By Mary Thurwachter

Soon after the polls closed in Lantana, incumbent Mayor Karen Lythgoe joined friends at Lantana Pizza to celebrate her 653-385 win over newcomer George (Jorge) Velazquez.

“I’m relieved and I’m grateful that I get to keep working on what we’ve been working on,” Lythgoe, 64, said. “The five of us (council members) have got momentum going that I think is phenomenal.  I think the town needs what we’re doing, we know what we’re doing, and I’m honored to be able to continue to be a part of it.”

She said she hadn’t slept for 24 hours and would be going home soon.

“I tossed and turned all night long and got up at 3:30 a.m. to start the day even though the alarm was set for 4:15 a.m.

The day did not go without some chaos.

A handful of Democrats were turned away from voting in Lantana, as poll workers were apparently confused that registered voters of all stripes could cast a ballot in the nonpartisan mayoral election.

The exact number of Democrats the confusion affected is not known.

An official with the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office said the office knew of that happening to one voter, who called the Department of State in Tallahassee to complain. Lantana Town Clerk Kathleen Dominguez said she saw it happen to one voter, who was able to vote when Dominguez intervened. She also knew of four others who were turned away and heard of another voter who was able to clarify that he or she was able to vote before leaving the polling place.

As far as Dominguez said she knew, the confusion was confined to two town polling places — Maddock Park and Lantana Recreation Center. Nonetheless, the complaint prompted Elections Supervisor Wendy Sartory Link to send out a notification to all the Lantana precincts clarifying that although there was not a Democratic presidential primary, Democrats were eligible to vote in municipal, nonpartisan elections and should be given a nonpartisan ballot. Link also came to town to help sort things out, Lythgoe said.

“There was some confusion either with the training or the field clerk,” Lythgoe said. “I am a registered Democrat and when I went to get my ballot for the mayoral race they had to converse and figure out if I was allowed to vote.”

Lythgoe said the voters who were turned away were called and invited to come back to vote.

Lythgoe was elected to the council in 2020 and was acting mayor after Robert Hagerty resigned in 2022. During a special election last year, she ran successfully to complete the rest of Hagerty’s term, which ended with Tuesday’s election.

Velazquez handled defeat with a positive outlook.

“It is what it is, so it’s fine, I’m okay,” the 57-year-old said. “I got a lot of experience from this and I really learned a lot.”

Velazquez said he has helped friends with campaigns in the past and may do more of that in the future. A former commercial real estate agent, Velazquez worked in a federal prison in Miami from 1996 to 2009.

Of Lantana’s 7,500 registered voters, only 1,027 cast ballots in the mayoral election, under 14%.

 Staff writer Anne Geggis contributed to this report.

By Mary Hladky

 Andy Thomson easily reclaimed a Boca Raton City Council seat on election night, capturing 62.3% of the vote to defeat opponent Brian Stenberg.

Thomson, senior counsel at the Baritz & Colman law firm in Boca Raton and an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University teaching local and state government, resigned from the council in 2022 to pursue his unsuccessful candidacy for the Florida House District 91 seat now held by Peggy Gossett-Seidman.

After losing that race, Thomson said he would seek elected office again and ultimately decided on a run for the Boca Council Seat D to replace term-limited Deputy Mayor Monica Mayotte.

“I feel incredibly blessed to be entrusted with this,” Thomson said at his campaign party at Maggiano’s restaurant. “I have served on the City Council before, but I take the duties very seriously and I am honored that the city would have me back in that way.”

Also victorious in the March 19 election was incumbent Yvette Drucker, who claimed Seat C by winning 77% of the vote and trouncing perennial candidate Bernard Korn.

Thomson received far more campaign donations than any of the other candidates, bringing in $133,604. He blanketed the city with campaign signs and drew the longest list of endorsements of any of the candidates.

Stenberg, a partner in the Greenfield Properties medical office real estate management firm, was making his second bid to serve on the council after Mayotte defeated him in 2021.

Stenberg congratulated Thomson at his own party at Duffy’s restaurant. “I wish him the best. I wish the best to the city of Boca Raton,” he said.

He did not rule out another race for a council seat. “The citizens who voted for me, it was a very passionate vote for them. I want to honor the value of their votes.”

Stenberg said he did not seek endorsements and raised $16,709, with about a quarter of that coming from personal loans to his campaign. He relied on reaching out to voters directly and through volunteers.

Stenberg drew support in mid-March from the BocaFirst blog, which, without mentioning him by name, called him the “resident advocate candidate” in the mold of former Deputy Mayor Andrea O’Rourke who stressed being “resident friendly” and opposed to overdevelopment.

City development has long been an issue in campaigns as the number of residents has reached nearly 100,000 and construction projects have sprouted citywide.

In their campaigns, both Thomson and Stenberg offered nuanced views on development, with Thomson saying growth should be managed responsibly, and Stenberg calling for “respectful growth” that avoids overdevelopment.

Drucker, who raised $61,463 in campaign donations, is a first-generation Cuban American and the first Hispanic to serve on the council. She is a longtime volunteer with many organizations, including the Junior League of Boca Raton.

Drucker has made improving transportation and mobility her passion and promised to continue that work during her second term. She stressed “common sense” development.

Korn, a real estate broker, self-financed his campaign with $5,550. He has twice lost elections to Mayor Scott Singer and once to Drucker.

In the most recent campaign, Korn said his top priority was to end “uncontrolled development.” He also railed against what he said was political corruption in the city and among council members without offering factual evidence.

Korn repeatedly asked residents to file complaints with the state against Drucker, contending she had violated ethics rules even though there was no basis for that
allegation.

“It was a wonderful result for this campaign,” Drucker said of her victory, “but also to win by such a margin after the attacks by my opponent. The best is yet to come.”

When Mayotte, who lives in the eastern part of the city near downtown, leaves the council at the end of this month, all five council members will live west of Interstate 95.

Unofficial results

Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

By Anne Geggis

The body of a young man, reportedly wearing a T-shirt and shorts, was found on the shoreline near the Mayfair House Condominiums Sunday morning, according to South Palm Beach officials.

A beachwalker called 911 at about 7 a.m., according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman. The area around the Mayfair, 3590 S. Ocean Blvd., was cut off to passers-by for a time, South Palm Beach Mayor Bonnie Fischer said, but it was back open by late morning.

A wallet was also recovered from the scene, officials said.

It’s the first time Fischer said she has heard of a body coming ashore in this town of about 1,500 and she’s been around for about the last 45 years.

“We’ve had marijuana and homemade boats (come ashore), but never a body,” Fischer said.

The Sheriff's Office said the beachwalker found the body facedown near the water line. Detectives from the Violent Crimes Division investigated on scene.  There were no evident signs of foul play, officials said, and the man was pronounced dead at 7:19 a.m.

Note: This article has been updated from the original to clarify how the body was found.

Penthouse Delray undergoes balcony work, a common sight as condos face deadlines for inspections and repairs. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Owners pay soaring prices for repairs, insurance, reserves as new demands hit coast ‘like a tsunami’

Also in the special report:

South Palm Beach — Southgate

Highland Beach — Coronado 

Boca Raton — Mayfair

By Rich Pollack

It was a storm that no one living in a beachside condo could have seen coming.

As shock waves from the June 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Miami-Dade County reverberated northward, condo owners up and down the coast became unwitting victims of the financial aftermath.

