It’s unclear if Clair Johnson’s dock would have to be removed to allow work on the sea wall. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

For decades, a few Delray Beach residents have lived on the first block of Marine Way where extreme high tides flooded the road and part of their lawns by as much as 15 inches.
It became the go-to place for local TV stations to show flooding scenes from high tides that occur several times a year. Water would flow out of the adjacent Intracoastal Waterway. Video would be broadcast of fish from the mangroves swimming down Marine Way.
Water also pushed up through the stormwater drains, adding to the flooding.
Last fall, Delray Beach finally got started on the Marine Way flooding problem by hiring the Wantman Group Inc. for $284,373 to create a conceptual plan and site analysis.
Now the project is on hold.
In August, Public Works staff reported that West Palm Beach design engineers had found the city does not own the road or the submerged, crumbling sea wall.
Through title and easement searches it appeared the Florida Inland Navigation District or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns the property encompassing the road and the sea wall. But neither agency owns the land or the sea walls, according to Glenn Scambler, the district’s finance director, and Nikki Nobles, Army Corps spokeswoman. The entities do have easements near and in the Intracoastal Waterway.
As a result, city staff says it can’t legally proceed and the delay has left the residents in limbo. Not only would they have to live on a street that floods several times a year, they’d also have to worry about losing their docks. Repairs or removal of the submerged sea wall may require the private docks to be removed.
Also, one of the city’s plans included a promenade connecting Veterans Park, north of Atlantic Avenue, with the city’s marina in the second block of Marine Way. The walkway would sit out in the Intracoastal, east of the mangroves and the submerged sea wall.
“We paid taxes on the docks,” said Genie DePonte, a Marine Way resident. “I use mine for entertaining.” Her dock was permitted by the city and Army Corps when the previous owner installed it in 1989, she said.
She joined neighbor Clair “C.J.” Johnson, his wife and another property owner, Adam Bankier, to hire Miami attorney Tucker Gibbs, who declined to answer questions, citing lawyer-client confidentiality rules.
The city has not determined whether dock removal is necessary, Susan Goebel-Canning, Public Works director, said via email. “That determination will be made by the Army Corps during the permitting process,” she wrote.
The remaining two houses and the historic Anchorage apartment building are owned by the Burt Handelsman family. Burt and his wife of nearly seven decades, Lovey, were divorced earlier this year. They are in the final stages of dividing the properties among themselves and their adult children. None of the parties could be reached.
The Florida Internal Improvement Trust Fund likely owns the submerged land in the waterway, said Tamara Crocker-Howard of the Army Corps’ Jacksonville office.
The state Department of Environmental Protection oversees the trust fund. As of press time, DEP spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller had not heard from the southeast division.
Fixing Marine Way’s flooding problems will not be easy. The one-block stretch has a decayed road bed from tidal flooding, private docks, a sea wall in the Intracoastal that is submerged and no longer usable, and various regulatory agencies involved, city stormwater engineer Jeff Needle said at the time Wantman was hired.
Marine Way was platted prior to 1896, according to the city. In the 1930s after the Army Corps created the Intracoastal, mules were stationed on each side to pull barges through the channel.
The city wants to keep the $2.8 million in the budget for the current financial year while it figures out the ownership issues of Marine Way. The money would be used to improve the drainage, rebuild the road and add a new 2-foot-8-inch-tall sea wall.
DePonte and Johnson both said that’s too high. Neither is an engineer, but they said a 10- or 12-inch curb on the west side of the mangroves would keep back the tidal flows.
The neighbors also want a gate at the base of the street where Marine Way meets Southeast First Street. Signs now warn of flooding and restrict access to residents.
Farther down Marine Way, adjacent to the city’s marina, the stormwater plans are in the design stage, Public Works said. The marina, last renovated in 2002, will be redone during the next financial year.
On the north side of Atlantic Avenue, west of Veterans Park, the Atlantic Crossing project proceeds with excavation on the western garage.
“Atlantic Crossing’s plans have been designed and engineered to deal effectively with any deviation of the water table from tidal influence,” said Don DeVere, vice president of project developer Edwards.

King tides
The highest tide in Delray Beach’s Intracoastal this autumn — 3 feet, 8 inches — will come at 10:50 a.m. Oct. 9, NOAA says.

