The family room boasts volume ceilings and spectacular views of the Intracoastal Waterway through oversized impact windows.

This timeless masterpiece of 10,000-plus total square feet was built by JH Norman Builders. It is located in Highland Beach directly on the Intracoastal in a gated enclave. Wine lovers will appreciate the temperature-controlled room for 500-plus bottles. A custom lift can handle a boat of up to 40,000 pounds on the dock with 90 feet of direct Intracoastal frontage. There also is private deeded ocean beach access.

The wine room features a mural and climate-controlled storage.

This home is perfect for entertaining, whether to toast the sunset in the summer kitchen or to enjoy the sprawling patio and loggias.
The property affords the ultimate in privacy from the moment you enter the gated and walled motor court. The fine high finishes are evident upon entry through the custom 9-foot pecky cypress doors. Soaring ceilings and oversized impact windows offer stunning waterfront views.

A beautiful pool-and-spa area for entertaining overlooks the Intracoastal.

This Mediterranean-style home offers a retreat from the cares of the world.

The gourmet kitchen includes a Wolf six-burner stove plus several ovens and an oversized Sub-Zero refrigerator/freezer.
There are five en suite bedrooms; the master has his/her baths, a spa and balcony. Amenities include a four-bay garage, a movie theater, an elevator, paneled library with fireplace, laundries upstairs and down and an onyx bar off the living room.
Offered at $6,250,000. Contact Constance Marie Hudson, The Bernal and Hudson Team at ONE Sotheby's International Realty, 200 East Palmetto Park Road, Suite 104, Boca Raton. 561-445-4003, chudson@onesothebysrealty.com

Each month, The Coastal Star features a house for sale in our community. The House of the Month is presented as a service to our advertisers and provides readers with a peek inside one of our houses.

By Rich Pollack

Concerns about the coronavirus have led Highland Beach leaders to cancel the 2020 Spring Fling, originally scheduled for March 21.

“Based on information from the Centers for Disease Control and the Florida Department of Health, we are exercising an abundance of caution to protect our population, which happens to be an at-risk population,” Town Manager Marshall Labadie said. 

In the past, the annual Spring Fling has featured food, a fire department demonstration and live music as well as free document shredding.  Shredding services will still be available at Town Hall on March 21 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Highland Beach also canceled the town library’s Thursday concert series and the Friday movies through at least May 1.

“The cancellations were made because the events held in two community rooms do not allow for the ‘social distancing’ that is now being recommended and practiced worldwide,” Labadie said in a news release.

He said the town recognizes how much the community values library events but added that the decision to cancel the two programs was made out of concern for the well-being of residents.

“Their health and safety is of paramount importance to our town,” he said.

City contractors check the reclaimed water connection at the corner of A1A and Rhodes Villa Avenue on March 2. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Drinking water safe, manager says after
inspection, tests

 Related: Timeline of troubles | City provides watering service after reclaimed water turned off

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach failed to alert state health officials that about a dozen barrier island residents and their pets were sickened by drinking contaminated water after the latest segment of the reclaimed-water system began operating in late 2018, state Department of Health records show.
The reclaimed-water lines provide partly treated wastewater meant solely for lawn watering.
The last section of the system started running in October 2018, and Christine Ferrigan, an industrial pretreatment inspector in the city Utilities Department, found it was not installed or monitored properly by outside contractors, according to her notes released by the state Health Department under Florida’s public records law.
That cross-contaminated an unknown number of drinking water lines between October and December 2018 and potentially exposed additional residents in some of the 613 coastal households hooked up to the system to hepatitis A, Giardia, fecal coliform and other contaminants, according to Ferrigan’s notes. The notes say the reclaimed-water program was flawed from the start in 2005.
Yet the Health Department was not alerted to the situation until Jan. 2, 2020, when Leslie Campbell, who lives on South Ocean Boulevard, called “to complain she was not adequately notified of the cross-connection issue in her neighborhood. (The) cross-connection between drinking water and reclaimed-water lines occurred in late 2018,” according to the complaint investigation record. Campbell, who told Health Department officials to contact Ferrigan for details, declined to explain why she waited so long to complain.
Although Ferrigan’s notes included details on families and pets getting sick in the area from Casuarina Road south to Linton Boulevard in late 2018, a report filed by then-Utilities Director Marjorie Craig to the Health Department on Dec. 19, 2018, reported the cross-connection problem but also stated “no reports of sickness or illness have been received.”
Reacting to the cross connection, a boil-water order was issued.

City officials say water safe to drink
City officials now stress that the cross-contamination has been eliminated and that city water remains safe for drinking, cooking and showering.
Still, back in 2018, the city “created a public health threat because of the way they contracted the service and didn’t monitor the work,” said Ned Wehler, a barrier island resident.
Mayor Shelly Petrolia said it’s concerning that she is just hearing about this problem now. “It’s important when a public health threat occurs that the city own up to it,” she said.
As a result of Campbell’s complaint — backed up with Ferrigan’s notes — the Health Department asked Delray Beach to issue a citywide boil-water order on Feb. 4. The order would last until the city had checked all locations served by both drinking and reclaimed water. The Health Department also wanted bacterial tests done after the connections were checked.
New City Manager George Gretsas, who started on Jan. 6, persuaded the department not to follow through on such a drastic action as a boil-water order.
The city would turn off its reclaimed-water system citywide, he wrote in a Feb. 4 letter to Rafael Reyes, the environmental director at the county division of the Health Department.
“The city will review and inspect all locations served by potable and reclaimed water to ensure proper backflow prevention is present. The city will inspect for cross- connections and notify the Department of Health immediately for the presence of any cross-connections. Lastly, bacteriological water samples will be collected and tested,” Gretsas’ letter said.
A week later he wrote to Reyes saying that the tap water is not contaminated. Gretsas detailed how every location that receives both drinking water and reclaimed water from Delray Beach was inspected. City staffers were deployed and outside contractors were hired. 
“All of the efforts undertaken by the city demonstrate that the city took your concerns seriously but, more importantly, that no cross-connections were found,” Gretsas wrote.
Although no cross- connections were found, city staff discovered that 200 to 300 reclaimed-water customers citywide did not have backflow preventers to stop the reclaimed irrigation water from potentially mixing with the drinking water supply, Gretsas said March 2. The devices have been installed.
Gretsas stressed that the lack of a backflow preventer doesn’t necessarily mean that reclaimed water was mixing with the drinking water. The devices act as a safety valve when there are fluctuations in water pressure.
The city of Boca Raton sent Delray Beach 40 backflow preventers in late February, according to Chris Helfrich, Boca Raton’s utility services director. He said it is not unusual for cities to ask for parts and then swap them back when their orders come in.
Gretsas also said that the city has 30 to 40 water lines to check for backflow preventers. The pipes may be located under landscaping, driveways or sidewalks, Gretsas said.
He expected the work to be finished by March 7 and stressed again that the tap water is safe to drink.
“The reclaimed water won’t be turned on until the DOH is satisfied that each reclaimed water location was inspected and missing backflow preventers were added citywide,” Gretsas said.

The second of two door hangers  alerted barrier island residents of the problem, but not the cause.

First notice was door hanger
The closest thing to a public warning from the city came on door hangers left on the 613 barrier island doorsteps dated Feb. 4 and Feb. 14, which stated that city workers are performing inspections of the reclaimed-water system “at the behest of the Department of Health.” The notes told residents to call Deputy Director of Utilities Victor Majtenyi with any questions. He could not be reached for comment for this story.
“The city should have been more forthcoming in the explanation of why they shut off the reclaimed water on the barrier island and were checking all connections,” said Bill Petry, a barrier island resident who sits on the board of the Beach Property Owners Association.
Fire Chief Neal de Jesus, who was the interim city manager until Gretsas started on Jan. 6, was assigned to monitor the inspections.
De Jesus sent an email to Reyes on Feb. 5 saying the city shut down its reclaimed-water system at 7:15 p.m. Feb. 4.
More than 75 city employees were brought in at 7 a.m. Feb. 5 to distribute door hangers to reclaimed-water users. As of 8:54 a.m., the task was completed, according to de Jesus’ email.
Delray Beach has hired contract employees to work alongside city employees to inspect every connection of its reclaimed-water system.
“The city takes all matters related to the health, safety and welfare of those we serve seriously,” de Jesus wrote.