Insurance companies, fearing more billion-dollar losses, raised premiums on condos that in some cases would eat up close to half of a complex’s operating budget. State regulators and some local governments, hoping to stave off another catastrophe, implemented strict structural standards and revived a once-tempered requirement that buildings have fully funded reserves.

Now, with additional premium hikes on the horizon and with deadlines for often multimillion-dollar structural remediations and reserve studies closing in, condo boards along the southern coast of Palm Beach County are finding themselves forced to require special assessments and raise monthly or quarterly maintenance fees to levels that are driving longtime unit owners to consider fleeing their homes.

“People are starting to have to decide whether to fill their prescriptions or pay their HOA fees,” says Rob Marzigliano, president of Seagate of Highland in Highland Beach, where a small exodus of unit owners has already begun. “The people on fixed incomes are struggling.”

At the 316-unit Seagate, where four buildings planted on the west side of State Road A1A have stood for more than 50 years, the monthly maintenance fee jumped from $880 last year to just under $1,000. Added to that is a $60,000 assessment to cover repairs identified during a state-mandated inspection.

“We’re getting hit with a lot of repairs in order to make our condo safe,” said Marzigliano, who sees more increases coming.
At Seagate, where about a dozen units are on the market, the cost of those repairs is spread out over all the 316 unit owners, helping to minimize the impact. In some of the

smaller buildings with fewer than 50 units, assessments are coming in at more than $200,000 per unit.

While some are struggling to meet the suddenly high cost of condo living, many others on the coast can afford to foot the bills, even if they’d prefer not to.

Still, the cumulative impact of having to deal with what some call a triple whammy is leaving many wondering how condos will deal with a huge impact all at once.

“We understand insurance increases, we understand the importance of recertification and we understand the need for reserves, but everything is coming at us all at one time, like a tsunami,” says Emily Gentile, president of the Beach Condo Association of Boca Raton, Highland Beach and Delray Beach. “People don’t understand the impact of this on those of us on the beach. It’s devastating.”

Gentile says one group that is feeling the impact a little harder than most is seniors.

“It’s hard when you’re almost 80 years old and you’re getting hit with all this stuff and there’s nothing you can do but move,” she said. “It’s overwhelming.”

Another challenge facing condo boards is the increasing number of requests for improved amenities and services coming from new and often younger residents. Those improvements can also drive an increase in assessments.

Marilyn Blitz says high quarterly fees forced her to sell at the Yacht and Racquet Club of Boca Raton. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

“There were more assessments than I have shoes — and I have lots of shoes,” said Marilyn Blitz, who in September sold her high-rise two-bedroom unit at the Yacht and Racquet

Club of Boca Raton and moved to a beachside rental apartment. “It just became price-prohibitive to stay there.”

Blitz says that just before she sold her condo, the quarterly condo fee came in at just over $7,700 and included a special assessment and a $2,000 special bill for reserve funds.

On top of that, Blitz said, are rising property taxes, which this year were about $5,400.

Selling the condo where she had lived for about 15 years was not an easy decision for Blitz, who says she misses some of her friends and the amenities she took advantage of.

“I wish I hadn’t had to leave, but I’m happy where I am,” she said. “I figured if I sold my condo and put whatever proceeds I had in the bank, it would give me the leverage to do the things I want to do.”

Gentile and others say that assistance from state or local governments in the form of low-interest loans would help ease the burden shouldered by condo boards and condo owners, but that does not appear to be happening anytime soon.

Scrambling for insurance
Skyrocketing property insurance premiums are a problem across the state for single-family homeowners as well as businesses. For condominium complexes, however, the challenges that come with finding affordable insurance — if they can find insurance at all — has been magnified.

The beachside Clarendon condominium in Highland Beach is one of dozens of condos that discovered their insurance company had dropped them, forcing the board to race to find coverage.

“We had to scramble,” said President John Shoemaker, adding that many of the companies they hoped would help had pulled out of the state. In the end, Clarendon was able to get coverage from Citizens Property Insurance Corp., Florida’s insurance company of last resort.

At Clarendon, insurance costs increased 56% with the premium now about $400,000 a year. A special assessment averaging about $7,000 per unit was implemented in order to pay the premium.

“It’s absolutely killing us and we’re looking at a 20% increase coming this year,” Shoemaker said.

Insurance accounts for about 42% of the Clarendon board’s overall operating budget, and Shoemaker believes that just about all condos up and down the coast are in the same boat, with insurance being between 40% and 70% of budgets.

That can lead to other problems, according to Shoemaker.

“When you have to spend so much on insurance, there’s only so much left for mandatory maintenance,” he said.
In many cases, spending money on preventive maintenance is just not possible.

Paying for years of neglect
For many condos that focused on regular maintenance as well as preventive maintenance, the costs of making mandatory structural repairs can be affordable.

Yet for other buildings where maintenance has been put off, the cost of having to do several now-required repairs — replacing a roof or air-conditioning system, for example — is causing pain in the pockets of residents.

“A lot of problems come from kicking the can down the road,” Shoemaker says.

He says that in many cases condo boards faced with having to do repairs had options to “repair, replace or ignore,” and too often ignoring the problem was the chosen path.

At Seagate, for example, Highland Beach town officials say that inspections revealed emergency generators were not properly functioning for years, leading to the condo board’s having to pay for temporary emergency generators until new ones can be installed.

Mandatory inspections required as part of the state recertification process have revealed widespread structural issues due to concrete deterioration. In some cases, cracks and other signs that concrete has weakened have been painted over or otherwise ignored.

“Because of the age of many buildings, maintenance should be done annually,” said Kevin DuBrey, director of project management for Hillman Engineering, one of many firms that conduct the mandatory milestone inspections required for recertification.

DuBrey says that most of the time when his team does an inspection it finds signs of corrosion, including chunks of concrete missing or cracks.

“It’s rare that we don’t see minor structural damage,” he said. “It’s not significant but it should be addressed right away.”

Without proper treatment, corrosion could spread and further weaken rebar, bringing a danger of large pieces of concrete falling from the building, he said.

DuBrey said that a lot of issues engineers see come as a result of boards not knowing how important it is to address issues.

“It’s not with bad intentions, it’s not with malice,” he said. “It’s often a lack of understanding of the repairs.”

While acknowledging the possible burden of state requirements that buildings three stories or higher and 25 years or older be inspected before the end of the year — unless municipalities set earlier deadlines — some see a silver lining.

Shoemaker and others say recertification is a positive because it prevents condos from delaying needed work and it can take pressure off condo boards.

“Certification is good,” Shoemaker said. “It tells you just how far everything was left in a state of disrepair.”

In many instances in the past, condo boards would suggest repairs but could not get a majority of unit owners to approve moving forward.
Now with the state mandate, the decision on whether to make repairs that routinely cost millions of dollars no longer falls on the condo board.

Making reserves mandatory
Until recent changes in the law, condominium boards could waive any requirement to have reserve funds available if the majority of unit owners agreed. That changed after the Champlain Towers collapse; now condo boards must ensure reserves are available to cover the cost of major structural projects and of items with a value of more than $10,000.

For buildings that have been setting aside money for major repairs or renovations, the impact of the new law could be manageable. For those that haven’t, the new law will mean going back to residents once again, asking for more money.

“It’s going to be a financial burden people don’t yet understand,” Shoemaker said.

Most condos probably will have to ask for additional funds from residents, even those that set aside reserves but have had to use some of them for repairs to meet recertification requirements.

