the expectation of ourselves,” she said. “The town has increased our salaries so we better continue to take this seriously, do our homework and come prepared.”
Acknowledging the awkwardness of commissioners giving themselves a raise, Moore voiced support for the annual cost-of-living increase, based on the Consumer Price Index, which she believes will eliminate the need for future commissions to go through a similar process.
While the commission appears unanimous in its support for an increase, the recommendation from the Financial Advisory Board came on a 4-1 vote with Dr. Richard Greenwald dissenting.
“Philosophically, my feeling is to keep it the way it is,” he said. “The salaries they currently have are commensurate with the size of both the town’s population and its budget.”
Others on the board, however, advocated increasing the salaries even more than the 20% recommended by the panel’s chairman, David Stern.
The advisory board’s vote in support of the increase, Hillman said, is recognition that can have a positive impact on people receiving the increase.
“Being recognized for what you do is motivational,” the mayor said.

By Steve Plunkett

Replacement of Gumbo Limbo Nature Center’s seawater pumps and piping should begin soon following green lights in April from the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District and the Friends of Gumbo Limbo.
But funding the long-awaited $3.4 million project was not without drama. First, city officials trimmed one of three pumps, the emergency generator and 300 feet of underwater pipe from the plans to get the cost down $500,000.
Then John Holloway, executive director of the Friends, urged the group’s supporters to “help Gumbo Limbo’s endangered sea turtles and fish” by signaling concern to district commissioners. Forty-seven people emailed the district, including Friends who don’t pay district taxes from Delray Beach, Ocean Ridge, Broward County, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Minnesota.
But commissioners, who budgeted $2 million in 2015 for the project’s then-estimated cost, stuck to their currently budgeted $3.2 million at their April 5 meeting.
“I regret the way this Gumbo Limbo project is turning out, but I think we’re doing the right thing for our constituents,” Commissioner Robert Rollins said.
Commissioner Craig Ehrnst said the Friends, the city and Florida Atlantic University, which has a lab at Gumbo Limbo and uses 20% of the pumped seawater, should chip in.
The Friends, he said, have over $3 million in their budget.
“I think they should contribute to this project and I think it’s kind of wrong for them not to contribute,” Ehrnst said.
The Friends and district officials huddled over the next two weeks to reach an agreement for the not-for-profit organization to provide $144,246 — enough to get construction started. Holloway said the amount was in addition to the $300,000 his group gives Gumbo Limbo every year and came “despite the center being closed for over a year now and our access to donations from visitors and retail-store commerce being eliminated.”
Still unresolved is the source of a 10% contingency fund for the pumps and piping, about $300,000.
The project’s projected cost swelled from $1.3 million in 2013 to $1.5 million two years later, to $2.5 million in 2018 and $3.2 million the next year.
The new pumps will go in Red Reef Park east of A1A and “push” seawater to Gumbo Limbo’s aquariums instead of “pull” it under A1A like the outdated current pumps do, said Jennifer Bistyga, the city’s coastal programs manager.
In other business, Florida Power & Light offered to install charging stations for four electric vehicles at the district’s Sugar Sand Park, Patch Reef Park and the Swim and Racquet Center in exchange for the district’s paying about $3,600 a year more on its electric bill.
FPL already has put EV chargers at City Hall, the Downtown Library and Spanish River Library, and the city’s Spanish River, Red Reef and South Beach parks, a company representative said.

U.S. District Court Judge Sandra Feuerstein, 75, was struck and killed April 9 by a car while walking on the sidewalk along State Road A1A near Spanish River Boulevard in Boca Raton. Photo provided by Cordozo School of Law