Improper hookups found
In 2018, Ferrigan, the city utility inspector who started with Delray Beach in June 2017, created documents needed for the reclaimed-water program, including inspection forms, brochures and a database of active and inactive users. They were approved by her immediate manager, Majtenyi, and Craig, who resigned for other reasons in April 2019.
In the summer of 2018, Ferrigan “found several violations immediately. Reclaimed water was connected to outside showers, hose bibs, vegetable gardens.” Those connections are not allowed since they could compromise the health of residents and their pets through close contact with the contaminated water.
Then in September 2018 she was assigned to check the cross- connections in the southern half of the barrier island, from Casuarina to Linton. It was the latest area where the city was installing reclaimed-water lines.
Her notes said some of the drinking-water lines mistakenly were connected to the reclaimed-water lines. “The blend ratio might have started out at 80% potable and 20% reclaim, but as time went on the blend ratio was probably more of an equal part. … This would explain why the residents complained more as time went on.”
To Ferrigan, this meant that between Oct. 4, 2018, when the reclaimed-water lines were activated, to Dec. 6, 2018, when the cross-contamination was discovered and repaired, “the people on the barrier island were exposed to contaminated water and did not know this and were never told it and were never told what happened.”
The issue was still festering in May 2019.
Ferrigan wanted the utilities staff to correct the report to the Health Department about reported illnesses and inform the residents about the contaminated drinking water that had occurred in late 2018.
But she said she was never invited to meetings on the problems because she was not a manager.
Ferrigan gave her notes in May 2019 to Assistant City Manager Caryn Gardner-Young, who was the acting utilities director.
Gardner-Young left the city for other reasons in September 2019.
“I have many years of experience,” Ferrigan wrote on May 7, 2019. “I was a whistleblower and state witness against my former employer for these similar situations and that was the city of Boca Raton.”
Ferrigan, a 23-year utility department employee with Boca Raton, was fired from that city in December 2008. 
She had alerted state regulators about city water quality issues that she claimed put the health of 128,000 residents at risk. Her whistle-blower lawsuit was settled in May 2014 on the day before her trial was to start.
She received $322,500, her attorneys received $215,000 and Boca Raton was forced to pay its own litigation costs of about $390,000, according to The Palm Beach Post archives. In the settlement, Boca Raton denied wrongdoing. 

Looking ahead
The next step for Delray Beach will be to hire a forensics firm to delve into how the reclaimed-water system was installed in the early years and how to prevent mistakes from happening in the future, Gretsas said. He also hopes the forensics firm will explore the discrepancies between Ferrigan’s notes and those of her supervisors.
“We spent a lot of the taxpayers’ money on city staff time and hiring contractors,” Gretsas said. “We want to find the cause before we point fingers.”
Meanwhile, the county division of the state Health Department is investigating.
“If the city of Delray Beach is found to have failed to notify the DOH as required, then that would be a violation,” Alex Shaw, county Health Department spokesman, said in a Feb. 28 email. He could not say what the penalty might be. “Because there are so many variables involved, we cannot provide a specific penalty until the investigation is complete.”
When asked what the city plans to do to allay any concerns about the safety of the tap water, Petrolia said, “I think the testing and the lengthy process to check each location with reclaimed water will ensure the water is safe to drink going forward.”

Rich Pollack and Michelle Quigley contributed to this story.

2005 — Delray Beach begins planning for installation of reclaimed-water lines on the barrier island as part of a settlement reached with state and federal regulators to stop sending raw sewage into the ocean. The city hires contractors to do the work and monitor it. The South Florida Water Management District supplies grants to pay for the system.
April 1, 2009 — The South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant that serves Delray Beach sends its last raw sewage discharge into the Atlantic Ocean. The plant can still discharge treated wastewater from heavy rains, from testing its pumps and from “plant upsets.”
Oct. 4, 2018 — Delray Beach activates the last segment of its reclaimed-water system on the barrier island, from Casuarina Road to Linton Boulevard.
Nov. 11, 2018 — Residents along South Ocean Boulevard and the Seagate neighborhood reported the drinking water smelled, was darker in color and had floating solids. Some had reclaimed water mistakenly hooked up to their beach showers, hose bibs and vegetable gardens, which is not allowed.
Dec. 6, 2018 — Delray Beach becomes aware of the cross-connection issues where drinking-water lines were mistakenly hooked into the reclaimed-water system. Some users said they were sick after drinking the contaminated tap water. Delray Beach did not report the illnesses, as required, to the county division of the Florida Health Department.
Dec. 28, 2018 through Jan. 4, 2019 — Reclaimed-water system was turned off because the treatment plant had an unknown “plant upset” and needed to use the outfall pipe to discharge treated wastewater into the ocean. Delray Beach uses that same pipe to supply the barrier island with reclaimed wastewater. Delray Beach alerted barrier island customers about the shutdown on the city website.
Feb. 4-8, 2019 — Reclaimed-water system turned off again because of unknown “plant upset” at the treatment plant. Delray Beach again alerted barrier island customers on the city webpage.
Jan. 2, 2020 — Leslie Campbell of South Ocean Boulevard contacts the county division of the Florida Health Department to say she was not adequately notified of the cross-contamination issues in late 2018. Her complaint triggers a Health Department investigation.
Feb. 4 — The Health Department wants Delray Beach to issue a citywide boil-water order. The Health Department also is investigating why it wasn’t notified in late 2018 when residents became ill from drinking contaminated water, as required. The city avoids a boil- water notice by agreeing to shut off the reclaimed-water system and check every location on the barrier island that receives both drinking and reclaimed water.
Feb. 5 — City deploys more than 75 workers to hang notices on barrier island customers’ doors to tell them the reclaimed water was “temporarily shut off.” The door hanger simply says the work is being done “at the behest of the Health Department.” The city hires contractors to work alongside staff to check every house with reclaimed and drinking water lines for cross-connections and missing backflow preventers.
Feb. 14 — A second notice is hung on doorknobs.
March 3 — Reclaimed water still not flowing. The Health Department investigation continues.

Sources: Delray Beach public records, Department of Health public records and The Coastal Star archives

By Steve Plunkett

Ocean Strand, 15 acres on State Road A1A that the public has owned for decades but not been able to enjoy, will open in six months as a limited-use park.
The Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District, which paid $11.9 million for the property in 1994, voted unanimously March 2 to install benches, a rock road and a portable restroom on the acreage west of A1A with an eye on opening the gates by September.
“I think it’s important to get it open now to the public so that the public is clear, 100%, that we are not selling this property, we are making it a park,” said Erin Wright, the commission’s vice chair, who proposed the $75,000 expense.
Commissioners also tasked their attorney, Sam Goren, with drafting a declaration stating that Ocean Strand will be held “in perpetuity” as open space not to be developed.
“I’m tired of listening to the innuendos and the rumors that are going on out there that the property might be for sale because it’s not. Never has been, never will be,” Commissioner Robert Rollins said.
Last September developer Robert Comparato offered the district $67.5 million for Ocean Strand with a plan to build a 171-room hotel, 110 condominiums, 30 villas and 35 boat slips there.
“We summarily turned him down.” Rollins said. “I don’t see anybody on this commission that has any appetite for doing anything but making it a park. Let’s put a stake in the ground and make it clear that we’re not interested in selling this property.”
Briann Harms, the district’s executive director, presented estimates from the city’s Recreation Services Department for work that would be needed to open the parcel, which now has a gate blocking access.
“This plan is just for the west side. It’s minimal parking, minimal everything,” she said.
The oceanfront east side will remain off-limits.
Included in the estimates was money for two picnic tables, two benches, two trash cans, signs, fencing and labor.
The most expensive item was $18,000 to clear the site of exotic plants.
Wright asked for “as simple a plan as possible” with perhaps just benches instead of picnic tables and possibly a kayak launch.
“I think this is great,” Commissioner Steve Engel said. “We have a purpose. We want to open up the property to the public, and this gives us a starting point.”
District officials will discuss safety issues and operational details with their city counterparts as the plan progresses. Commissioners said they might seek volunteers to help with mulching and cleaning up the property to keep costs down.
Commissioner Craig Ehrnst asked Wright, and she agreed, to amend her motion to include developing a long-range plan for a fully functioning park. Ehrnst said the district will seek input from the community on what features Ocean Strand should have.
“Don’t know what that’s going to cost, but that’ll put forth a plan for the future and it’ll be a multiyear plan. It’s not going to be implemented right away or anything,” Ehrnst said.
Goren said he would bring the perpetuity declaration back for commissioners to consider at their March 16 meeting. The document, he said, can be recorded at the county Clerk and Comptroller’s Office after it is approved.
“That’s a very strong signal” of commissioners’ intent, Goren said.