“It’s rare that there are associations that have fully funded reserves,” said condo law attorney Elaine Gatsos.

Under the new law, condos are required to complete a Structural Integrity Reserve Study by the end of this year conducted by an engineer, architect or other professional certified to do a state-required inspection.

That study mandates an evaluation of roofs, major structural items, electrical systems and just about anything else with a replacement cost of over $10,000 to determine the life expectancy of that item and the price of replacing it.

The study, which must be done every 10 years, also must provide a reserve funding schedule with a recommended amount that needs to be set aside each year so that the full amount needed to replace the item will be available when it reaches the end of its useful life.

If a condo’s internal wiring system, for example, will cost $100,000 to replace when its estimated useful life ends in 10 years, the board will be required to incorporate a portion of the cost into its annual budget each of those 10 years so it will have the full $100,000 when it comes time for a new system.

Gatsos, who has been representing condos for more than four decades, says that until the study is completed, uncertainty hangs over the heads of board members, who have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure funding is available.

“All the condo boards are shaking in their boots wondering what the reserve studies are going to come back with as far as the dollar amounts that they’re going to have to include in their budgets,” she said.

Impact on real estate
What does all this mean for the price of real estate?

Some say if too many residents sell or if an abundance of foreclosures occurs, it could result in values decreasing and could mean smaller buildings would have to sell to developers to be torn down and replaced with more luxurious condos.

Shoemaker is among those who say the improvements will make buildings more attractive to buyers.

“The property will look good and be certified as safe,” he said. “Prices will go up because the building will be better.”

Real estate agent Mark Hansen, who specializes in luxury condos, agrees that building improvements can enhance the value of units, especially east of the Intracoastal Waterway where demand remains high.

“When buyers know that things have been updated, it can certainly be helpful in maximizing value,” he said.

Hansen said that the beach area may have an advantage over condos in more western communities because demand for property remains strong.

“People want to live here,” he said. “It’s still a very desirable location.”

Possible solutions
Gentile, from the Beach Condo Association, is lobbying to have the state help condos and condo owners with low-interest loans. On her wish list are long-term low-interest loans for repairs, a low-interest loan fund for insurance and a revision of reserve requirements to make them manageable.

Gentile would also like to see regulations to ensure construction prices stay in check even during high demand.

State Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, whose district includes Boca Raton and Highland Beach, is sympathetic but doesn’t see a solution anytime soon.

“The legislature has to address this but it’s not a quick fix,” she said. “Everyone wants a quick fix, but it’s just not quick-fixable because it has to be done correctly with everyone involved.”

She said she would work with some of her colleagues to discuss possible solutions and hopes the reserve issue can be brought back to the legislature next year.

Until fixes come from Tallahassee, condo boards and presidents will do their best to meet mandates while keeping unit owners’ challenges in mind.

Marzigliano at the Seagate condo says it’s been a challenge to get a good night’s sleep since he became president of the board — a full-time volunteer job — in April.

“I wake up worrying about how to restore Seagate and how to keep residents happy,” he said.

Ray McMillan is especially unhappy the condo’s reserve fund must be filled so quickly. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

‘Everything paid up’ — but more expense on way

Also in the special report: Condo costs: A sudden storm| Highland Beach — Coronado|Boca Raton — Mayfair

By Brian Biggane

While Ray McMillan describes himself as a conservative Republican, he’s not at all happy of late with Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Legislature.

For him, that body’s decision to pass a bill requiring condominiums three stories and higher to fill their reserve fund in two years’ time was a bit too much. It coincides with a mandated recertification process by the end of this year, as well as dramatic increases in property insurance, a triple whammy that is creating financial hardship for many coastal residents.

McMillan said the reserve fund issue should have been spread out over more years, not just two.

“It’s a shame,” said McMillan, a resident of the Southgate condo in South Palm Beach and a member of the Town Council. “I don’t know what DeSantis was thinking by rushing to pass this legislation.”

In one sense, Southgate was fortunate. An engineering inspection required by the recertification law determined few repairs were needed, the most significant a $40,000 roof job covered by the general fund.

Nonetheless, the board of directors determined that maintenance fees would need to rise from $910 to $1,672 per month, an 84% increase. And the board billed residents of its 129 units a $5,036 special assessment that was broken down into five installments of a little more than $1,000 per month.

“So we got everything paid up by the first of January,” McMillan said, “and we weren’t even two weeks into the month when we got a notice from the insurance company that there would be an increase of like 30%” for next year.

“Next year, who knows what they’re going to do? Maybe (the assessment) will be $15,000 per unit.”

Built in 1974, Southgate has the same issues of every high-rise condo that’s been around that long. Foremost this year was replacing one of the elevators in the three buildings; that was done, but now another is requiring frequent attention.

Southgate HOA President Stacy Buckley said other repairs are already on the horizon.

“We anticipate and will be collecting funds over the next few years for new roofs, balcony and concrete restoration, and painting,” Buckley said. “Very similar items to many of the condos on A1A which are of similar age.”

As younger buyers with deeper pockets buy into the coastal market, some condos report demands for amenity upgrades such as pickleball courts and jacuzzis. Another resident,

Elva Culbertson, said that hasn’t been an issue at Southgate.

“The people who are really well-off aren’t coming to Southgate,” she said.

The real estate website BEX Realty last month listed 13 Southgate units for sale, compared with only four at the newer Palm Harbour building just down the road.

While Buckley said she believes many of those who have put their units on the market are “infrequent users (who) find the fee increases as a reason to sell,” McMillan said his conversations have said otherwise.

“She might be talking to different people, but the people who have been talking to me have been long-timers. Everybody I’ve talked to has not been happy.

“People are frustrated, but a lot of them have enough of a nest egg to cover it. But a lot of people are like, ‘No, I’m getting out of here.’”

Jason Chudnofsky, board president of the Coronado, stands amid exterior repair work underway at the 336-unit Highland Beach condo. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Dropped by insurance carrier, condo finds new one covers fraction of value

Also in the special report: Condo costs: A sudden storm|South Palm Beach — Southgate|Boca Raton — Mayfair

By Rich Pollack

The letters from the insurance company in the middle of last year brought the bad news to board members at the Coronado at Highland Beach.

First the insurance company let the board know that it would raise the annual property insurance premium for the 336-unit condo — with two towers on the west side of State Road A1A and a beach club on the east side—from $1.5 million to $1.9 million.

Then the insurance company, concerned about the condition of the roofs, decided to drop the Coronado completely, leaving the board with just 30 days to get coverage.

“We couldn’t even get insurance from Citizens,” board President Jason Chudnofsky said of the state’s insurer of last resort. “We shopped and we shopped until we found a company.”

That new company, however, offered only policies that were less than optimal.

The annual premium for the buildings, which were built in 1983, is now just shy of $2.8 million and it provides only 35% coverage, meaning the insurance company will pay a maximum of $38.5 million even though the buildings are valued at $110 million. Chudnofsky said the Coronado is hoping to find a company that will provide 100% coverage as soon as possible.

Insurance now represents close to half of the board’s annual operational budget — 42% — up from 24% in 2002.

To cover the rising insurance rate, the board of directors raised the quarterly maintenance fee from $4,150 to $5,300, or from $16,600 to $21,200 a year.

For residents of the Coronado, some who have been in the 40-year-old community for decades, the increased insurance premium is just one factor requiring them to reach deeper into their pockets.