By Mary Hladky

Close on the heels of landowner Robert Buehl’s announcement that he planned to sue the city over rejection of his proposed luxury adult living facility, developer Crocker Partners said it would go forward with a similar lawsuit over the city’s decision not to adopt regulations that would allow its Midtown project.
That decision increases the financial risk the city faces if the landowner and developer prevail in court. Buehl will be seeking as much as $100 million in damages, while Crocker will seek $137 million.
The litigation does not end there. Developer Group P6, which worked with Buehl on the Concierge ALF in the downtown, headed to court in late August in an effort to quash the city’s denial of the project, but is not seeking damages.
And Crocker filed a separate legal action in May, seeking to have a judge compel the city to write land development regulations for Midtown, and to rule that the Boca Raton City Council’s January decisions to delay adopting the regulations and vote instead to develop a “small area plan” for Midtown are illegal. The developer also says the delay created an illegal building moratorium.
Crocker’s Sept. 13 announcement came after the developer told the city in April that it would sue because approval delays for its Midtown project left it unable to redevelop three properties it owns in Midtown — Boca Center, The Plaza and One Town Center.
That notice of a Bert Harris Act lawsuit gave both sides 150 days to resolve their differences.
But Crocker managing partner Angelo Bianco said the city didn’t talk by the deadline.
“I was hoping to avoid this,” Bianco said in late September. “That is why our primary action is not seeking damages, but to compel the city to do what it said it was going to do — adopt land use regulations that would allow us to build.”
Crocker won an early court round in late August, when Circuit Judge Howard K. Coates Jr. denied the city’s effort to dismiss the May legal action.
“I am very pleased with that ruling,” Bianco said. “I am not interested in handing a bill to the taxpayers of Boca Raton, especially one created by poor leadership at City Hall.”
Crocker Partners originally joined other landowners in the Midtown area to redevelop about 300 acres between Interstate 95 and the Town Center mall. They envisioned a “live, work, play” development where people would live in as many as 2,500 residential units and walk or take shuttles to jobs, shopping and restaurants.
Because of the delay in getting city approval, the group broke up and some are moving ahead with individual redevelopment plans, rather than wait for the “small area plan,” which won’t be completed at least until year’s end.
While Midtown was a complex project, the Concierge was straightforward.
The developer and landowner wanted to build a $75 million ALF at 22 Southeast Sixth St. that would have 53 independent living, 37 assisted living and 20 memory care units.
The project was not controversial, and the City Council’s July 23 rejection was unexpected since Group P6’s previous condo projects in the city were easily approved and the council unanimously supported a separate downtown luxury ALF last year.
But this time, some council members expressed concerns the facility would overburden the city’s fire-rescue services.
Council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte questioned if another ALF was a good fit downtown. Speaking of the city’s vision of a vibrant downtown, O’Rourke said she was not sure how much the Concierge’s residents would be engaged in the community.
“I am not against ALFs in our city,” Mayotte said. “I’m just not sure that the downtown is the right location for them. Other places within our city limits are probably more applicable for these types of residents and I just wanted to make that clear.”
Mayotte and O’Rourke suggested the city may need to create a way for ALF developers to pay for the increased cost of providing ambulance service.
Her comments came after city staff and Fire Chief Tom Wood said ALFs have 15 times the calls per bed than a typical multifamily development.
City Manager Leif Ahnell said a special assessment could be an option, but the city would have to research how that could be done and what costs could be recovered with it. But he said typically an assessment would recover only capital costs, such as for a fire-rescue unit.
That amount, though, is minor compared with the personnel costs to operate the unit — about $70,000 per year per fire-rescue unit and $2 million a year for personnel operating costs.
City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser said there also are legal impediments to levying an assessment only for increased demand for a service. Ahnell said it might be necessary to spread the cost to all types of properties in the city.
In his notice that he planned to sue, Buehl highlighted council member comments he said were discriminatory.
“The statements made by elected officials regarding our city’s elderly residents were absolutely discriminatory and shameful,” Buehl said.
Group P6, in its petition to have the court overrule the city, echoed Buehl’s claim.
But the developer also noted that it is the city’s obligation, not the property owner’s, to provide emergency medical services. If EMS services are overburdened, the city can raise taxes or cut other parts of the city budget to provide more funding to EMS. If not, the city should deny any further downtown development, the petition said.
City staff said the project complies with ordinances governing downtown development, the petition said, as did the city’s urban design consultant, which praised it.
“This project has no basis for denial and we do believe these are all red herrings to deny it,” Group P6 co-owner Ignacio Diaz said in an email.

By Mary Hladky

Just over one year ago, antagonists in the battle over the proposed luxury condo on Southeast Mizner Boulevard struck a deal.
Developer El-Ad National Properties made concessions on building design, landscaping and setbacks that won over project opponents. After the Boca Raton City Council gave its unanimous approval, Amnon Safran, then El-Ad’s chief executive, fist bumped the five council members.
Fourteen months later, that kumbaya moment has given way to new acrimony.
El-Ad is seeking approval to build the 384-unit project in two phases. Residents of the neighboring Townsend Place condos contend — and city records and even El-Ad’s submission to the city agree — that the city’s 2017 approval was based in part on the project’s being built in a single phase.
Phase 1 would consist of 140 condos in one tower built on the northern portion of the nearly 9-acre site. Phase 2 would be 244 units in two towers on the southern end. The 246 Mizner on the Green townhouses, which would give way to the redevelopment, also would be torn down in two phases — 115 in Phase 1 and 131 in Phase 2.
El-Ad promises to fulfill last year’s promises to enhance the landscaping, including a wide pedestrian promenade along the boulevard and a larger landscaped buffer zone between the project and Townsend Place.
But Townsend Place residents aren’t sure that will happen right away. The developer’s submission says “to the maximum extent practicable.”
Another proposed change is adding valet parking, though a condition of approval last year said that was not allowed.
Townsend Place residents and those active in the BocaBeautiful blog say the request is “bait and switch.”
“It was agreed this was it. It was agreed there would be no changes,” said Norman Waxman, a member of the Townsend Place board.
John Gore, president of BocaBeautiful and a former Townsend Place resident, said his concern is the two phases.
“Now they are saying ‘We are not going to build it as a single building,’” he said. “‘We will build some and see how that sells and then we will see about the rest.’”
If El-Ad decides to build only one phase, it will have one condo tower and the remnants of the old townhouses — an outcome no one wants.
Architect Doug Mummaw, who sided with Townsend Place residents in the previous battle, said he was “displeased” with what El-Ad is now proposing for the ALINA Residences Boca Raton, formerly known as Mizner 200.
If a second phase is never built, “you will end up with half of a beautiful project and the Mizner on the Green townhouses,” he said. “Imagine what that would look like.”
Major downtown landowner Investments Limited also negotiated for design changes because the project would have blocked views from Royal Palm Place, which the company wants to redevelop. A project redesign satisfied the company.
Robert Eisen of Investments Limited said he doesn’t yet know what the company’s position will be on El-Ad’s requests. But he has qualms. “I think it is obvious they want to minimize their exposure if [condo sales] turn out badly,” he said.
Noam Ziv, El-Ad’s executive director of development, insisted the project remains as agreed to — three towers with 384 units and the same architectural design and landscaping.
But, he said, “we never intended to build all three [towers] in one shot. It would saturate the market.”
He described the phasing request as a “technical process” rather than a change.
Ziv said he has made a concession to city staffers, who asked him not to do the landscaping in phases. “We agreed to do the landscaping in front of the second phase before we [build] the second phase,” he said.
“There is some limitation because the [townhouses] are there,” he conceded.
If for some reason the second phase is not built, Townsend Place residents should be pleased because the project would not interfere with their eastward views, he said.
Ziv said his representatives have met with Eisen and individually with members of the City Council. Eisen was noncommittal and council members “are not unified in their opinion,” he said.
Waxman said Townsend Place president Craig Sherman heard from an El-Ad representative a few months ago and said the condo board would “absolutely not” support the developer’s plans.
The city has not set a date when the Planning and Zoning Board will hear El-Ad’s request regarding phasing and valet parking — the first step to city approval or disapproval. It is not clear if the landscaping plans will come before the board.
The City Council also must consider the requests.
While the city has not given its approval, El-Ad is pressing forward. The project debuted its new name last month, and Douglas Elliman is handling sales and marketing. The units range from just under $1 million to $6 million.
El-Ad is constructing a sales office on the Mizner on the Green property and has a preview center in Mizner Park. At the end of September, El-Ad had one signed contract for purchase, Ziv said.
“We could not be happier with the reaction we’re getting from the market,” he said.
El-Ad, part of the Elad Group, has moved its local headquarters to the Bank of America building at 150 E. Palmetto Park Road. The company has four other rental communities in Boca Raton: Camino Real, Tuscany Point, Somerset Place, and Savannah Place.
“The most exciting place to be now is downtown Boca,” Ziv said. “We want to be close to the action.” With five properties already in the city, “it made sense to call Boca home.”