Palmetto Park Road between A1A and Intracoastal Waterway
is possible location

By Mary Hladky

The City Council has cleared the way for medical marijuana dispensaries to open on the barrier island and other sites in Boca Raton.
Ending years of resistance to dispensaries, council members on Feb. 11 voted 3-2, with Jeremy Rodgers and Andrea O’Rourke dissenting, in favor of allowing them within the city limits.
“To me, it comes down to compassion,” said council member Andy Thomson.
“It begs the question of what kind of city do we want to be,” he said. “I would hope we would choose, all things being equal, to be a compassionate city as long as we can maintain the quality of life we have here.”
Council members have struggled to find the right balance between allowing access to a substance that helps people with medical conditions such as cancer, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder while safeguarding Boca Raton against a feared proliferation of dispensaries.
Council members approved a moratorium on dispensaries in 2014 and banned them in 2017.
But public opinion has moved in favor of medical use of marijuana. Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment in 2016 that legalized it.
Since then, 230 dispensaries have opened across the state, with 42 located in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use.
Dispensary operators, medical marijuana users and owners of businesses related to medical marijuana urged council members to lift the ban during three recent city meetings.
Shari Kaplan Stellino, CEO of the Cannectd Wellness health clinic in Boca Raton, whose physicians help patients manage medical marijuana use, told the council how it helped her son, who she said was born with central nervous system and seizure disorders and brain damage.
He’s 17 now, and his conditions have improved to the point that he will graduate from Boca Raton High School and begin studies at Florida Atlantic University later this year.
“Cannabis is an integral part of health care,” she said. “It is imperative we have dispensaries in east Boca Raton.”
Just because Boca Raton banned dispensaries, “this does not mean we have to be the last to allow them,” said medical marijuana user Eric Sevell.
Other speakers said the medical marijuana industry is well regulated and there is no evidence that dispensaries cause crime.
Only two people spoke against allowing dispensaries. Glenn Gromann, a former Planning and Zoning Board member, countered that since dispensaries can accept only cash, they are a magnet for crime.
“The bottom line is there is no compelling need to have dispensaries in the city,” he said, because they already are operating in Deerfield Beach, Boynton Beach and in unincorporated areas and many provide delivery service.
City staff had consistently opposed allowing dispensaries. Their chief concern was that the state regulates medical marijuana and dispensaries and gives cities almost no leeway to manage them or restrict how many can open once the decision is made to allow them.
Under state law, dispensaries can be located anywhere zoning laws allow pharmacies, but are not allowed within 500 feet of a school. Pharmacies can’t sell medical marijuana because it is still classified as a controlled substance by the federal government.
At the urging of dispensary operators, council members unanimously agreed to reduce the minimum size of dispensaries from 5,000 square feet to 2,500 square feet, which better reflects the size of existing dispensaries.
They also voted 3-2 that no pharmacy or dispensary will be permitted within 4,000 feet of another dispensary or pharmacy. This would not apply to existing pharmacies.
This decision, combined with state law limitations, will restrict where dispensaries can be located. In the eastern part of the city, one could open along the short section of Palmetto Park Road between the Intracoastal Waterway and State Road A1A.
The other areas available to dispensaries are mostly west of Interstate 95 at the city’s north end, north and south of West Yamato Road, and along Military Trail south of Glades Road.
Deputy Mayor Rodgers, who opposed the 4,000-foot separation requirement, said it would exclude many locations where it would make sense to have dispensaries.
Rodgers also was against allowing dispensaries at this time. He wanted to delay the effective date of the ordinance to June 1, 2021, because of the uncertainty over whether the state or Congress will take action that would affect the city’s ordinance.
The House Judiciary Committee in January approved a bill that legalizes marijuana on the federal level, removing it from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. Even if the full House passes the bill, it faces long odds in the Senate.
In Florida, there is strong support for making recreational marijuana use legal. But in January, a group pushing a state constitutional amendment dropped its effort to get the proposal on the 2020 ballot and instead hopes to do so in 2022. Recreational marijuana is now legal in 11 states.
Rodgers’ motion to delay failed on a 3-2 vote.
Thomson and council member Monica Mayotte were the strongest proponents of allowing dispensaries. “This is medicine for people who need it, need it badly, I think,” Thomson said.
Rodgers and O’Rourke were most strongly opposed, in part because of their concerns about unintended consequences.
Both also said they had heard little from residents on the subject, and certainly no groundswell of support.
“It is not a lack of compassion by any means whatsoever,” O’Rourke said. “It is all about the unintended consequences for me.”

By Rich Pollack

They were almost two years in the making, but Highland Beach finally has clear rules for parking on its six side streets.
For decades the rules for parking on residential streets — lined with single-family homes and multifamily townhomes — were confusing and difficult to sort out. That is changing with a new street parking ordinance that received final approval this month.
“We had 52 parking codes and some of them contradicted one another,” said Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman, who lives on a side street in the Bel Lido neighborhood and has been an advocate of fixing parking problems in the area.
Since commissioners first started discussing parking in April 2018 the focus has been on three key issues: street parking for guests of residents, parking for lawn maintenance trucks and other commercial vehicles, and parking for beach-goers.
The new ordinance allows street parking under specific conditions, prohibits beach parking and overnight parking, and permits street parking of commercial vehicles while work is being done.
“This ordinance gives people a map for understanding where they can park on town streets,” Gossett-Seidman said. “It spells out where people can park and where they can’t park.”
The rules also authorize Town Manager Marshall Labadie and the police chief to make adjustments for specific cases and to put up no-parking signs where appropriate.
“It’s another tool in the toolbox to address one-off parking situations,” Labadie said.
The new ordinance prohibits double parking and requires that cars are parked in the roadway in the direction of traffic and no more than a foot off the street edge. It also bans beach parking and obstruction of driveways and mailboxes.
While the ordinance focuses on making sure that traffic and emergency vehicle can navigate the side streets, it also recognizes that on-street parking may be the only option for commercial vehicles and for guests of residents.
“We want to be reasonable and use common sense,” Gossett-Seidman said.
The commission’s unanimous approval of the ordinance came after months of discussion and research that included a couple of surveys of residents and input from advisory boards.
“It was a series of extraordinary events,” Gossett- Seidman said. “We wanted to get it right and we hope it will stand the test of time.”
She said the commission is open to revisiting the issue and making adjustments if needed.
In other business, Highland Beach officials learned the actual cost of fire service provided by Delray Beach in 2019 was significantly less than had been projected. As a result the town was reimbursed $109,765. With the reimbursement taken into account, the increase in the cost of fire service over the previous year was about 2.2% instead of the projected 5%.
The town also got $150,000 from Waste Management that will be used to cover the cost of damage to the roadway due to hydraulic fluid leaking from one of the trash hauler’s trucks.
“The damage shortened the life cycle of the roads,” Labadie said.

Boca Raton police investigate the beginnings of a hole that the suspect intended to use as a grave for his father’s body, according to the police report. Photo provided