The price tag of state-mandated repairs and the need to bolster reserves translate into more extra costs. Coronado residents are now being hit with a one-time $40,000 per unit assessment, to be paid over eight years, along with the likelihood that the maintenance fee will continue increasing in coming years.

As part of its efforts to meet state and town recertification requirements, the Coronado board hired an engineering firm, which detailed the work that needed to be done.

Replacing the roof was one of the big expenses, as was concrete restoration. Also on the agenda was rewiring and making improvements to common areas on each floor and lobbies.

Those improvements, Chudnofsky said, included projects that would have eventually needed to be done, but the recertification requirement speeded up the process.

“We would have done some of them, but probably not at the same time,” he said.

The price tag for all the repairs came to $12 million. The board then implemented the $40,000-per-unit assessment, payable over the terms of the eight years to cover the loan.

That assessment, Chudnofsky says, is manageable for most of the unit owners and reasonable in light of assessments that other condos along the beach are making.

“It all comes down to, we did a pretty good job,” he said.

While some condominium communities have gone without reserves, the Coronado has been putting money aside over the years and has several million dollars in savings.

Still, with a reserve study mandated by the state by the end of the year, the board might need to require a small increase in quarterly maintenance to ensure enough funds are available to cover major costs.

One of the challenges for the board at the Coronado, where units sell in the $900,000 to $1 million-plus range, is the demand for improved amenities and services that comes with a younger and perhaps more affluent resident base.

“There is an appetite to raise the level of improvements,” Chudnofsky said. “New people want a higher lifestyle. They want a lobby area that will knock people’s socks off.”

They also want to convert tennis courts to pickleball courts at a cost of about $50,000. The cost of such improvements, Chudnofsky says, will have to come from the residents and be shared by all at a time when unit owners are dealing with charges they can’t avoid.

“These are expenses that will come out of our pockets,” he said.

Mayfair condo board President Joanne Chester says: ‘We are really hoping the state will somehow intercede to help us with this.’ Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Nightmare numbers: Insurance up 300%, reserves at only 10%

Also in the special report: Condo costs: A sudden storm |South Palm Beach — Southgate|Highland Beach — Coronado

By Mary Hladky

Boca Raton’s Mayfair condominium is caught in a perfect storm.

Insurance rates have skyrocketed. New laws require condo association boards to conduct structural inspections and make any needed repairs. And by next year, Mayfair must fully fund its reserves to pay for them.

On the most basic level, that means the cost of living at the 60-year-old Boca Raton building at 1401 S. Ocean Blvd. is increasing substantially. Insurance costs alone jumped 300% over the last two years.

The Mayfair is hardly alone; condos across South Florida face similar financial pressures.

Mayfair President Joanne Chester said the board needs financial help, although no solutions from the state are imminent.

“We are really hoping the state will somehow intercede to help us with this,” she said. “It will be really difficult for people living here to continue paying the maintenance that has to go up.”

Perhaps the state could offer long-term low-interest or no-interest loans, she said, or provide financial assistance that condos could apply for.

“If the state would help us with that, that would be incredible,” she said. “Our state needs to help us. Our governor needs to step in.”

Mayfair’s board knows that insurance is all but impossible to come by. The previous insurer, Lloyd’s of London, pulled out of the market two years ago. The board used multiple insurers for one year because no single carrier would assume the entire risk. Mayfair is now insured by Citizens, the state’s insurer of last resort.

“There are not many insurance companies that want to deal with this area,” Chester said. “Not many even want to get us a proposal.”

Faced with the ballooning cost, the condo board had no choice but to raise maintenance fees. In 2022, the quarterly rate per unit was $3,588. Last year, it was $4,709. This year, it is $5,038.

Owners “are not happy about that at all. It is more money out of their pocket,” Chester said. Owners also worry that the high fees will make it harder to sell their units.

But that’s just the tip of the financial iceberg.

A state law enacted after the catastrophic 2021 collapse of a condo in Surfside requires condo associations to conduct reserve studies every decade to make sure they have adequate resources to finance needed structural repairs. Starting next year, they will no longer be able to waive a requirement that they put money in reserves.

At present, Mayfair’s reserves are only 10% funded.

Board members are calculating how much full funding will cost as they begin drawing up the 2025 budget.

What Chester does know is this: “Now that we have to fully fund, that would be a giant increase in maintenance to pay for that. We really think the state should kick in and help with that,” she said.

And then there’s the additional requirement to inspect the five-story, 55-unit Mayfair.

The Mayfair submitted required structural and electrical engineering reports to the city in November and is awaiting word on whether the condo will get a building recertification — a designation that the building is safe.

Chester said the reports show that the Mayfair is structurally sound. But repairs, such as concrete restoration, will have to be made and she does not yet know the total cost.

Separately, the condo needs to be repainted.

Still to be determined is how owners will pay for reserves and repair costs.

Already, however, increased maintenance fees are proving too much for some owners.

Chester knows of people, including some at the Mayfair, who are selling their units “so they don’t have to face this financial hardship.”

Paradoxically, people are still buying units. Chester thinks that’s because some buyers are affluent, paying in cash, and are not bothered by the fees.

Others, though, “are coming from out of state and are not aware of everything that is being imposed on us.”

Chester foresees a grim future for many condos.

“My opinion is a lot of condominiums will have to be dissolved,” she said. “They will have to become apartment complexes. Most people in condos are retired. I think a lot of condos will be dissolved because owners can’t afford to live in them.”

Andrew Rivkin’s Ocean Ridge home on North Ocean Boulevard was derided by neighbors as ‘the parking garage’ as construction dragged on. Staff photo

After nine years of construction and angst, online casino magnate gets vital OK from town

By Jane Musgrave

It appears a nine-year nightmare for people who live in central Ocean Ridge will finally come to an end.

In a Feb. 23 email, Town Attorney Christy Goddeau said a temporary occupancy permit has been issued for a 13,000-square-foot oceanfront home that neighbors initially dubbed “the concrete bunker” before deciding “the parking garage” more accurately described the imposing white concrete behemoth just south of Town Hall.

If the owner, wealthy Canadian entrepreneur Andrew Rivkin, installs landscaping, a driveway gate and takes care of several other relatively minor unfinished items in 30 days, a final certificate will be issued for his home at 6273 N. Ocean Boulevard. That will allow Rivkin to avoid a threatened $5,000-a-day fine — up to a whopping $230,000 — that would have been assessed if he didn’t get a temporary certificate by March 15.

Rivkin’s attorneys in early February assured the Town Commission that the longest construction project in the town’s history was nearing completion.

“I think we’ve been rowing in the same direction which has been beneficial to everyone,” Miami attorney Stanley Price said, insisting that the latest of at least 10 requests for building permit extensions would be the last. “We fully intend to meet our obligation to the town.”

But, after nearly a decade of living in a noisy, dusty and traffic-choked construction zone, residents were dubious.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Lisa Ritota, who repeatedly called police when tractor-trailers, cement trucks and water tankers blocked her driveway on nearby Hudson Avenue.

“I’m not holding my breath and I haven’t been holding my breath for the last five years on this stupid thing.”

Jill Shibles, who lives next to Rivkin’s property, which he owns through Oceandell Holdings LLC, said the project has been stressful. Her outside furniture was constantly covered in dust. Outdoor conversations were impossible. Construction workers would routinely wander near and onto her property.