By Mary Hladky

Mayor Scott Singer may finally have enough support on the Boca Raton City Council to build a public parking garage near City Hall.
Singer has long called for a parking garage to alleviate the shortage of public parking downtown. But City Manager Leif Ahnell has said repeatedly that no property owners in the heart of downtown are willing to sell land to the city.
So Singer, while conceding the location is not ideal, has suggested building on city-owned land near City Hall and using a shuttle or circulator system to ferry people from there across the FEC railroad tracks to popular destinations such as Mizner Park and Royal Palm Place.
The idea didn’t get much traction until a Sept. 25 Community Redevelopment Agency meeting when newly elected council member Andy Thomson supported it.
“We can’t afford to let this slip any further,” he said. “Let’s get the garage going.”
Council member Andrea O’Rourke, sitting as CRA chair, said the parking garage could be part of the master plan for a new downtown government campus.
“This is the closest I’ve gotten to getting three votes for a parking garage,” Singer said.
The City Council has debated what to do about inadequate downtown parking for nearly two years, but ideas finally began to solidify at the CRA meeting.
Technically, the city has enough downtown parking. The problem is that many of the public spaces are not located near where many people want to shop and dine, and many don’t want to park and walk several blocks. That creates a parking crunch at popular spots.
Council members want to do more to encourage owners of buildings with surface parking or garages to make agreements with the city to open their spaces to the public after business hours when downtown parking demand is the greatest.
The hurdle here is to work out liability and security issues, said consultant Chris Heggen of Kimley-Horn and Associates. Private parking owners also would have to be authorized by the city to charge the public to use their parking, he said.
The council seemed open to streamlining cumbersome city processes so it’s easier for the owners to ink deals with the city.
A variation of that idea is getting business and restaurant owners to make their own arrangements with owners of surface parking and garages.
Even if a garage near City Hall proves unpopular with the public, O’Rourke said, employees of downtown businesses and people going to special city events would be able to use it.
Still up in the air is how to get users of the city parking garage into downtown. In the past, the council members have talked about shuttles, circulators and encouraging residents to make greater use of ride-sharing services.
Parking meters are also part of the conversation. Current downtown meters are at the end of their life spans.
Another Kimley-Horn consultant said he is investigating various options, such as allowing people to pay for parking via cellphone apps, such as PayByPhone and ParkMobile, that many other cities already use.
Robert Eisen, who works for the city’s largest downtown landowner, Investments Limited, has in the past been opposed to more meters.
Investments Limited is now “repenting,” he said. “Investments Limited will not oppose the expansion of parking meters in the downtown.”
The city is also exploring how to make it easier for visitors to find their way around.
A third Kimley-Horn consultant said most of the signage to attractions such as Mizner Park and museums would be concentrated on Federal and Dixie highways and Palmetto Park Road.
They have settled on 12 signs for now and have been designing them and making color selections. Nonstandard directional signage also could be used, such as embedding directions on pavers in sidewalks.
They also are looking at interactive hubs that people could use to find where they need to go. These could include Wi-Fi hotspots and charging stations, the consultant said.