By Mary Hladky

A 26-year-old man is being held without bond in the Palm Beach County Jail after his Feb. 4 arrest on a first-degree murder charge in the stabbing and strangulation death of his father.
Jared Noiman, who has a history of mental illness, drug use and violent outbursts against his father, confessed his crime to Boca Raton police detectives, the arrest report states.
Police responding to a 911 call on Feb. 3 found a man later identified as Jay Noiman, 59, dead in a large pool of blood in the parking garage of the One Ocean Plaza office building at 1 S. Ocean Blvd. A broken knife was found near the body.
Jared Noiman told police that he and his father were homeless and were spending the night in the parking garage.
The homicide unnerved residents of the nearby oceanfront Marbella condominium, who told City Council members on Feb. 11 that the number of homeless people in the area is increasing, causing some condo residents to be fearful of walking the beach.
“We got very worried about this,” said Lester Dally, a Marbella board member. “It is a safety and security issue for us.”
He asked city officials to increase security and police patrols.
Anthony Riso, also a Marbella board member, said a homeless person was found dead about six months ago in a now-vacant and derelict condominium building immediately south of One Ocean Plaza.
“It is a magnet for persons who are homeless or otherwise vagrant,” he said.
Police patrols have been increased in the area, but the city is very limited in what it can do about homeless people, city spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson said after the meeting. Homelessness is not a crime and homeless people have constitutional protections.
Before Jay Noiman’s body was found, a Delray Beach police officer stopped a white Ford Explorer driven by Jared Noiman for driving without headlights. Noiman and his clothes were covered with blood, which he said was the result of a fight he had in Boca Raton, the arrest report states.
Delray Beach police cited Noiman for driving without a valid driver’s license and released him, but notified Boca Raton police.
That same Monday evening, Boca Raton police pulled over a Ford Explorer driven by Noiman on Glades Road just west of North Federal Highway, arrested him for driving without a valid license and drove him to the Police Department for questioning.
Noiman refused to answer questions about his father. At the time, police did not have probable cause to charge him with murder, and he was released.
Noiman returned to the Police Department the next day, saying he wanted to confess to killing his father. He told detectives he was upset by the way his father was treating him, the report states.
He asked his father to drive him to Publix and walked to a nearby store where he bought a knife, gloves and garbage bags.
The two then drove to the parking garage at the corner of A1A and Palmetto Park Road. Noiman walked to the beach and started to dig a hole in the sand to bury his father, but abandoned the effort.
He returned to the parking garage, put on the gloves and stabbed his sleeping father. When the knife broke, he strangled his father, telling him to “just go to sleep,” the report states.
Frightened by a light going on in a nearby condo, Noiman grabbed the vehicle keys and fled. After being stopped by Delray Beach police, he ditched his bloody clothes and the gloves in an Office Depot trash can.
Noiman also came to attention of authorities in October after posting to social media about wanting to shoot Boca Raton residents.
One post appeared the day of reports that there was an active shooter at the Town Center mall. The rumors set off a panic at the mall, but it was later determined the loud noises that mall patrons heard were actually popping balloons.
“There may not have been a shooting,” Noiman wrote on Facebook, “but there sure needs to be one,” The Palm Beach Post reported. He said in his posts that he detested Boca Raton residents for flaunting their wealth.
He was arrested on a charge of intimidation, but the state did not file charges, The Post reported.
He also served two years in state prison following a violent 2016 confrontation with Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies.
One Ocean Plaza and the vacant condo were to be replaced by Ocean Palm, a 70-unit luxury condominium. Plans by Miami-based One Ocean Plaza Venture LLC were approved by the City Council in 2017. City staff asked for modifications to the site plan, but the developer did not respond, Gibson said.
Bonnie Miskel, the attorney for One Ocean Plaza, said the developer intends to complete the project. It was delayed because the developer needed time to acquire the condo units, she said. He did not know how soon construction would start.

Place of Hope’s second recognition ceremony on Jan. 28 at St. Lucy Catholic Church honored local leaders in law enforcement as well as elected officials. Keynote speaker Liza Smoker discussed human trafficking, one of the nonprofit’s focus areas. Smoker said 48 human traffickers have been arrested in Palm Beach County, much due to the efforts of those receiving awards. ABOVE: (l-r) Highland Beach Police Chief Craig Hartmann, the Rev. Martin Convey, Highland Beach Town Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman, attorney Richard Slawson, Place of Hope CEO Charles Bender and Palm Beach County Commissioner Robert Weinroth. Photo provided

By Mary Hladky

Any hopes that suspended Mayor Susan Haynie might have had of reclaiming her elected office ended Feb. 27 when both her defense lawyer and the prosecutor asked that her trial on public corruption charges be delayed.
In a four-minute hearing Circuit Judge Jeffrey Dana Gillen canceled Haynie’s March 23 trial date and rescheduled it for July 20. He also told prosecutor Brian Fernandes and defense attorney Bruce Zimet to file any new evidence by June 1.
Fernandes contends that Haynie used her position on the City Council to vote on six matters that financially benefited Jim and Marta Batmasian, the city’s largest downtown commercial landowners and failed to disclose income she received from them or their company, Investments Limited.
Haynie, 64, did not attend the hearing. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of official misconduct, perjury, misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflicts. She faces more than 20 years in prison if she’s convicted.
Haynie, a fixture in Boca Raton politics for 18 years, has not publicly commented on the case since her April 24, 2018, arrest. Then-Gov. Rick Scott suspended her from office, but she never resigned.
If her trial had started March 23 and she were quickly acquitted, Haynie could potentially have reclaimed the mayor’s seat but only until her term of office ends on March 31.
Scott Singer was elected mayor four months after Haynie’s arrest and is seeking election to a full term on March 17 with only token opposition from Bernard Korn.
Until the rescheduling, there had been little activity in the case.
Three people listed by Fernandes as witnesses and who were subpoenaed in September to testify at trial have not been deposed and say they have not heard from the State Attorney’s Office.
Fernandes issued subpoenas at the same time to 12 other witnesses, but five were not served. The court file does not indicate another attempt was made to contact those witnesses.
Zimet has said repeatedly that he would file motions in the case. But as of late February, he had filed only two — a motion to dismiss the charges, which a judge dismissed in September 2018, and the motion to reschedule the trial.
Zimet has repeatedly insisted no plea deal is in the works.
“Innocent people don’t have plea bargains,” he said after an April 2019 hearing.
Al Zucaro, who no longer is updating his BocaWatch blog, confirmed receiving a trial subpoena but said he has not been deposed.
“I haven’t heard from the defense or the state on the issue. Dead silence,” he said on Feb. 18.
Zucaro, a Haynie adversary whom she defeated in the 2017 mayoral race, filed complaints against her with the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics and the Florida Commission on Ethics and spoke with state prosecutors. The county ethics panel had launched an investigation before receiving his complaint.
The Batmasians also received trial subpoenas but have not been deposed, Marta Batmasian said.
“We haven’t been called or contacted by the State Attorney’s Office,” she said in mid-February.
Also on the state’s witness list is Abigail Irizarry, an investigator with the county ethics panel, which probed Haynie’s financial ties to the Batmasians before she was charged by the state.
The county panel reached a settlement with Haynie in which she was reprimanded and fined for failing to disclose a conflict of interest. A second allegation that she misused her public office was dismissed.
A notice in the court file states that Irizarry and two State Attorney’s Office investigators were scheduled to be deposed in August 2018.
Irizarry said she was deposed but has not been contacted by the State Attorney’s Office recently. “I am sure I will be getting a telephone call in the next few weeks,” she said on Feb. 18.
Zimet and Fernandes have said they expect a five-day trial.
The State Attorney’s Office investigation found that Haynie failed to report $335,000 in income on financial disclosure forms required by the state, including $84,000 from the Batmasians or Investments Limited, from 2014 through 2017.
Her six votes allegedly benefiting the Batmasians were uncontroversial, and all but one of the matters received unanimous or near-unanimous City Council approval.
The vote that made a difference came in an appeal to the City Council of a Community Appearance Board denial of two signs. The council reversed the advisory board’s decision by a 3-2 vote on Jan. 10, 2017, with Haynie in the majority.
The Florida Ethics Commission in October 2018 found probable cause that Haynie violated state ethics laws in eight instances, and that she 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.
That ethics case is pending resolution of the criminal case.
The evidence gathered against Haynie by investigators for the state and for the county and state ethics commissions is similar. One key difference is that while state prosecutors determined that Haynie voted on six matters that financially benefited the Batmasians from 2014 through 2017, state ethics investigators found 17 votes between 2012 and 2016.

Jerry Lower contributed to this story.

Deal with Virgin Trains, ‘innovative’ policing highlight past year

By Mary Hladky

“We have got great news to share,” said Mayor Scott Singer. “The state of our city is strong.”
Singer’s assessment of how the city is doing was delivered in a Feb. 18 State of the City speech at the Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center that drew a crowd of about 200, including many of the city’s leading citizens and volunteers.
While Singer and mayors in the past have offered similar assessments at Boca Chamber breakfasts or Federation of Boca Raton Homeowner Associations meetings, this marked the first formal address open to all residents — prompting Singer to call it the first State of the City speech.
While not mentioning Fort Lauderdale by name, he noted its ongoing sewer and water pipe breaks. Since December, 211.6 million gallons of sewage have spilled into waterways and streets, prompting the state to slap Fort Lauderdale with a $1.8 million fine in February.
“We are working hard to avoid that type of disaster,” Singer said.
Since Fort Lauderdale’s problems trace back to years of not funding pipe maintenance and repairs, the breaks “are stark reminders of the importance of investing in infrastructure,” he said.
Boca Raton has budgeted $50 million for upgrades this year, Singer said, and plans to spend as much as $750 million over the next 15 years to repair or replace water and sewer pipes.
The 40-minute speech included video appearances by interim Police Chief Michele Miuccio, Fire Chief Tom Wood, Sustainability Manager Lindsey Nieratka and Florida Atlantic University President John Kelly.
Singer, who is seeking re-election on March 17 with only token opposition by Bernard Korn, said City Council members “seized the opportunity” to reach a deal with Virgin Trains to build a station in Boca Raton, and described it as a “game changer.”
(At a March 3 meeting of the Federation of Boca HOAs, Korn said his “grassroots” campaign had spent only $459.)
Singer lauded the police department for its “innovative community policing” and the fire-rescue department, noting that the city is spending $2 million on new fire-rescue equipment with the aim of improving response time.
Singer also noted the City Council’s decision not to outsource residential garbage collection and recycling services. Since that vote in May, the city has spent millions on replacing aging equipment.
The city’s economy is healthy, he said, and Boca Raton is home to more than half the corporate headquarters in Palm Beach County.
Singer reminded residents that the city has one of the lowest tax rates in the state and has not raised taxes in seven years.
He also mentioned the city’s AAA bond rating and ample reserve fund that “allows us to respond to opportunities,” such as having money to pay for most of the cost of a train station parking garage.
Another accomplishment is the opening last fall of a temporary campus for the new Verde Elementary that will ease overcrowding. The city donated land for the school.
Singer cited the city’s residents as its greatest strength. “The people are the heart of our city,” he said to applause.