“This whole situation has been absurd and very disturbing to our community as a whole,” she said at one of numerous town meetings that were called to address the ongoing construction project.

Like other residents, Shibles said she can’t understand why the project was allowed to go on for so long.

Work began in May 2015 with the destruction of an existing estate home. The new home was supposed to be completed in at least two years. Instead, when Rivkin repeatedly missed town-imposed deadlines, he simply paid the price.

Although a full accounting has yet to be done, Rivkin was slapped with a $250-a-day fine that apparently has been growing since he missed a July 2021 drop-dead deadline. In 2022, he paid $44,515 to renew his building permits. Also, in a gesture of goodwill, he posted a $450,000 bond to prove he would honor his word and complete the house by June 2023.

This year, after he missed yet another deadline, he wrote a check for $50,000 to compensate the town for tax money it lost when he didn’t complete the house by Dec. 31, 2023.

While the threatened $5,000-a-day fines, part of an agreement he signed last year with town officials, seemed to get his attention, those who have faced off with him said that is unusual.

Like Ocean Ridge residents, others say they have learned that when it comes to building projects, little motivates the 54-year-old jet-setting, polo-loving father of two young children who is often referred to as the father of online gaming.

Andrew Rivkin intended to build a 1,900-square-foot boathouse at the dock beside his 14-bedroom manor on a lake in Ontario, embroiling a neighbor in a six-year dispute. The boathouse is yet to be built. Photo provided

A lake house in Canada
Lindsay Histrop, a Canadian lawyer who owns a 1,000-square-foot summer cottage next to Rivkin’s 14-bedroom estate along Lake Simcoe near Toronto, said she fought Rivkin’s 2017 plans to build a 1,900-square-foot boathouse to go with his existing 85-foot-long pier and breakwater on the environmentally sensitive waterway.

Officials in Innisfil initially rejected Rivkin’s proposal, with the town’s chief planning official calling it the “poster child for what a good shoreline is not” and a councilor saying, “I don’t like the way this was presented, I’ll call it shenanigans,” according to a 2018 article in the Innisfil Journal.

After a private meeting with Rivkin’s lawyers, town officials reversed course, approving the boathouse. Left on her own, Histrop unsuccessfully appealed the decision to various government agencies, citing safety and ecological concerns. Her crusade ended in February 2023 when her final appeal was rejected by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

In what Histrop described as hollow victories, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources found that Rivkin’s breakwater was not built according to the approved plans and fined the contractor, according to the Barrie Today newspaper. Histrop said the fine was $10,000.

Another agency, Transport Canada, charged with protecting navigation on Canada’s waterways, said in an email that it ordered Rivkin to remove some of the boulders that were not shown in the breakwater’s approved plans.

The boathouse hasn’t been built and Rivkin is currently listing the estate for rent for $82,500 to $88,776 a week. Histrop said she stopped following his boathouse plans, but suspects he will pursue them.

The boathouse battle took its toll, both emotionally and financially, Histrop said. “You do get worn down and it’s difficult when someone has bottomless resources,” she said.

Histrop, who summers at the cottage built by her grandfather, said she and her family would have been willing to compromise. They would have helped Rivkin find a better way to bring his fleet of speedboats to shore.

But, he never talked to her, appeared at government meetings or tried to address her concerns.

“It’s obnoxious when you want what you want and you don’t care what your neighbors think,” Histrop said. “He’s just a guy with lots of money and he’s used to getting what he wants.”

Her comments echo those made by Rivkin’s soon-to-be neighbors in Ocean Ridge. He never offered to meet with them to discuss their objections to the stark, white house that features a large gray triangle that looks more like it belongs in a shopping plaza than among Ocean Ridge estates, residents said. He never apologized for upending their lives with the nearly decade-long construction project.

“He just wants what he wants,” said Ritota. “He’s obviously got more money than God and doesn’t care about anyone else but himself.”

The man behind the house
Rivkin, through Price, declined comment for this story. But, in online posts, he has said he cares deeply about others and uses his wealth to give generously to various causes, such as combatting breast cancer, heart disease and other illnesses, particularly those that affect children.

In a 2013 post that came long after he made his first millions, Rivkin described how he uses polo to help others.

“As an athlete and innate competitor, I love playing the sport of polo for the highest honors of the season,” he wrote. “But what I love even more is when the competition in which

I participate is beneficial to charitable organizations and those in need.”

One of his other attorneys, Gerald Richman, said Rivkin, who spends much of his time at his home near London, didn’t intend the project to drag on for years. Richman described the delays largely on circumstances beyond Rivkin’s control.

Rivkin belatedly found out that FPL and Boynton Beach Utilities couldn’t provide sufficient service for the home without extending lines by drilling under State Road A1A, a process that required state and federal permits.

“Rivkin is just a victim here,” Richman said. “He’s cooperated fully. The client has literally done everything he can do.”

But, Richman acknowledged, Rivkin was also distracted. “He has a lot of things going on and it wasn’t something he was focused on,” Richman said.

Rivkin’s business interests are far-flung.  He and his brother are widely credited with helping create the $63.5 billion-a-year online casino gaming industry.

Using a technology they developed as teens working in their parents’ basement, in 1995 they launched CryptoLogic. While the publicly traded firm initially provided security for businesses doing online transactions, it quickly morphed into one of the first online gaming platforms.

Before the brothers stepped away from the company and cashed in their shares, it attracted 500,000 users worldwide and processed more than $4 billion in transactions.

But Rivkin wasn’t done. He co-founded FUN Technologies, which became the world’s largest online provider of casual games, such as Solitaire, and fantasy sports. When Rivkin and his partner sold it in 2006 it was valued at $484 million.

Since then, Rivkin has served as a consultant for Mood Media, a multifaceted international company that provides such services as music people listen to while on hold or while shopping. In 2009, he founded Rivkin Asset Management, which invested in real estate, media, technology and renewable energy.

Along the way, Rivkin learned to play polo. A regular at the Toronto Polo Club, he was also occasionally seen riding alongside professional players at the now defunct Gulfstream Polo Club in Wellington.

Histrop said Rivkin raised polo ponies on a farm he bought near his lakeside estate near Toronto. According to Florida records, he and a professional polo player formed Rivendell Polo Florida in 2015 for the purpose of “buying and selling horses and teaching lessons.” The company, which listed the address of his still uncompleted home, was dissolved two years later.

Lingering doubts
Ocean Ridge residents said they are frustrated not only by the delays but their inability to find out the reasons behind them. Some question whether the house meets the town’s codes.

Town Attorney Goddeau has repeatedly said that no rules were broken. “There were approvals by building officials, re-submissions for changes,” she said during a June 2023 meeting. “They’ve all been approved. Based on those approvals, they constructed what’s there today.”

If Rivkin completes the remaining punch list items by the end of March, she said she and town officials will address the outstanding code enforcement case. She didn’t respond to an email, seeking comment about the status of the $250-a-day fine. But, if it has been accumulating since July 2021, it could reach well over $200,000.

Vice Mayor Steve Coz said mistakes were made. But, he said, there was no easy way to rectify them. The town could have seized Rivkin’s $450,000 bond and used the money to demolish the house, as some residents demanded.

“But let’s face reality,” he said at one contentious meeting. “If the town ever went to level that property we’d be in a, what, five-year legal battle.”

Instead, he encouraged residents to embrace the unconventional house that is built around a 5,000-square-foot reflecting pool. “It’s stunning,” he said.