By Steve Plunkett

A consultant’s plan for Silver Palm Park would add a third boat ramp and 16 more spaces to park boat trailers to the city’s only launch site.
It also would put “shade sails” along the seawall to give boat watchers by the Intracoastal Waterway some respite from the afternoon sun.
“One thing we learned very early is that it’s hot. When we were out there I kept trying to find the smallest piece of shade,” consultant Kona Gray of EDSA Inc. told a group of about 65 Boca Raton residents who gathered Sept. 26 for an outreach session on plans for the park.
He and his team went to the park July 14, a Saturday, to see how people use it.
The residents overwhelmingly preferred Gray’s concept with the 16 extra parking spaces to another that left more green space but added only two spaces for trailers.
Retired firefighter Bill Trinka said Silver Palm is primarily a boat launch.
“This park has a function that we really, really need,” Trinka said.
Gray also plans to put a new sign and a more inviting pedestrian entrance at the park’s northwest corner, on Palmetto Park Road and Southeast Fifth Avenue.
Now, “It doesn’t feel like you’re walking into a park from this corner,” he said.
Gray asked attendees to write down suggestions for improving his concept so he could refine the plan before he presents it to the City Council in November. Comments made at the outreach session included moving the restroom away from its location at the base of the Palmetto Park Bridge to give people more room to see the waterway. Other residents wanted to delete palm trees proposed to help delineate trailer parking spots.
Gray said it could take up to 12 months to create construction drawings after council members decide in November what design elements to keep. The city budgeted $50,000 to pay for the plans and has $1.5 million tagged in its long-range plan for the 2020 budget year.
The budget also includes $1 million this budget year and $2 million the following year to build a park at the Wildflower site just to the north, which will connect to Silver Palm.

Thomson gets a congratulatory hug from Pastor Tommy Kiedis of Spanish River Church after he administered the oath of office to him during an organizational meeting. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett

New City Council member Andy Thomson, who won his seat by a mere 32 votes out of 17,959 cast, immediately set about trying to repair any schisms in Boca Raton.
“The election showed us that there are divisions in the city, and I’m going to work with everybody up here, my new colleagues, to make sure that we try to bridge those divisions, that we help preserve our quality of life here, to help resolve the divisions we have and continue to make this city as wonderful as it has been,” he said after taking his place on the dais Sept. 12.
Mayor Scott Singer, who won his race with nearly 11,900 votes to Al Zucaro’s 6,278 and Bernard Korn’s 579, also sought help to improve Boca Raton at the council’s post-election organizational meeting.
“Our successes outweigh our problems, our shared vision for our community is greater than our small disagreements, and most of all, our opportunities are far greater than our challenges,” Singer said. “I’m truly humbled to have a chance to work with my colleagues, our city staff and the people of Boca Raton not just to find common ground but higher ground.”
County Commissioner Steven Abrams, who swore in Singer, congratulated the new council member. Abrams, who served on the council for 17 years and is finishing his ninth year as a county commissioner, called Singer the hardest-working candidate he had ever seen.
“You did take office, take the reins at a very difficult time in the city’s history. You were able to reassure the public, to keep the city moving forward. I think that the residents appreciated that,” Abrams said.
Singer, a lawyer, was elevated from deputy mayor to the mayor’s seat in April after Susan Haynie was charged with official misconduct and perjury and suspended from office. He and Thomson, also a lawyer, will serve until March 2020 and then be able to run for two full three-year terms.
Thomson said he is “proud of the fact that we stayed positive. We showed that a positive campaign can be successful.”
Thomson said election rivals Kathy Cottrell and Tamara McKee “are both fantastic residents of our city, ran terrific campaigns, energetic campaigns.”
The final count had Thomson with 7,929 votes, Cottrell with 7,897 and McKee with 2,133.
The results were not known until an official recount four days after the Aug. 28 special election. A 19-vote difference, 0.1 percent, triggered the hand count of 1,518 undervotes, ballots without a choice, and overvotes, ballots with two or more candidates chosen.
State law requires a hand count when the difference is 0.25 percent or less.
On election night Cottrell held a lead over Thomson of more than 200 votes after early votes were counted and again when about two-thirds of the city’s precincts were tallied.
Her lead narrowed to 37 votes by 10 p.m. and became a tie two hours later. Mail-in and provisional ballots counted near midnight gave Thomson first a three-vote advantage, then 19.
At the organizational meeting Thomson especially thanked McKee for an episode during early voting at the Downtown Library. He and one of his young daughters were out shaking hands as lunchtime neared.
“Tamara’s family had just come back to their area with this big pepperoni pizza, and very quickly my daughter Allie [lost] interest in the voters out there, and began looking more and more longingly at that big pepperoni pizza. And despite me and Tamara battling out there for every vote, which we were, the McKee family was so kind to my daughter that they gave her not one but two slices of their pepperoni pizza.
“And that’s the kind of, I think, humanity that sometimes we don’t see in a campaign, but I think it’s a testament to the character of Tamara and her family and I wanted to tell her thank you.”

Six South Florida artists will paint murals near Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. These are some proposals they presented to Boca Raton’s Art In Public Places advisory board. ABOVE: Craig McInnis of West Palm Beach. BELOW LEFT: Peter Agardy of Boca Raton. BELOW RIGHT: Kristin Pavlick of Delray Beach. A ceremony to unveil the finished works is scheduled for 11 a.m. Oct. 20. Renderings provided