By Margie Plunkett

The Junior League’s Community Garden, located along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks east of the Downtown Library, closed its eastern half in late February to make room for construction of the new Virgin Trains station.
The garden, which has been at its current site by 400 NW Second Ave. for a decade, will fully close by mid-April and has been preparing for relocation to Meadows Park, where it hopes to open in the fall.
“We’re using this opportunity to see what we would do differently in this garden if we could go back 10 years,” said Junior League President Cristy Stewart-Harfmann.
The Junior League has a verbal agreement with a contract in the works for the new Meadows Park location, at 1300 NW Eighth St., and has been working with Virgin Trains, formerly Brightline, to design the new garden. Virgin Trains has pledged $300,000 to help move the garden. The new site is 2 acres, while the library site was just under that amount.
Volunteers took to the east side of the garden in mid-February to get it ready for closing. The group donated recyclable items like soil, mulch, plastic plot beds and garden supplies to area nonprofits and schools so those organizations can start their own gardens.
They also donated fruits and remaining vegetables to Boca Helping Hands. During growing season, each gardener donates 10% of the fruits and vegetables grown to Boca Helping Hands, while all the fruits in the Food Forest go to that charity. In the last decade, the garden has donated 10,000 pounds to the group, Stewart-Harfmann said.
A Virgin Trains-supplied landscape architect is working with the Junior League to design the new garden, hoping to include features like a pergola, making sure there’s a great connection with next-door Boca Raton Middle School and enlarging a composting area. They’re also studying including more raised beds that would allow access to people in wheelchairs.
“But the big project and biggest concern with the location is that there’s an irrigation ditch or canal there and there’s a number of iguanas,” Stewart-Harfmann said. Part of the challenge with the cost of the project are recommendations to keep iguanas out, possibly including special fencing around the garden and around trees to keep iguanas from climbing or digging in.
“A couple iguanas getting into the garden could mean all the fruits and vegetables could disappear in an afternoon,” Stewart-Harfmann said.
Simultaneous to the design work, the Junior League has been discussing relocating trees in the Food Forest, where fruits like papayas are harvested and pineapples have been planted. While trees in the forest will be transplanted, the plants in the garden plots won’t be. Those plants are replanted every year, and the growing season is almost over this year, Stewart-Harfmann said.
Looking back on the first 10 years of the garden, Stewart-Harfmann said, “It really has been successful. It’s been amazing to see. We have a number of nonprofits that come out, individual gardeners, restaurants like Kapow that have leased plots with us. We’ve created an amazing culture of gardeners. They have potluck meals together. We have a variety of different events. It’s become an amazing community.”
While Stewart-Harfmann doesn’t know yet whether all the nearly 100 plot leasers will come over to the new garden, or whether the annual lease prices will remain the same, she expects nothing will be lost of the garden’s purpose and community.
“The Junior League is really excited about this opportunity to rebuild and start fresh in a new location.” she said. “We’re just so grateful to all those gardeners who’ve wanted to be a part of this for the last decade. And we look forward to being a real opportunity for more people to learn about the garden. We hope the community sees this as a real gift due to the partnership of the Junior League, city and Brightline.”

By Rich Pollack

After months of negotiating with state officials, Highland Beach finally has the green light to go ahead with long-awaited safety improvements to eight crosswalks on State Road A1A.
The town already has engineering reports and even has bids from two companies willing to do the job.
There’s only one holdup.
“We have everything we need to go forward,” Town Manager Marshall Labadie told commissioners during a meeting this month. “We just need money.”
How the town gets that money is up for debate, and the issue won’t be decided until after a new commissioner and new mayor are installed later this month.
Among funding options that surfaced during the March 3 commission meeting were holding a referendum to ask residents for permission to spend several hundred thousand dollars on the project, scaling down the project or asking condominium associations to cover some or all of the cost of the crosswalk in front of their buildings.
The project as it currently stands includes embedded lights at all crosswalks, pedestrian-activated flashing yellow beacons on the sides of the road and repainting and re-striping crosswalks to make them more visible.
With just about all of the approvals in hand, the town received a cost estimate from engineers of about $400,000 for the entire project, but when bids were opened last month the lowest was $771,000 and the highest was $994,997.
“The current pricing in marketplace caught us by surprise,” Labadie said.
Labadie said the town had hoped to pay for the project without having to hold a referendum by using sales tax funds and a hoped-for direct appropriation from the Florida Legislature. Highland Beach has a spending cap that requires voter approval for any project over $350,000.
Labadie said the town has $270,000 from the sales tax money set aside for the project and is hoping to get $201,573 more from the state. The direct appropriation, attorneys say, would not figure into the $350,000 spending cap because it could be used only for the crosswalk project.
With the price coming in higher than expected and requiring more than the money already planned for the project, however, the town will more than likely need to ask for voter approval if it decides to complete the entire project.
Should the issue go to voters in November and they approve the project, Labadie said there’s a good chance it could be paid for in its entirety with little impact on property tax dollars, since the town will be receiving an estimated $260,000 a year for several more years from the sales tax fund.
“The discretionary sales tax fund could cover the entire cost of the project, without incurring debt or raising taxes and without long-term impact to our cash reserves,” he said.
However, not all members of the current commission see asking residents to pay for the entire project as the right idea, with some asking for additional information, including a breakdown of the cost per crosswalk.
Some also questioned the disparity of more than $200,000 in the bids and asked Labadie to look into the difference.
If the town were to scale back the project rather than go to a referendum, the embedded lights and the enhanced repainting of the crosswalks would be eliminated.
During the meeting, one suggestion was to have the town pay for the basic improvements and ask residents of adjacent condominiums to pay for the additional enhancements if they wanted them.
Receiving FDOT approval for crosswalk improvements was a major hurdle the town overcame, and town leaders are optimistic the Legislature will pay for a portion of the project.
A direct appropriation request, sponsored by Rep. Mike Caruso, R-Delray Beach, and Sen. Kevin Rader, D-Boca Raton, passed through several committees and is in the state’s proposed budget.
Caruso is optimistic.
“I think Highland Beach is positioned very well to get the full funding,” he said. “It’s all about the safety of the residents.”

By Charles Elmore

The 2020 Census arrives a decade after 1.4 million folks in Florida were left out of the nation’s last official head count, according to a federal review.
Up and down the coast, communities are scrambling to avoid undercounts as census forms begin landing in mailboxes around March 12. Each missed person represents about $1,600 per year in lost funding for things like roads, schools and environmental and social programs, local officials say.
That’s one reason Briny Breezes Mayor Gene Adams is urging residents not to put off this invitation to enumeration. He is advocating a prompt reply using a method new to the nation’s census: by computer or other online device.
If people in the seaside community of mobile homes (2010 Census count: 601) run into any digital difficulties, the town is offering help.
“We are suggesting residents respond online if possible and we plan on making computers available for our residents to be able to use if needed,” Adams said. 
The 2020 Census marks the first to allow responses online, as well as by mail or phone.
Both representation in Congress and serious money hang in the balance, including about $24 billion over a decade in Palm Beach County.
There were plenty of misses the last time around, according to the Census Bureau’s own follow-up study.
It figured about 94,000 people who should have been counted in Palm Beach County, or 7.2% of its population, failed to make it on census rolls in 2010. That cost the county’s communities an estimated $1.5 billion in lost funding over 10 years.