Further, he suggested, Rivkin should make peace with his neighbors.

“When you finally finish it out, you should have an open house for the town residents,” Coz told Rivkin’s attorneys.

The look-see would be illuminating to critics. “You can understand why it took so long to build,” Coz said.

Interior designer Chad Renfro, a member of the Osage Nation, at home in Ocean Ridge with a memento from the film, Killers of the Flower Moon. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Ocean Ridge designer’s guidance ensured Best Picture nominee stayed true to Osage people

By Joe Capozzi

If director Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon wins Best Picture at the Oscars on March 10, an interior designer from Ocean Ridge can rightly claim some credit.

Chad Renfro worked as a consulting producer for the film — his name is prominent as the credits roll at the end. The Ocean Ridge Yacht Club resident had no experience in the movie business when he was brought in to work on the film.

But Renfro, 54, had something that producers Scorsese, Imperative Entertainment and Apple Original Films valued — deep roots with the Osage Nation of Oklahoma and connections with its leaders. 

Renfro, a south Palm Beach County resident since 1997, was born and raised in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, a city on the Osage Indian Reservation. These days he commutes between Ocean Ridge and Pawhuska, where he is active in tribal affairs.

Pawhuska is the setting for many of the events depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon, based on David Grann’s 2017 best-seller about a dark chapter of Osage history known as the Reign of Terror. 

The reign was rooted in the discovery of oil below the reservation in 1897, which turned many tribal members into the richest people per capita in the world. It also attracted people who tried to steal the rights to the Osage land and oil royalties through fraud, marriage and a string of more than 60 murders and suspicious deaths from 1920 to 1925.

The Reign of Terror has been chronicled in several books, but none with as much traction as Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.

Keeping them honest
After Renfro learned in 2016 that the soon-to-be-released book’s movie rights had been sold, he was appointed as the tribe’s ambassador to the film, a role he pursued with two goals: to have the production shot on location in Oklahoma and to make sure the movie portrayed the Osage Nation accurately and respectfully.

The result is a movie that has won critical acclaim, multiple awards and, perhaps most significant, the blessing of the Osage Nation.

And to make it happen, Renfro used his Ocean Ridge connections (more on that later). 

“It was really kind of a divine order,” Renfro said of the sequence of events that led to his role in the production. 

“I was the first Osage person to make a connection with the film people. It’s a world I never pictured myself in. We were blessed with the best of the best in the film industry to help make this monumental picture.” 

As the film’s ambassador, Renfro played multiple roles. He helped convince the producers to shoot the movie in Oklahoma. He helped persuade the state to give millions in rebates to the production, the largest in Oklahoma history. He connected Scorsese’s crew with Osage actors and experts in the nation’s language, clothing, history and tradition. 

“We have a unique culture and history, and Chad knows that unique culture and history. He bridged these two worlds,” Osage Nation Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear told The Coastal Star. “Chad was unpaid by my office to do this. He did this out of love for his people. He’s the perfect person to be this ambassador, and I told him: This time and place is special and he was meant to be right where he is.”

A memento for Chad Renfro for his work on the film. Photo provided

The backstory
So, just how did an interior designer from Ocean Ridge wind up playing such an important behind-the-scenes role in one of the biggest movies of the year? 

Long before he moved to Delray Beach in 1997, Renfro grew up on the Osage reservation. He graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a marketing and public relations degree and started working as an event planner, a gig that evolved into interior designing. 

He moved to South Florida at the suggestion of a friend from Pawhuska who was living in Ocean Ridge. A decade later he launched Chad Renfro Design, a successful business with clients from Palm Beach to Boca Raton.

In 2014, pursuing a desire to spend more time with family in Oklahoma, he started commuting between Pawhuska and Ocean Ridge. In Oklahoma, he worked on design projects around Tulsa and on the Osage reservation, where he renovated the Osage Nation executive offices.

Renfro, who said he has known Standing Bear for most of his adult life, served a term on the Osage Nation Foundation’s board of trustees. He participates each June in tribal ceremonies wearing full regalia made by his Osage family.

“He is culturally grounded here among his people. He’s part of our community,” Standing Bear said.

Acting out of concern 
One day in 2016, Renfro was scrolling headlines on his iPad when he came across an article about a production company purchasing the film rights to Grann’s book for $5 million. 

Renfro, at the time an Osage Nation Foundation board member, said he and tribal leaders knew about Grann from the author’s days in Pawhuska researching the book. They also knew the book focused on the FBI agents investigating the Osage murders. 

Well aware of Hollywood’s dismal record of depicting indigenous stories accurately, tribal leaders worried that the movie version might downplay or even misrepresent the Osage and their culture. 

So, Renfro decided to try to reach out to the two producers mentioned in the article, Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas of Imperative Entertainment. If Renfro could open a dialogue, he would invite them to Pawhuska to meet tribal leaders and encourage them to shoot the film in Oklahoma.

Help from Ocean Ridge
Getting any Hollywood big shot on the phone is a daunting task, especially if you’re someone with no connections to the movie business. But Renfro had an advantage: His close friends Gary and Penny Kosinski of Ocean Ridge have a relative who works as a Hollywood agent. 

The Kosinskis connected Renfro with the agent, and in a brief phone call Renfro explained his motives for wanting to talk to Friedkin and Thomas. 

“Moments later, there is an email chain between the two men who own Imperative Entertainment and myself,” he recalled. 

“I said, ‘I work closely with the chief. I’m on the board. I know this community. I grew up there. You guys should talk to us.’ And they were receptive.” 

Within weeks, Renfro was helping arrange visits to Pawhuska for the Imperative team, and later Scorsese, to meet with tribal leaders, elders and citizens. 

“Chad opened that door for Imperative and later joined me in opening the doors for Marty and the team,” Standing Bear said. 

But it wasn’t easy. 

Inside the commemorative book, director Martin Scorsese wrote a tribute to Renfro for his contribution to the movie, ‘For Chad R., in great thanks for all you’ve done.’ Photo provided

Making the movie
From the start, the tribe had major concerns that the movie would be filmed out of state, would not accurately portray the Osage and their culture, and would not use Osage actors.

“That’s what intimidated me, the business side of this,” Standing Bear said, explaining why he named Renfro ambassador. “Chad kept coming to my mind. I said, I’m not gonna be able to pay him. I might as well ask. He took it on himself.” 

There were several tense meetings with the production company and with the Oklahoma Film + Music Office, recalled Standing Bear, who said he and Renfro often teamed up with a good cop/bad cop approach “that was not planned.”  

“There were several meetings where I came off as a little aggressive to some people, but I had Chad there to explain things,” he said. 

“Chad was like a translator in a way. He would say, ‘What the chief means is. …’ I gave him total permission to do this. I told him, ‘Chad, you’ve got to be with me. You know this world. I need your help.’”

Standing Bear said he makes no apologies for “coming off a little strong” with the tribe’s demands in those meetings.

“I tried to make it clear: I’m not trying to be threatening. I’m just trying to express how concerned we are about being stereotyped as just some Indians out there,” he said.

“I think what Chad and I were saying was a bit new to people. Normally the indigenous population did not have any control of the movie. We understand that someone else bought the movie rights to David’s book, which we all endorsed. But we’re going to have a say-so in this one way or another or else. And the ‘or else’ was, if you go to another state, I can assure you Osages will be there” to protest.