By Steve Plunkett

Giant sea turtles, a gumbo limbo tree, mahi-mahi, swordfish and a school of hungry snook will festoon the walls of a Red Reef Park maintenance yard later this month in the city’s first foray into art in public places.
Boca Raton’s Art In Public Places advisory board in September chose six South Florida artists to paint murals around the yard in the park’s golf course parking lot near the southern pathway to the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center.
The artists — Ivan Roque of Miami; Craig McInnis of West Palm Beach; Tom D’Auria of Lake Worth; Georgeta Fondos of Coral Springs; Kristin Pavlick of Delray Beach; and Peter Agardy of Boca Raton — presented their final renderings to the board Sept. 27. Four of the six images feature fish, four depict a sea turtle, and two show coral up close.
“I think it’s cool how we’re taking kind of the same thing and we’re all looking at it in a different way,” Pavlick said.
Fondos, who will create the “title wall,” said her turtle subject would also serve as a way finder.
“Gumbo Limbo is right there and the turtle is kind of pointing to it,” she said.
The mural painters were eager to start working. City Council member Andrea O’Rourke, who secured $20,000 from Boca Raton and another $20,000 from the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District to cover expenses and stipends for the artists, said a beach resident promised her he would record the progress of the project with a drone camera.
The walls are 6 feet tall. Fondos’ section is the smallest, only 6 feet 2 inches wide. Roque’s section is widest, 68 feet.
Roque was wavering on which colors to use. “I’m still debating whether to go with the purple flowers or to go with maybe purple vines and yellow flowers,” he said.
The finished works will be revealed at an 11 a.m. ceremony Oct. 20. At noon, the Friends of Gumbo Limbo are hosting what they hope will become an annual fundraiser, the Boca GumboFest. Ticket discounts to the fundraiser are available until Oct. 13 at www.gumbolimbo.org.
Besides exposing visitors to the murals, “one of our goals is to start a conversation” about the role of art in public places, said advisory board chairman Irvin Lippman, who is also executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art.
O’Rourke spent the morning at a Downtown Business Alliance breakfast extolling the virtues of the program and hoping to plant the idea of businesses sponsoring artistic efforts.
“I’m a huge believer that art and culture really is an economy booster,” O’Rourke said.

A sign language interpreter, inset, is a temporary solution for streaming meetings live until Highland Beach officials can fix technical difficulties. Highland Beach Town Commission

By Rich Pollack

For almost four months, Highland Beach residents have been unable to watch live coverage of town meetings — either on their computers or on TV — as the town scrambled to meet requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Now commission meetings are again streaming live and will soon be available on the town’s public access TV station.
While modern technology and the inability of two separate systems to communicate with each other still stand in the way of a permanent resolution, the town has resorted to an old-school solution to ensure residents can see the meetings live.
During a meeting this month, a sign language interpreter whose image could be seen on computer screens provided translations for hearing-impaired people. Two interpreters worked the three-hour meeting and shared the job.
The idea, Commissioner Rhoda Zelniker said, came from her granddaughter — a 20-year-old college student, who along with her sister took sign language classes in high school.
“They were occasionally asked to sign at various school functions as part of their education,” Zelniker said.
The inability to watch meetings live for several months raised concerns among some interested residents.
“This is a big problem,” said Harry Anwar, who serves on the board of the Boca Highland Beach Club and Marina. “No one knows what’s happening at the meetings unless someone goes and then informs them.”
Recent commission meetings have lasted between three and four hours, and few residents sat through them entirely.
Town leaders agreed in June to temporarily shut down their live coverage of meetings after learning of lawsuits filed against other municipalities accused of not complying with specific provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The law, it turns out, requires governments to ensure that website content and other information provided to the public be accessible to people with disabilities, including those who have trouble hearing.
“The goal is to make sure there is accessibility to video and audio content for people who are hard of hearing or deaf,” said Miami attorney J. Courtney Cunningham, who has filed more than 30 lawsuits against state, county and local governments in hopes of bringing them into compliance.
Commissioners originally hoped to have the meetings online and on public access TV by August, but discovered they would need a converter to put closed captioning on the town’s systems.
That converter, commissioners learned last month, will cost in the neighborhood of $67,000 and would take several months to acquire because the town requires competitive bidding on high-dollar projects.
Until a converter is in place, the town is likely to continue using the interpreters at a cost of $170 an hour per interpreter for the first two hours and $85 each for every additional hour.
While residents are unable to view live feeds of commission meetings, videos with closed captioning are available online usually within a few days of the meeting.
Small towns such as South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes do not video-record or live-stream their meetings. Gulf Stream, like Boynton Beach, does not live-stream but offers video-recorded meetings through its YouTube channel, which has closed captioning available. Lantana posts audio-only recordings of its meetings.
Highland Beach commissioners said they hope to permanently resolve the issue quickly to ensure transparency.
“We have to make sure we’re giving our residents what they need,” Vice Mayor Alysen Africano Nila said.

By Rich Pollack

Marshall Labadie has his work cut out for him.
A long to-do list had been in the works for months before Highland Beach’s new town manager stepped into his office Oct. 1.
By the time he arrived, the tasks commissioners dropped on his lap became almost too numerous to count.
“He’s got a list a mile long, poor guy,” Commissioner Rhoda Zelniker said.
Even before he left Michigan, where he served as development services director for the township of West Bloomfield, Labadie was getting updates on projects in the works and memos about issues he now hopes to resolve.
Among the priorities for Labadie will be filling department head positions following the departures of Finance Director Cale Curtis in August and Public Works Director Ed Soper in September. Labadie will also look for a chief building official to create and manage an in-house building department.
In June, SAFEbuilt, the Colorado-based firm that provided building inspection services to the town for several years, gave notice that it would end its contract in September.
Unable to hire a qualified building official before SAFEbuilt left, the town last month entered into a one-year agreement for building inspection services with a second company, Cap Government Services. It is providing a chief building official as well as inspection and plan review services.
Under the agreement, the town is paying $90 an hour up to $25,000 for a building official and $75 an hour for an inspector and $80 an hour for an examiner.
“The new town manager will be the interface with Cap Services,” Commissioner Elyse Riesa said.
The town also has a temporary agreement with Government Services Group of Longwood, which has provided an interim senior financial analyst since early August. The analyst, who had been working five days a week to help prepare the town’s budget, will now be working three days a week.
The contract calls for the analyst to be paid $116 an hour plus the town’s covering lodging and travel. The town has been advertising for a building official for several months as well as for a finance director. Selected applications were forwarded to Labadie prior to his arrival.
The town is expected to begin advertising for a public works director, and in the interim senior managers within the department are responsible for day-to-day operations.
Labadie may also hire an assistant town manager/public information coordinator, a position identified in the budget.
During his first commission meeting, Labadie acknowledged there was a lot on his plate.
“We will get through the list,” he said.
Many issues have been waiting since May, when manager Valerie Oakes was fired. While interim manager William Thrasher led the town’s staff for 90 days until mid-September, commissioners ended up taking on a lot of administrative work that continued as Town Clerk Lanelda Gaskins filled in as the second interim manager.
“I’m hoping we don’t have to work so hard” now that Labadie is here, Zelniker said.