Online response promoted
The 2020 version of the once-a-decade count brings a chance to change the picture.
The census “will be taken in a very different way this time,” said Rich Bartholomew, census chair of the League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County.
“The official March census letter that will arrive at every address will have instructions on how to respond by computer and telephone. Using the enclosed key code, all residents will be invited to answer eight simple questions. Your data will be encrypted and stored for 72 years before anyone can access it.”
In Highland Beach, town officials say the mail response rate to the last census landed in the neighborhood of 90%, higher than most places in the state. The town’s 2010 Census count was 3,539. But leaders don’t want to take chances with missing anyone who should be counted this time.
The town’s commission formalized a partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau and set up a local “complete count committee,” said Terisha Cuebas, assistant to the town manager.
Outreach efforts include postcard mailers, emails, lawn signs and an on-topic table at the Spring Fling community event on March 21, she said.
Then there’s the raffle open to all residents who complete their census questionnaires to win a brunch for two, donated by Latitudes Restaurant at the Delray Sands Resort, she noted.
“Yes, the town is encouraging residents to respond online by computer, smartphone or tablet,” Cuebas said. “Additionally, the town is hosting a Census Response Night in the library from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 25. During this time, the Highland Beach Library will provide free public access to computers and the internet, should any residents need assistance.”
Census officials hope the availability of online filing means more people will answer, though changing the process comes with its own set of challenges.
An oversight report prepared for Congress in February found the Census Bureau had, at a fairly late stage in the process, switched to a backup online system after the first one struggled with high-volume testing. The Government Accountability Office called it “critical” to test the backup system quickly, while also guarding against cybersecurity threats.
Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham assured the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform that his organization would be ready.
“We are pleased to report that we are on mission, on target and on budget for a complete and accurate count,” Dillingham said.
Still, the Census Bureau has fallen short of hiring goals to staff the massive counting effort in 202 of 248 area census offices, attracting 2.1 million applicants by Feb. 3 compared to a target of 2.6 million, the GAO report said. Bureau officials did not respond to questions about hiring in South Florida.
As the emphasis shifts toward online participation, people have to be careful about fraudulent attempts by third parties to grab money or personal information, the Briny Breezes mayor said.
“We are also talking with citizens about avoiding scams,” Adams said. “The Census Bureau will not send unsolicited emails and will never ask for Social Security number, bank account information, credit cards or money or donations.”

Why April 1 is important
In a region brimming with seasonal residents, travelers, immigrants and others on the move, trying to take a population snapshot can get blurry pretty fast. Civic leaders are trying to reassure people who may be hard to reach, wary of filling out government forms, or unsure whether they are supposed to counted.
The Census Bureau offers this guidance in a statement in the Federal Register: “People who travel seasonally between residences (e.g., snowbirds) will be counted at the residence where they live and sleep most of the time. If they cannot determine a place where they live most of the time, they will be counted where they are staying on Census Day,” meaning April 1.
Bureau officials noted the place where people should be counted in the U.S. Census “is not always the same as a person’s legal residence, voting residence, or where they prefer to be counted.”
The census page on Delray Beach’s website advises, “Don’t be afraid to be counted, even if you are not a legal citizen of the U.S.,” adding “no court or law enforcement agency can access your individual responses.”
Across Florida, about one in five households did not “self-respond” to the census a decade ago, meaning they did not send back mailed forms and census-takers had to go door to door, according to the City University of New York’s Center for Urban Research.
Even after follow-up attempts, the Census Bureau calculated 1.4 million people were not counted statewide who should have been.
It matters if people fall through the cracks, local leaders say.
“The census can affect both funding and power,” Adams said. “The census determines how billions of dollars in federal funding flow into states and communities. It also affects power in the House of Representatives. In 2010 the state of Florida gained two extra seats and in 2020 we are expecting two more, bringing our total to 29. More votes in the House means more power for Florida to address issues and request federal funding for key projects, like sea level rise.”
Adams said he plans to set up at least four laptop computers for residents to use in the town’s community center. 
The official census day is April 1, though people can respond in the weeks leading up to that.
Refusing to answer the census can result in a $100 fine. Knowingly giving a false answer can bring a $500 penalty, records show. But prosecutions have been rare and the Census Bureau has not pursued such a case since 1970, Politifact found.

Skepticism not new
Worries about the census are as old the counting effort itself. 
Both President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson suspected the first count of 3.9 million in 1790 was too low, as census takers walked or rode horses and knocked on doors of people unsure why the fledgling government needed all this information.
“Our real numbers will exceed, greatly, the official returns of them,” wrote Washington.
But the count was generally accepted over time, establishing a tradition the nation would honor despite the headaches of counting not-always-cooperative people in far-flung places.
The first federal census after Florida became a state counted only 159 people in 1850 in Dade County, which then included territory that would become Palm Beach County. The statewide population was 87,455.
By 1910, Palm Beach County checked in with 5,577 residents, including 904 in Delray and 671 in Boynton, then appearing without “Beach” in their names in census documents.
A century later, Palm Beach County’s population was measured at 1.3 million, up almost 17% from 1.1 million in 2000.
But ask South Palm Beach residents if they think the census has room for improvement.
The town’s census count dropped from 1,480 in 1990 to 1,171 in 2010, with town officials concluding that hundreds of residents in two condominiums somehow got counted in another city. Snafus also dogged the 2000 count.
Census officials did not respond to a request for comment, but one of the residents apparently assigned to the wrong town was South Palm Beach Mayor Bonnie Fischer.
Before a recent meeting, she said it “absolutely” matters to get the count right in 2020.
“Big bucks involved for all towns including ours,” said Vice Mayor Robert Gottlieb. “We need every resident to respond and be counted.”

To learn more
2020 Census rules on snowbirds and other residential questions
www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/02/08/2018-02370/final-2020-census-residence-criteria-and-residence-situations?#
Omissions in the 2010 Census
www.census.gov/coverage_measurement/pdfs/g04.pdf
Oversight report on 2020 Census, Feb. 12, 2020
www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-368r
Counting issues in South Palm Beach
https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/south-palm-beach-town-manager-mayor-find-errors-in-census-to-blam
Census 2020 page in Delray Beach
www.delraybeachfl.gov/our-city/living-in-delray-beach/census2020

Two nuns named Elizabeth spark joy at St. Vincent Ferrer

Sister Elizabeth Halaj and Sister Elizabeth Kulesa attend St. Vincent Ferrer Church and School’s Parish Festival in Delray Beach. Halaj, nicknamed ‘Sister Happy,’ and Kulesa, known as ‘Sister Kind,’ teach at St. Vincent Ferrer. Rachel S. O’Hara/The Coastal Star

More Photos

By Ron Hayes

St. Vincent Ferrer Church and School on George Bush Boulevard in Delray Beach is the spiritual home to 3,600 Catholics, one monsignor, five visiting priests, three deacons, 52 teachers and staff.
And two nuns.
Both nuns belong to The Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. Both are from Poland. And both are named Elizabeth.
Sister Elizabeth Halaj arrived from the order’s provincial house in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, in late June. Sister Elizabeth Kulesa came in early August.
To avoid confusion, they are commonly referred to as Sister H. and Sister K.
Sometimes, though, they’re called Sister Happy and Sister Kind.
Spend a little time with them and you’ll know why.

Sister Elizabeth Halaj gives a student a high-five after he answered a question in class. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

“What letter comes before B?” Sister Elizabeth H. asks, and her class of second-graders answers, “A” and fills in the blank space on their “Setting The Table” quiz.
“Correct. Now what letter comes before M?”
They fill in the L. And then the T, the A again, and the R.
ALTAR.
“Now, how do we call this cup?”
C-H-A-L-I-C-E.
By the end of the hour, the children, who will make their first Holy Communion this year, have met the components of the Eucharist.
“What is the Eucharist?”
“Jesus’ body.”
This is Sister H’s day job.

Sister Elizabeth Halaj and Sister Elizabeth Kulesa pray in the convent in which they live near St. Vincent Ferrer Church and School in Delray Beach. Halaj previously worked in the Philippines and Jamaica. Kulesa taught in her native Poland and in the U.S. Northeast. Rachel S. O’Hara/The Coastal Star

When she was a kid herself, Sister Elizabeth Halaj didn’t want to be a nun.
She wanted to be a clown.
And then one day, as she walked with her brother near their home in southeast Poland, a drunk driver swerved off the road.
Her brother was 15. She was 9. He was killed. She was unharmed.
“That was the last time I spoke with my brother,” she says, “and the first time we had dinner without him. My brother was ready for heaven, but God had a plan on Earth for me.”
At 19, just out of high school, she joined the Little Servant Sisters. That was 28 years ago.
“We are not brainwashed,” she exclaims. “If someone had forced me to be in the convent, I would be the first to run.
“Of course, if I compare myself to my friends from high school, I do not have what they have. A car, a bank account, a credit card. But I have what I need. I’m surrounded by people who love me, food on the table, a place to stay, and most of all, I have Jesus in my heart.”
She smiles a huge, joyful smile.
“As a little kid, I wanted to be a clown and make people happy. And my dream came true! I make people happy!”