With Scorsese, a legendary filmmaker known for classics like Raging Bull and Goodfellas, directing two megastars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, tribal leaders were well aware of the rare opportunity for Killers of the Flower Moon to accomplish what previous movies about Native Americans have not — properly showcasing the Osage and their culture.  

“It’s not that I’m trying to blame everybody for the past,” Standing Bear said, recalling what he told the film crews, “but when you have an opportunity to make it right, all your people need to be working with Chad and whoever he directs you to, starting with me, to make this story of Osage being told through the best that Hollywood can offer. We’re not trying to direct the movie, but we’re trying to have a voice.”

The consulting producer
Renfro’s involvement as unpaid ambassador quickly turned into a full-time job. It wasn’t long before he was hired as a consulting producer, a paid position.  

“Marty made a film about trust and betrayal on all different levels. And we have obviously trust issues. We were betrayed so many times that it was only natural there would be trepidation and questions,” Renfro said.

Meanwhile, Scorsese and DiCaprio worked with Eric Roth to rewrite the screenplay and tell the story from the perspective of the Osage instead of the FBI.

“My main goal was achieved — to get them to film in Oklahoma, on our reservation, and to make sure that our people were comfortable with the way it came together,” Renfro said.

Not long after the film premiered Oct. 20 in theaters nationwide, Renfro’s phone started lighting up with texts from friends who’d seen the movie and his name in the 10th frame of the credits. 

“They’d say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I knew you had something to do with the film but I didn’t know you were going to have a credit that size,’” he said with a laugh. 

Those credits could never be big enough, as far as Penny Kosinski is concerned.

“Chad’s journey from a successful interior designer in Palm Beach to a consultant on a major film is a testament to his multifaceted skills and deep passion for his Native American heritage,” she said in an email.

“As a friend, Chad has always been a source of inspiration. His work on our homes, and The Learning Center at Gulf Stream School, was not just about creating beautiful spaces; it was about infusing each project with a sense of history, culture, and personal story,” she said. “This approach to design, deeply rooted in understanding and respect, is what makes Chad’s work stand out. It’s this same approach that he brought to Killers of the Flower Moon, ensuring the film’s authenticity and respect for the Osage culture.”

One and done
Renfro’s role in Killers of the Flower Moon has been spotlighted by several media outlets, including Time magazine, National Public Radio and The Hollywood Reporter. He has attended premieres, news conferences and ceremonies around the world, including the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France and a special premiere in Pawhuska. 

And he plans to attend the Oscar ceremonies with Standing Bear. After that, he said, he’s done with the movie business. He wants to focus full time on his interior design business. 

He said his biggest hope for Killers of the Flower Moon, made with help from more than 100 Osage, is that it opens doors for more Native Americans to participate in the film industry. 

“This was the most important piece of film involving Native Americans in letting them use their own voices as much as possible,” he said. “It is setting a precedent for going forward.” 

In his Ocean Ridge home, Renfro has one keepsake from his work on the film, a Christmas gift Scorsese gave to each member of the production crew: a special hardcover “Making of the Movie” book. 

On a page inside the cover, Scorsese scrawled a note: “For Chad R., in great thanks for all you’ve done.”

Renfro said: “I am most proud of the fact that it came together in such a way that our people are presented accurately and that our voices are heard.”

And it might not have happened if he had not moved to Ocean Ridge and built a successful interior decorating business that attracted a client with a relative in the movie business.  

“It was really kind of a divine thing,” he said. “I had to leave home, come here and create a life for myself in order to have that one connection that I could use to make that happen.”

There are many things we do not do. At the top of that list is this: The Coastal Star does not do political endorsements.

To fairly write endorsements requires conducting interviews — preferably in-person. These are time-consuming and almost impossible to coordinate. They also require extensive fact-checking.

Some publications run criminal checks on candidates.

Of course, all this would be helpful to voters, but it requires more resources than this monthly newspaper has available.

The same goes for restaurant reviews. To do those fairly requires more than one visit and sampling more than one entrée. It also requires paying for those meals. Again, not something this small newspaper can afford. I know readers would love it if we reviewed all the wonderful restaurants in our area, but it’s just not possible.

As owners of the newspaper, my husband and I once mixed and mingled on the fundraising scene. We still contribute where we feel the need is greatest, but found so many local groups making worthwhile contributions to the community that it became a little overwhelming.

Especially for those of us more comfortable reading a book in bed than navigating a banquet in heels. No offense to those who love the get-up and glamour; you’re doing wonderful things for worthwhile causes. Please be sure to send us your event listings and post-event photos. In print, we are happy to promote and celebrate with you in the pages of the paper.

We also don’t do pay-to-play advertising, branded content, linked copy on our website, sticky notes on our masthead or pop-up ads online. We entertain the idea of testing these potential revenue generators from time to time, but feel what’s valuable to one person or business can sometimes be distracting to our dedicated readers. We do our best to always keep our readers in mind. We believe they are the reason our business partners buy display advertising in good old-fashioned newsprint.

As tourist season rushes toward summer (Easter is in March!), rest assured there are things we do plan to do. You can count on The Coastal Star to inform you on election results and how those officials address the coming budget preparations. We’ll also let you know when these elected officials succeed at representing their community, and when they fail.

We’ll let you know when restaurants open and close and celebrate the successes of businesses, nonprofits and those who contribute generously in our community.

We’ll follow sea turtle nesting season (at least two leatherback nests were found on South County beaches before the season officially began March 1), and the coming hurricane season — keeping a watchful eye on La Niña and El Niño.

And, of course, we’ll continue to follow public safety concerns, rising sea levels, population growth and the impact of new development.

In other words, we’ll be here doing what we always do: providing our readers with useful news and information with an eye toward keeping our coastal lifestyle safe, sustainable and enjoyable.

— Mary Kate Leming
Executive Editor

Raul Travieso Jr., founder of the Boca Raton Pickleball Club. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett

Raul Travieso Jr. may well be Boca Raton’s Mr. Pickleball.

The retired assistant fire chief and Boca High graduate is also a card-carrying “District Ambassador” of the USA Pickleball governing body, a pickleball instructor and founder of the Boca Raton Pickleball Club.

He also has attended and spoken at numerous meetings of the City Council and the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District in a quest to have more public courts built.

“I remember when I first spoke to you all back in 2016, eight years ago, I thought you were going to call the paramedics and have me Baker-Acted,” he reminded Beach and Park commissioners at a recent meeting, recalling the novelty of the game back then.

At the time Boca Raton had zero pickleball courts open to the public. Now it has 25 with many more on the way.

The sport was created in 1965 in Bainbridge Island, Washington, where families from the mainland spent summers on the island and their kids got bored with the usual games.

“In the backyard there was a badminton court. And somebody came up with the idea of using a paddle pingpong and just hitting the ball over the net. A Wiffle ball at the time,” Travieso said.

“And so that slowly evolved into, they dropped the net and they made the paddle bigger, and then they got perforated balls with holes in it. And they noticed that not only did it go over the net nicely, but it also bounced. They decided rather than to keep it up in the air like volleyball they’d let it bounce like tennis.”

Pickleball cruised along mostly as a West Coast hobby until about 10 years ago when it migrated east, he said.

About the same time, Travieso was retiring from the Boca Raton Fire Department and having to give up racquetball following a hip replacement. His doctor recommended the new pastime.