By Rich Pollack

Highland Beach residents are likely to see a slight increase in the taxes they pay for municipal services when they receive their tax bills this month.
The Town Commission last month finalized an operating tax rate of $3.12 per $1,000 of assessed property value, slightly higher than last year’s rate of $3.07 per $1,000 of assessed value.
Residents will also pay about 60 cents per $1,000 of assessed value to pay for debt service.
This year’s budget for the general fund, used for day-to-day operations, is $12.3 million, down from $13.6 million last year.
The tax rate increase and the use of close to $700,000 in reserve funds are due, commissioners have said, in part to a significant increase in the fee the town pays Delray Beach for fire service.
This year, Highland Beach has budgeted $4.28 million to pay for fire service from Delray Beach, up from an estimated $3.91 million last year.
Residents can view the complete budget on the town’s website at www.highlandbeach.us, clicking on “Government” at the top of the home page and then clicking on “Finance Department.”

By Sallie James

A plan to build a controversial 49-foot-tall, 14,270-square-foot duplex and a mansion on the north end of Boca Raton’s beach is slated for review Oct. 18 by the city’s Environmental Advisory Board.
The EAB advises the Planning and Zoning Board and the City Council about the possible environmental impact of proposed development and recommends ways to minimize adverse environmental impacts.
Exactly what can be built on privately owned oceanfront property has been a hot topic in Boca Raton since 2015, when a four-story mega-mansion was tentatively approved for an undersized oceanfront parcel at 2500 N. Ocean Blvd.
The duplex is proposed to be built at 2600 N. Ocean Blvd.
Residents complained at the time that the structure would change the face of the beach, disorient nesting sea turtles and set a precedent for more development. That project has not yet been constructed.
“It’s a big deal,” said Councilwoman Andrea O’Rourke. “I understand the staff is not recommending it. The EAB will then have to take the staff report into consideration, their own findings into consideration and what the petitioner wants to build there. Then the EAB makes a recommendation that will ultimately come to City Council.”
O’Rourke was not on the City Council when the first residence was approved in 2015. She said it was that approval that spurred her to eventually run for City Council.
“At the time I was up in arms,” O’Rourke said.
The EAB will base its recommendation on environmental impact, she said.
“It’s just a question of whether the land is viable to build on,” O’Rourke said.
City resident Jessica Gray formed the group Boca Save Our Beaches after the first project was proposed, and has been vocal in her opposition to any beachside construction.
“We need to preserve what is left of nature for future generations, and respect the habitat of other organisms, who lived here first,” Gray said.
Boca Save Our Beaches opposes both projects and posts its opposition regularly on Facebook.
“Here you have it: a green sign of death at 2600 N. Ocean. Coming soon, construction at a beach near you!!” read an August post. “Once our beaches are gone, we can never get them back. Say no to $$$$ and yes to the environment.”
The proposed structure for 2600 N. Ocean Blvd. is imposing. Each side of the duplex will have four bedrooms, five full baths, one half-bath, a glass elevator and a four-car garage, according to Delray Beach-based Azure Development, which is marketing the site. It would also have a 40-foot boardwalk and a rooftop swimming pool.
No sale price has been set for the duplex.
Gray is especially concerned about the long-term impact on endangered sea turtles.
“When the 2500 and the 2600 N. Ocean structures are completed, the turtles nesting on the property will be forced to nest closer to the erosion control line, which would put them at more risk of destruction by wave action and washout,” she said.
Gray is also worried about erosion if the dunes are compromised due to construction.
“The dunes of 2500 and 2600 will be permanently destroyed and almost nonexistent. Dune systems protect existing buildings west of the Coastal Construction Control Line during storms,” she noted. “When a large dune is not present, more damage is done by wind and water to the west side of A1A.”