***

The Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception was founded in 1850 by a man whose dream didn’t come true.
Edmund Bojanowski was born in Warsaw in 1814, a son of the nobility with devout parents. At age 4, he became ill, and doctors doubted he would survive. According to church history, the boy died, but returned to life a short while later and dedicated his life to the Virgin Mary.
Too ill to study for the priesthood, Bojanowski read Scripture constantly and attended confession weekly. He fed the hungry, established libraries, hospitals and nursing homes, and founded or co-founded four separate religious orders, including the Little Servant Sisters.
In 1869, Bojanowski attempted to resume his studies for the priesthood, but died on Aug. 7, 1871, before he could be ordained. He was 56.
Today, the Little Servant Sisters has about 1,300 members worldwide.
On June 13, 1999, Pope John Paul II beatified Bojanowski — a step toward sainthood — after doctors concluded a miraculous healing had occurred because of his intercession.

Sister Elizabeth Kulesa lifts her arms during a song with students at St. Vincent Ferrer School, which has students from prekindergarten through eighth grade. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

A poster on the wall in Sister Elizabeth Kulesa’s classroom reminds her third-graders that Sacraments Are Signs Of God’s Love For Us.
“Baptism is the first sacrament,” she tells them. “The candle is the symbol of baptism.”
“Thank you, Jesus,” the children respond in unison, “for the sacrament of baptism.”
“This is a stole, the symbol of the priest.”
“Thank you, Jesus,” the children respond.
By the end of the hour, the children will have thanked Jesus for all seven Catholic sacraments.
“Beautiful,” Sister K. says, and they all face a TV screen and sing along to a video.
“Our God is a great big God,” they sing, “and he holds us in his hands.”
Sister K. sings along softly, lifting her arms with the children to show God holding them all in his hands.
“I try my best,” she says as they leave, “and I put everything in God’s hands.”

***

Poland is the most devoutly Catholic country in Europe, and Tarnow the most devout city in Poland. In 2007, church statistics found 72.5% of the city’s diocese attending Mass every week.
Sister Elizabeth Kulesa grew up in Tarnow.
“I recognized my vocation in second grade,” she recalls. “I was 10 years old and I felt the calling.”
As a little girl, she and her friends would visit an elderly woman who lived near their school, a lonely woman who enjoyed their visits. This was when she first knew she should serve Jesus by serving others.
When she was a young teen, a priest organized a youth group that visited shrines. Once, after a visit to a monastery, she made a commitment to pray for the monks for two years.
At 15, she made a vow of abstinence.
“My friends said, ‘How could you do it?’” she remembers. “I was called to give up my country and give the light to Jesus.”
Does she remember the day she took her first vows as a Little Servant Sister?
“Of course!” she says. “Feb. 2, 1979. I was 17.”
Now she is 58.
“But I feel very young because the soul is immortal. It never gets old. You experience more love as you grow older.
“The body gets old, but I feel very young in my soul.”

***

Now they have come to serve the faithful of St. Vincent Ferrer, but only after their God had called them to other places.
“God sent me to Delray Beach,” Sister Elizabeth H. says. But he sent her to the Philippines first, where she taught the children of domestic workers in a town where there was no school and she sometimes drew her lessons on the ground with a stick. In Jamaica, she was a preschool principal.
Sister K. had spent nearly a decade teaching in Poland before coming to America, where she taught in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and Staten Island, New York.
“Now it’s God’s gift for me to be here,” she says. “Florida! I love the nature here.”
Ask about their social lives, and they are vague.
Sometimes in the evenings they watch I Love Lucy on tapes.
The church and its people are their life.
“I could go to Disney World,” Sister H. says. “Mother Superior would give us the money. But how many people could I feed with that money? I remember children in Jamaica coming from the bush, hungry.”

ABOVE: Sister Elizabeth Halaj rides a Tilt-A-Whirl with (l-r) students Dominic Deluca, 4, Riley Hernandez, 8, Ava Hernandez, 4, Alyana Brammeier, 4, and George St. Hilaire during the Parish Festival last month at St. Vincent Ferrer. BELOW: Sister Elizabeth Kulesa tries her hand at the Water Gun Fun game at the Parish Festival. She said she didn’t know how the game worked well enough and won nothing. Photos by Rachel S. O’Hara/The Coastal Star

On Saturday, Feb. 22, as throngs of men, women and children in blue jeans, shorts and T-shirts wandered among the carnival rides at the church’s 54th annual Parish Festival, the Sisters Elizabeth did the same in their habits and veils.
At the Tacos Veracruz wagon, Sister H. finished off a pork taco as a gaggle of children watched.
“Do you want to go for a ride?” she asked. “Let’s go!”
Like a devout pied piper, she led them swiftly to the Tilt-A-Whirl and squeezed into a car with four preteens and another boy, to be lifted, dropped and spun at a dizzying speed, smiling all the while.
Later, she found Sister K. at the Water Gun Fun game.
“What are you doing!” Sister H. gasped, mouth agape in mock horror.
A nun with a gun! What would Jesus say?
It’s a water gun, Sister K. told her, patiently. And besides, she didn’t understand the rules and didn’t win anything anyway.

Sister Elizabeth Halaj laughs with soccer players from the junior high after their team won a match. Rachel S. O’Hara/The Coastal Star

The pastor at St. Vincent Ferrer Church is Monsignor Thomas Skindeleski — a tall, burly, beaming man known to one and all as Monsignor Tom.
While the Sisters Elizabeth enjoy the rides and games, he’s in the kitchen, stirring and tasting the famous clam chowder he makes for the festival, 32 gallons every year.
“Sister H. and Sister K.,” Monsignor Tom says with a chuckle, “Sister Happy and Sister Kind. I’m so glad to have them here. They’re very present among the people of the parish.”
Not pleasant — though they are that — but present.
One day after class, Sister K. confessed that teaching children to say “Thank you” for each of the seven sacraments is not exhausting or difficult work.
“It’s not the work we are doing,” she said. “Anybody can do it. It’s what we are. We are an example of being 100% for Jesus.”
In other words, these nuns’ greatest present to this parish is simply their presence.
Sister Kind glows with a quiet inner peace. Her walk is purposeful, but she doesn’t rush. Her smile is gentle, her voice is soft. She embodies the patient kindness that makes those who meet her want to be more kind.
Sister Happy sparks and crackles with her love for Jesus. She strides quickly along the halls. Her smile is huge, her laugh is loud. She is, to be honest, a bit of a clown.
“I have never gotten even one paycheck with my name on it,” she will tell you. “Our benefits are very small, but our retirement plan is out of this world.”
And her face breaks into that huge, joyful smile.
“Heaven!”

Update: Town cancels Spring Fling event

By Rich Pollack

The environment will be in the spotlight during the town’s annual Spring Fling community event, which will also feature food, a fire department demonstration and live music.
Set for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 21 at Highland Beach Town Hall, the event will include a tree giveaway as well as the distribution of wildflower seeds and wooden toothbrushes. There will also be games for children with an environmental focus.
“One of our goals is to educate the community about the environment,” said Nievecita Maraj, chair of the town’s Natural Resources Preservation Board, which will staff a booth at the event.
The board also will hand out fliers about Earth Day, whose 50th anniversary is April 22, and pass out information about actions people can take to be more environmentally friendly.
For residents looking to plant trees, the nonprofit Community Greening will give away between 20 and 25 environmentally friendly trees.
The environmental focus, Town Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman said, is fitting since preserving the environment is a priority in Highland Beach.
“A great deal of our residents care about environmental causes,” she said. “The people really hold that value dear.”
Gossett-Seidman said the community as a whole benefits from environmentally focused efforts.
“Having Highland Beach seen as an environmentally friendly community is important,” she said.
As it has done in the past, the town will provide hot dogs, hamburgers and cold drinks and will offer residents the opportunity to have secure documents shredded at no charge.
Live music will be provided throughout the event by The Good Old Guys band, and there will be a live fire department demonstration from 12:30 to 1 p.m.
Representatives from the Highland Beach Police Department will be on hand to conduct pet registrations, and Highland Beach Library staff members will conduct a book sale.
A team from Tri-County Animal Rescue will have a table at the event, and information about the upcoming 2020 U.S. Census will be available.
The event will include crafts for children and feature booths highlighting local businesses and restaurants.
To make it easier for residents to reach the event, the town will offer trolley service along State Road A1A beginning at 10:30 a.m.
For more information about the Spring Fling, call 561-278-4548 or visit www.highlandbeach.us.