By Mary Hladky

A 23-year-old North Lauderdale woman has been charged in a fatal hit-and-run crash along North Ocean Boulevard in Boca Raton that claimed the life of a New York federal judge.
Nastasia Snape was driving northbound in a red Honda when she crossed the southbound lanes and continued onto the sidewalk near the Spanish River Boulevard intersection, striking Sandra Feuerstein at 10:09 a.m. April 9, according to the arrest report and a release by the Boca Raton Police Department.
Feuerstein, 75, who was nominated to the federal bench in 2003 by President George W. Bush, later died at Delray Medical Center.
Snape drove off at a high speed, striking a 5-year-old boy as he was crossing Ocean Boulevard in the crosswalk at Spanish River Boulevard, the release said. The boy suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was released from Delray Medical Center, according to Boca Raton police.
Snape’s vehicle crashed at the intersection of Southeast 10th Street and Southeast Sixth Avenue in Delray Beach.
A Delray Beach police officer on the scene said Snape at first appeared to be unconscious, but then began to convulse and have seizure-like movements.
She later got out of the car and told the officer she was OK. Once inside an ambulance, she screamed and fought with medics, stating she was “Harry Potter.” Medics administered the anesthetic Ketamine to calm her, the arrest report states.
Among her possessions were containers labeled “THC Cannabis” and a synthetic drug called “T salts,” which the arrest report states is known to cause excited delirium.
Snape, whose last name is the same as Severus Snape, a prominent character in the Harry Potter books, was charged with vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of a crash involving death and leaving the scene of a crash involving injury. She has pleaded not guilty.
As of April 27, Snape remained in the Palm Beach County jail. Bond was set at $20,000 for each of the three counts.
Her case was reassigned to mental health court on April 13 after Snape’s attorney informed the court that her family had disclosed her behavior before her arrest was “consistent with some form of mental illness.”
Snape was to undergo a mental health evaluation to determine if she is competent to proceed with the legal case.
Efforts to reached Feuerstein’s two sons, Adam and Seth, and a lawyer described in her obituary as a longtime companion were unsuccessful.
But in an email to Newsday, Adam Feuerstein said his mother was in Florida visiting friends and he and his brother believed she was on a morning walk when she was struck. She had no connection to the 5-year-old boy, he said.
She was “everything a child could want from a mother,” Adam Feuerstein wrote.
Judge Feuerstein served on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. She assumed senior status in 2015.
News of her death deeply saddened members of New York’s legal community.
“Judge Feuerstein was a treasured member of our Eastern District bench,” District Court Executive Eugene Corcoran said in a statement. “Her eccentric style and warm personality lit up the courtroom. She will be missed by her colleagues and litigants alike.”
“She was a steadfast supporter of the (Suffolk County) Women’s Bar Association as well as dedicating her life to public service,” attorney Shari Sugarman, of Deer Park on Long Island, told The Coastal Star.
“She was just a wonderful woman,” Sugarman said. “She is very well respected and very well known in the community.”
With her death, “we lost a voice for women and children.”
Feuerstein was a New York public school teacher before attending Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law.
Prior to her appointment to the federal bench, Feuerstein served as a Nassau County District Court Judge and as a justice on the New York Supreme Court.
She oversaw many high-profile criminal cases and lawsuits, including those of people convicted of joining al-Qaida and of sex trafficking ring leaders, according to the Cardozo School of Law.
Her mother, Annette Elstein, was an immigration judge. They are believed to be the first mother-daughter judges in the country, the law school said.

The pavilion at South Beach Park is being refurbished partly as a result of a minor accident there more than a year ago. Michael Lesser, then 77, of New Jersey, was pulling into a parking space on Feb. 12, 2020, when his foot ‘got caught between the brake and the accelerator,’ he told police. His Cadillac SUV hopped the curb and hit a street sign and the pavilion’s wooden railing, causing an estimated $1,750 in damage. But when engineers inspected the aftermath, they decided the whole pavilion needed renovation, including its railing, boardwalk, staircase and under the overhang, city spokeswoman Anne Marie Connolly said. The $163,788 project, just east of where Palmetto Park Road intersects with State Road A1A, is supposed to be done by late spring. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

CAR DAMAGES SPANISH RIVER WALKWAY: A Honda Accord driven by a Miami man plowed into the pavilion at the corner of A1A and Spanish River Boulevard late in the evening on St. Patrick’s Day, causing about $10,000 damage to the boardwalk walkway, according to Boca Raton police. Investigators believe the driver was traveling eastbound on Spanish River Boulevard and was attempting to turn north on A1A but failed to navigate the turn. The vehicle was damaged but the driver was uninjured.

Jeremy Rogers thanked city residents in a video from Qatar. Photo provided

By Mary Hladky

Former Deputy Mayor Jeremy Rodgers, who was unable to complete his second term in office after his August deployment to Qatar in support of NATO operations in Afghanistan, bid farewell to city residents on the day his term would have ended.
In a video filmed in Qatar, the Navy Reservist thanked city residents and his fellow City Council members on March 31.
“I’ll never stop fighting for you guys who put me here,” he said to residents. “I have done everything I can to serve you guys, to fight for you, to do what is right. What a wonderful city we have. It is an amazing place. It has truly been an honor to serve.”
He promised to continue serving the city “one way or another.”
Mayor Scott Singer presented Rodgers with a plaque in his honor, and all five council members thanked him for his service to his country.
“He served our community with honor, as one would hope with any elected official,” Singer said. “He brought unique insight to our discussions on the dais and made them better.”
On April 22, Rodgers posted a brief update on Facebook: “Heading home,” he wrote from Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, followed by emojis of the U.S. flag and an anchor.
Council members appointed Yvette Drucker on Oct. 27 to replace Rodgers until his term ended. Drucker already had started campaigning for term-limited Rodgers’ seat and won election to a three-year term on March 9.
After honoring Rodgers, council members unanimously agreed to make no changes to their positions. Andrea O’Rourke will continue as deputy mayor, Monica Mayotte as Community Redevelopment Agency chairperson and Andy Thomson as CRA vice chairperson.