By Mary Hladky

A new idea has emerged to boost performing arts in the city.
Dan Guin, executive director and co-artistic director of the Boca Ballet Theatre, will appear before the Boca Raton City Council on Oct. 9 to outline his vision for a performing arts district on city-owned land east of the city library on Spanish River Boulevard.
Guin envisions more than a single performing arts center. His concept is a multi-venue campus that a number of cultural organizations would use.
He has no intention of building another Kravis Center. Rather, he sees a number of smaller theaters that would meet the needs of local groups.
“We are trying to create a home for the groups that live and work here,” he said.
Speaking with The Coastal Star in late September, Guin declined to go into specifics until he makes his presentation to the council.
“We think we will paint a good image of what would work here for all of us,” he said.
The concept, he said, is supported by the 15 members of the Boca Raton Cultural Consortium, including the Harid Conservatory, the Symphonia chamber orchestra, the Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum, the Boca Raton Museum of Art and the Boca Raton Children’s Museum. Guin is president of the consortium.
Guin points to the Boca Ballet Theatre to explain why such venues are needed. Boca Ballet uses auditoriums at Florida Atlantic University, Spanish River High School and other locations for its productions.
While the facilities are good, part of the theater experience is missing, he said.
“We are bringing in the biggest names in ballet. You can go to the Met to see them. When you come here, you can’t even have a glass of wine. A table is the will call.”
He should be scheduling performances three years out, he said. Instead, he often does so only months in advance as he fits his schedule into the needs of the school or the university.
Guin sees an economic benefit to the city. He does not want Boca Raton to be unable to attract corporations because the community does not adequately support the arts.
“Do we want to have a community that has a thriving arts scene? You have to fertilize it. What we are looking to create is a fertile garden for the cultural arts,” he said.
Supporters have identified several sources of funding, he said. But a performing arts district will need the support of local residents, who are not as engaged in funding the arts as are residents of other cities such as Sarasota.
The goal is to raise one dollar of endowment for each dollar raised for bricks and mortar so that the district can be sustained, he said.
Council member Andrea O’Rourke, a strong supporter of the arts, invited Guin to make the presentation to the council.
“Arts and culture feed the economy,” she said. “I am a believer in this being an economic engine for the community.”
O’Rourke described Guin’s concepts as “beautifully thought out.” But she said it would not be easy to turn the ideas into reality.
“They will need a very strong capital campaign to see this into reality,” she said. “This is something the cultural community will have to take on.”
City Council members earlier this year agreed that a performing arts center would be a welcome addition to the city and have given some thought to including it in a new downtown government campus still being planned. No decisions have been made.
The Related Group has pitched two proposals to the city in which it would build a performing arts center and adjacent parking garage.
The second proposal called for Related to build the center in the downtown campus or wherever else the city wants. In return, the developer would buy the city-owned “old library” that now houses city offices near City Hall, tear it down and build 300 luxury apartments.
The city has not acted upon this offer, and said it would not do so until its planning for the downtown campus is more advanced.

By Steve Plunkett

Construction of the new Boca National Golf Course — just the course, not a clubhouse, advanced golf academy or other amenities — will cost $9.5 million to $11.5 million, the project’s designer says.
“We’ve really been running in first gear right now, and with the approval of the master plan that will allow us to really get moving,” said Wayne Branthwaite, with the Nick Price/Tom Fazio II design team.
The Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District hopes to begin building the course in June and open it to golfers next October. But neither the district nor the city, its partner in the acquisition, put any money for construction in budgets.
Arthur Koski, the district’s executive director, said it will borrow money to build the course if need be.
The city’s budget also makes no mention of the $65 million it expects to receive in May from the sale of the municipal golf course west of Boca Raton.
The Beach & Park District on Sept. 17 endorsed the designers’ recommendation to build an 18-hole championship course with a nine-hole executive course and a “full-length” driving range. The existing Boca Teeca course at the site had 27 holes with a driving range considered too short for modern equipment.
District commissioners in September also approved an almost $42 million budget for fiscal 2019. The tax rate is 91.47 cents per $1,000 of taxable value, an increase of nearly 4 percent from the budget year that just ended. The spending plan includes $3.75 million to install artificial turf fields at Patch Reef Park.
In Boca Raton, meanwhile, the City Council approved an $864.6 million budget for the new fiscal year. The tax rate, about $3.68 per $1,000 of taxable value, is a 4.6 percent increase. City residents will also pay a $135 fire assessment fee, up from $125.

By Mary Hladky

Defeated Boca Raton mayoral candidate Al Zucaro intends to step away from politics and from the BocaWatch blog he founded seven years ago.
Shortly after he conceded the race to Scott Singer on Aug. 28, Zucaro told The Coastal Star that he does not anticipate another run for election. He also said he will look for someone to take over the blog, which has been critical of the Boca Raton City Council and what he and his supporters see as over-development in the downtown.
“It no longer needs a warrior,” he said of BocaWatch. “It needs a reconciler.”
On Sept. 5 he posted on the blog that BocaWatch will be on sabbatical “for a short while.”
“But look for its return with a new team; a team who will move Boca to an even higher level!” he wrote.
The blog achieved its purpose by alerting residents to the need to control development and to encourage them to take a more active role in city affairs, he said on election night. His allies include new council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte.
“I have done what I set out to do by creating BocaWatch,” Zucaro said.