March 17 is an election day. Are you excited? OK, maybe not. I realize only some will be able to vote in the presidential preference primary (it is a closed primary, open to only registered Democrats or Republicans), but everyone who is registered to vote in Palm Beach County can vote in the uniform municipal elections.
So, if you’re registered to vote in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Briny Breezes, South Palm Beach or Lantana, you need to get yourself to your polling place on election day.
Here’s why: These municipalities will be electing officials who will be charged with deciding how your tax dollars will be spent. They will also be passing legislation that attempts to keep you safe and to maintain your coastal quality of life. It’s not an easy job.
There are big-ticket expenditures on the horizon in our cities and towns: aging infrastructure repair, beach and dune erosion, rising groundwater from accelerated sea level rise and septic-to-sewer conversion, to name just a few.
At The Coastal Star our policy is to not do candidate endorsements. We do, however, run profiles of each person running for office. This information is provided by the candidates. So, how should you choose which candidates are best for your town? I’d suggest looking to see which ones attend meetings regularly or have participated on advisory boards before running for office. Sometimes it’s good to have an outside perspective, but understanding how municipal governments work reduces the learning required and shows that a candidate is willing to be a team player — an important skill when determining how a community moves forward.
Also take a look at the makeup of the commission: Does everyone come from the same neighborhood or condo? Are all parts of town represented in decision-making? Loading up commissions and advisory boards with single-purpose members is fraught with the potential for litigation. And when city hall gets sued, the taxpayers pay the bill.
And maybe most important: Is the candidate willing to listen to all of the residents? The ones with deep pockets and the ones without? The quiet ones as well as the ones who organize to storm city hall?
Listening is essential to being a good public servant. Remember, that’s what these candidates will be: your represen-tatives. Vote.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

My previous letter on the topic of artificial turf provoked a vocal awakening of the taxpayers of Ocean Ridge — which in most instances should have been an awakening for the Town Commission.
In the case of Steve Coz and Phil Besler, they listened to the concerns of nearly 100 vocal citizens and tried to understand the rationale for banning turf.
In the case of Susan Hurlburt, Don MaGruder and Kristine de Haseth, it provoked defiance of the will of those who elected them in favor of their own personal taste.
The basis for banning turf was determined not to be an environmental concern. (In fact, turf is a benefit to the environment over natural grass.) No, according to Susan Hurlburt, Don MaGruder, Kristine de Haseth and the PNZ Board, it was purely aesthetic. They claimed to want to preserve the “unique look” of Ocean Ridge.
When I appraise the beauty of our town, it is the diversity of home architecture and landscaping that adds to the aesthetic rather than detracts. But of course that is just my opinion, and should only count as that — like the council members’, one opinion.
In taking this bill to a second and final reading on March 3, this self-righteous faction has to start with the premise that all natural grass is good, no matter the weeds or barrenness of the turf or the chemicals required to keep it to their standard.
Aesthetic judgment is the beginning of a slippery slope that allows these three council members and the Planning and Zoning Board to interject their personal taste into the law.
What’s next that is aesthetically displeasing to this group?
The architecture of your house, or its color?
The strain of grass you can install?
The types of trees you can plant?
Ocean Ridge is not an HOA, it is a town with freethinking people who will not tolerate the overreach of “their” elected town officials. The taxpayers hired the commissioners and can remove them as well.

John Zessin
Ocean Ridge

By Dan Moffett

Manalapan commissioners are moving forward with a new ordinance that would allow docks to be built on vacant properties before home construction begins.
Mayor Keith Waters said during the commission’s Feb. 25 meeting that the ordinance likely would apply to five existing empty lots in the town with docks and to new construction.
The new rule would eliminate a stipulation in the town’s code that treats docks solely as accessories to existing homes.
The change is important for the town to begin work on a $2.5 million plan to increase water services to oceanfront residents.
One of the five lots belongs to Commissioner Hank Siemon. The town wants to use a 20-foot easement across Siemon’s vacant property at 1660 Lands End Road on Point Manalapan to install new water mains to eastern households.
Waters said the town currently has two aging 8-inch pipes that carry all the water to the ocean side. With the easement on Siemon’s lot, two 10-inch supply lines could be added.
“It’s not a luxury,” Waters said. “It’s a requirement.”
The mayor said the cost of the project has more than doubled over the last decade as the town grappled with easement access and other obstacles. Waters said the project is essential and “good for all of Manalapan.”
But before engineers can begin mapping the pipelines, work on Siemon’s dock has to be completed to avoid potential construction mishaps.
In January, the commission unanimously allowed Siemon a variance to build his dock out to 85 feet, an extra 30 feet beyond the existing code limit of 55 feet. Siemon told the commission he needed the extra length because the channel on the east side of the Point was too shallow to accommodate his 40-foot boat.
Waters said that building the dock straight out instead of installing a T-shaped structure or a lift would allow Siemon’s neighbors to keep more of their waterfront views.
“The owner has tried to find a way to minimize that dock,” the mayor said, commending Siemon for trying to work with his neighbors.
But not all the neighbors are satisfied. Barry and Sigrun Haase, who live next door, told the commission through their attorney, Jason Mankoff, that they oppose the variance.
And two former mayors, Basil Diamond and David Cheifetz, complained about the code exception during the February meeting.
Diamond told commissioners they were “trying to clean up” a bad decision on the variance with the new proposed ordinance. Cheifetz complained about process, saying the public wasn’t adequately informed about the dock issue.
“I’m concerned about the unseemly way this was pursued,” Cheifetz said. “Residents should have gotten better notice. It strikes me that this whole thing is being rushed through on an unseemly basis.”
Waters and Town Manager Linda Stumpf said the variance request and dock ordinance proposal were properly noticed and detailed in the monthly meeting agenda posted on the town’s website before the commission meets.
The mayor said commissioners were acting in the best interest of Manalapan, and he bristled at the suggestion by some opponents that the variance approval was linked to the commission’s relationship with Siemon.
“You’re wrong,” Waters said of the critics. “You’re dead wrong, but you already know that.”
The ordinance would set a two-year limit for home construction to begin and restrict use of the dock to the property owner during that time. The proposal is scheduled to come up for a first vote at the commission’s meeting on March 24.

By Rich Pollack

If and when Ocean Ridge’s Septic to Sewer Citizens Advisory Committee recommends the town convert to a centralize sewage treatment system, it is likely to suggest using vacuum technology rather than a traditional gravity and force-main system.
During a meeting last month, members of the committee agreed to recommend in concept using a vacuum system, which pulls sewage to a central collection station before sending it to a regional plant, rather than a gravity and force-main system, which uses pumps and pushes sewage through the lines.
After learning more about vacuum systems during a January presentation from a company that installs them, committee members agreed that the system would be less disruptive and less costly than the more commonly used gravity and force-main systems.
“I don’t think there’s any choice other than a vacuum system,” said Committee Chair Neil Hennigan.
With the traditional gravity and force-main system, sewage from homes flows into a main line where it is brought to a lift station by gravity. At the lift station it is then pumped under pressure to a central treatment facility.
Because the system is dependent on gravity, lines need to be continually deeper in the ground as they get closer to the lift station.
With a vacuum system, sewage from the home flows by gravity into a collection pit that is shared by two or three homes. Once the sewage in the tank reaches a certain level, a valve opens and the sewage is pulled by a vacuum into a main line and taken to a collection station.
From the collection station, the sewage is pushed by pumps into the central sewage treatment facility.
Because the vacuum system is less dependent on gravity than the traditional systems, lines do not have to be as deep in the ground and in many cases could possibly be placed in rights of way rather than under a roadway.
The vacuum system also does not require manholes.
“The intent is to minimize the impact on the roadway,” said town engineer Lisa Tropepe.
If Ocean Ridge went to a traditional gravity and force-main system, several lift stations that depend on electricity would need to be located around town.
The vacuum system requires electricity only at the main collection centers.
If there is a downside, however, it is that those main collection centers — one or possibly two — would need to be large, about the size of a single-family home, and would need to be built.
An additional advantage to the vacuum system, Tropepe and others say, is that lines would be easier to access should repairs be necessary. It would also be easier than with gravity lines to determine if a line has a leak.
“Systems under pressure can be monitored,” Tropepe said.
In addition to agreeing that a vacuum system seems to make more sense, the committee agreed to team Tropepe with committee member Ron Kirn to try to quantify the environmental benefits that would result from a conversion from septic systems to a centralized sewer system. That information would be useful should the town begin the process of applying for state and federal funds to help cover the cost of converting to a sewer system.
How to pay for the project, should the Town Commission decide to go forward, was also discussed during the February committee meeting, with members agreeing that it is important to get the funding process started as soon as possible.
At the town’s March 2 meeting, commissioners approved a $4,500 contract hiring Jupiter-based RMPK Funding consultants to seek state and federal grants to help pay for the town’s septic conversion.