“I went to Deerfield where they were playing indoors and immediately fell in love with it,” he recalls. “I actually called my wife. She was out school shopping with my granddaughter. I said Lorraine, you’ve got to come. You’ve got to come over here. I just found my new sport.”

Travieso says interest in the game has exploded for three reasons: “It’s very easy to play, it’s very easy to learn, and it’s also very easy on your body.”
In 2022, USA Pickleball says, 5 million people were playing pickleball regularly. Now the number is close to 9 million. The pandemic helped push the growth, Travieso said.

“People were literally painting lines on streets.”

A pickleball court is one-third the size of a tennis court.

“So, there’s not a lot of running, and almost exclusively doubles play. So, you have really four people playing in a space of a third of a tennis court,” Travieso said.

The first people in Florida to embrace pickleball were, like Travieso, recent retirees.

“Again, easy to play, not tough on your body,” he said. “But now the game has evolved into a much more competitive game. There’s a lot more young people playing.’’

The median age of players is now early 50s, down from about 65 just 10 years ago.

USAPickleball.org has three 3-minute videos that cover the basics. Travieso also gives a first-time player clinic on Wednesdays at Sugar Sand Park, which offers loaner paddles.

“In an hour and a half I have them playing. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

A game takes 15 to 20 minutes. El Rio Park, which opened Boca Raton’s first four outdoor courts in 2022, can have 16 people playing, with 20 to 30 waiting their turns.

“But while you’re waiting, you’re socializing,” he said. “And the games are short, they are only to 11, win by 2.”

Boca Raton also has 15 outdoor courts at Patch Reef Park and six indoor courts before school lets out at Sugar Sand. And plans are afoot to add more at Patch Reef, North Park and the Boca Raton Golf and Racquet Club.

Delray Beach, he said, has 12 outdoor courts, six at the Delray Tennis Center and six at another park, and seven indoor courts that, like Sugar Sand’s, are open only weekday mornings.

The Boca Raton Pickleball Club has 100 members, Travieso said, but is mostly a social group and has hit a standstill because it has to rent courts.

“Delray, for example, they get to use six of their courts to teach, so the city lets them do that. We were never able to do that here. (Our club’s) not dead, but it’s not growing,” he said.

Travieso’s father worked for IBM and the family transferred down from Raleigh, North Carolina, when Raul Jr. was a junior in high school in 1969. He attended the University of Florida for one year, then was drafted in 1972 in the last Vietnam War-era draft and served as an Army medic.

After his two years in the military, “I got a call from the VA saying why don’t you apply for Boca … the Fire Department is starting a paramedic program, you’d be a perfect fit.”

He took the test, got accepted and 39 years later, he retired as an assistant chief.

Pickleball is not Travieso’s only passion. He and Lorraine have four children and 12 grandchildren keeping them busy. He also plays senior softball and occasionally golf. “And I love to ride my bike.”

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Send a note to news@thecoastalstar.com or call 561-337-1553.

Although I live in Broward County, I enjoy your publication. It’s refreshing to see true journalism in a newspaper, rather than political advocacy.

I was saddened by the front page article in your February edition about the cyclists who were involved in a vehicular accident on A1A in Gulf Stream. 

Unfortunately, while A1A is beautiful in many areas, because of barrier-island constraints, it is often very narrow in those same areas. In fact, A1A is so narrow in many places as to be classified as a “substandard” roadway per the Florida Statute addressing cycling. A substandard classification requires that cyclists ride single file, whereas they are permitted to ride two abreast in other areas. 

As the former mayor of Hillsboro Beach, which is a section of A1A classified as substandard, I can attest that without constant police supervision, cyclists ignore this requirement.

While most commentary on this subject seems to focus on the rights of cyclists and the responsibilities of drivers, for everyone’s benefit and safety, cyclists must acknowledge their responsibilities as well. As one of the cyclists interviewed for your article pointed out, in a matchup between an automobile and a bicycle, there is a good chance the cyclist will die. 

If safety is the primary concern of cycling advocates, a statute requiring that cyclists ride single file at all times on all roadways would obviously provide more safety to cyclists. At the very least, cycling clubs should make it part of their club communications to identify roads such as A1A that are classified as “substandard” and remind their members that single-file formation is required by law on these roads.

— Deb Tarrant,
former mayor,
Hillsboro Beach

By Anne Geggis

The woman who drove into a group of nine cyclists along State Road A1A in Gulf Stream early Jan. 4 suffered a medical event at the time, according to a Florida Highway Patrol crash report.

Betty Ann Ruiz, driving south in the predawn light in a Kia Soul, crossed the center line in the 2400 block of North Ocean Boulevard alongside the Gulf Stream Golf Club course and barreled into the northbound cycling pack. The vehicle stopped after hitting a speed limit sign on the northbound side. Three cyclists suffered “incapacitating injuries,” two had “possible injuries,” and another had “nonincapacitating injuries.” Three cyclists were listed as having no injuries from the crash, according to the report released to The Coastal Star Feb. 16.

One of those suffering incapacitating injuries is still in the hospital, according to a GoFundMe page set up to help the cyclists, who were part of the club Galera do Pedal, which is Portuguese for “Pedal Guys.”

Ruiz, 77, who FHP says was going the road’s 35 mph posted speed limit and was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, was listed on the report as suffering from possible injuries and taken by an emergency vehicle to Bethesda Hospital East. Her condition at the time of the crash was listed as “seizure, epilepsy, blackout.”

Ruiz was given three noncriminal driving citations as a result: failure to drive in a single lane, unknowingly operating a vehicle with a suspended/canceled driver license, and failure to provide proof of insurance. Drug and alcohol tests were not performed, the FHP report says.

Attempts to reach Ruiz were unsuccessful. The FHP originally reported that Ruiz, whose address is redacted on the FHP report, lives in Lantana.

Diego Rico, 37, of Coconut Creek — one of the three seriously injured in the crash — called the report “a joke” and questioned why no toxicology report was done on Ruiz. He said he is facing six months off his construction work and at least $1 million in medical bills.

“We have video of her walking around minutes after the crash,” he said.

Rico has been through hip and shoulder surgeries, had 20 stitches on a knee and 39 staples on a hip, in addition to 15 staples and seven stitches on his left shoulder.

The cyclists, all with ties to Brazil, were on a ride — some riding side by side — that regularly attracts packs of cyclists, particularly as the sun rises. While no one was killed, the sheer number of casualties has brought new attention to the tight space along A1A that motorists and cyclists share. There’s been resistance to installing bicycle lanes along the road and the stretch where the accident happened is particularly narrow — only a few inches of asphalt lie to the right of the white lines demarking motor vehicle travel lanes.

All of the cyclists were wearing helmets, according to the report.

Michael Simon, president of the Boca Raton Bicycle Club, lamented that traumatic injuries resulted from a driver who he said shouldn’t have been on the road to begin with.

“It’s sad and it’s shocking,” he said. “When there’s an accident, the impact on everyone’s lives is mitigated if the driver is skilled or lawfully on the road.”

Two of the severely injured cyclists were a husband-and-wife pair. One of them is still hospitalized, making slow progress back to the activities of daily living, according to a GoFundMe account that the Florida Cycling Family set up.

Contributions have topped $20,000.

“We have one rider still under care and is relearning how to walk, talk, stand, and function independently,” a Feb. 9 update says. “He is still not able to stand on his own and his brain function has been slow to return. We see progress but he has a long road ahead of him. His wife had surgery and is home recovering with their three young kids.”