By Rich Pollack

HIGHLAND BEACH — For almost 20 years until his retirement in 2017, the Rev. Gerald Grace presided over the congregation at St. Lucy Catholic Church in Highland Beach as its pastor.
A native of Ireland who served the Catholic community in South Florida for more than half a century — first in Miami and then in Palm Beach County — Father Grace died Aug. 10. He was 79.
“Father Grace lived up to his last name, and offered compassion, wisdom and guidance,” said Peggy Gossett-Seidman, a longtime parishioner and now a Highland Beach town commissioner. “He was soft-spoken, moved about lightly and was always willing to administer to sick and troubled residents throughout the town, even if they weren’t Catholic.”
Born in County Limerick, Ireland, Father Grace had several brothers, including a twin, according to Gossett-Seidman. After arriving in South Florida, he first served in the Archdiocese of Miami and later moved to the Archdiocese of Palm Beach soon after it was created in 1984.
Father Grace served as a teacher at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary prior to being assigned to St. Lucy Catholic Church in 1998. He remained the church’s popular pastor until his retirement last year, when he became pastor emeritus.
“Father Grace was a unique priest,” said the Rev. D. Brian Horgan, St. Lucy’s current pastor. “His commitment to teaching never ended, and he was perhaps one of the most emerging theologians of his time, influencing the many priests throughout the state of Florida while he taught at the seminary.”
Horgan first met Father Grace when he was assigned to St. Lucy in 2013.
“I witnessed a man who remained faithful to his calling as a priest of Jesus Christ,” Horgan said. “He was a man who could laugh at himself, one who could make others laugh, and perhaps most importantly he was a man of principle and loyalty.”
Both Horgan and Gossett-Seidman remember Father Grace as a community leader who was always available to lend a gentle and helping hand.
“What has struck me the most about him was the fact that he was quick to forgive, generous to so many people and was always ready to go, day or night, to help people,” Horgan said.
Gossett-Seidman remembers one incident in particular that showed Father Grace’s kindness.
“In his finest hour, he once awakened at 4 a.m. to board an air ambulance helicopter and travel to a Miami hospital with a couple whose son was just born with a malformed heart,” she said. “That boy is now 20 and attended Father Grace’s funeral.”
The funeral Mass for Father Grace, held Aug. 14, was attended by more than 100 priests and clergy members, including Palm Beach Diocese Bishop Gerald Barbarito and Diocese of Orlando Bishop John Noonan. 
“Father Grace will be missed from the church of South Florida but will always be remembered as an architect of its success,” Horgan said.
Father Grace is survived by his brother and sister-in-law Edmond and Philomena Grace; his sister-in-law Anne Grace; and two nephews, Gerry and Micheál.

By Rich Pollack

A Lee County man who appears to have served as a financial adviser to an elderly Highland Beach woman found murdered in April has been arrested and charged with more than two dozen grand theft and financial fraud-related charges.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that David Del Rio, 35, was arrested near his home in Lehigh Acres on Florida’s west coast Thursday morning on a warrant from Palm Beach County.

Charges against Del Rio, according to NBC2-WBBH in Fort Myers, include two counts of exploitation of the elderly, two counts of money laundering of $100,000, seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification of a deceased person, and 13 counts of grand theft of less than $5,000 from a person over 65. In addition, Del Rio was charged with grand theft of more than $50,000 from a person over 65.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the bomb squad assisted with the arrest by providing tools, but would not say anything further. Witnesses said police removed several vehicles from the property as well.

After a first appearance in court Friday morning, Del Rio was held without bond and was ordered transported to Palm Beach County within three business days, according to WBBH.

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office officials, who have been tight-lipped since the late April death of 85-year-old Elizabeth Cabral, did not comment on the case or connect Del Rio to the homicide.

Neighbors in the Penthouse Highland condominium along State Road A1A however confirmed that Del Rio had served as a financial adviser to Betty Cabral and her late husband William Cabral, who suffered from dementia and died in 2017.

In addition, a 2015 notice of commencement document for work on the Cabrals' condo on file with the Palm Beach Clerk and Comptroller’s Office shows Del Rio’s signature next to William Cabral’s name as POA or power of attorney.

Neighbors at the condominium said they were concerned about the financial relationship between Betty Cabral and Del Rio after William died, but that Betty was reluctant to sever the ties because he treated her kindly.

“None of us liked him because we felt that he was trying to take advantage of Betty,” said Alan Croce, president of the Penthouse Highlands Association and a retired high-ranking law enforcement official in New York.

Croce said that although it has been almost five months since Cabral’s body was found, her fifth-floor condominium remains cordoned off as a crime scene.

Elizabeth Cabral’s body was discovered on the night of April 30 shortly after her 2013 Hyundai Sonata was reported abandoned in a vacant Pompano Beach field. The keys to the car were found on the floorboard. When police arrived to check on Cabral they discovered her body.

Cabral’s death sent shock waves through the community, since major crimes are rare in Highland Beach, which has a full Police Department, with officers routinely patrolling the town. Highland Beach has repeatedly been rated among the top 10 safest cities in Florida by organizations that compile rankings.

Highland Beach’s only other confirmed homicide occurred in 1994 when Richard P. Ramaglia, 49, was stabbed to death in his home in the 4000 block of South Ocean Boulevard. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies later arrested 23 year-old Mary Juhnke. Juhnke told detectives an argument over whether she should have an abortion led to the stabbing.

Juhnke later pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 17 years in prison in December 1994. A woman with the same name was killed in a 2015 auto accident in Washington state, where Juhnke was originally from.

By Mary Hladky

Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley denied a defense motion to dismiss public corruption charges against suspended Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie at a Sept. 11 hearing, but the ruling will have little impact on how the case proceeds.

Bruce Zimet, Haynie’s defense lawyer, told Kelley his motion was not intended to bring a swift resolution to the case but was simply an attempt to clarify the charges against Haynie so that he can defend her.

“All these things can be cleaned up easily… so a proper defense can be prepared,” Zimet said.

Assistant State Attorney Brian Fernandes said no cleanup is needed because the charges against Haynie are adequately stated and state law does not require him to do more.

“We have complied with our legal requirements,” Fernandes said.

After the hearing, Zimet said he would file more motions in coming weeks and did not predict when the case would go to trial.

Asked whether the case might end with a plea bargain, Zimet said, “I don’t think so.”

Haynie, 62, did not appear at the hearing. She has pleaded not guilty and has waived her right to a speedy trial.

She was arrested on April 24 on seven charges, including official misconduct, perjury, misuse of public office, and failure to disclose voting conflicts. If convicted, she faces more than 20 years in prison.

Gov. Rick Scott suspended her from office, and Haynie dropped out of the District 4 county commission race.

Prosecutors contend that Haynie used her position on the city council to vote on four matters that financially benefited James Batmasian, the city’s largest downtown commercial landowner, and failed to disclose income she received from him.

The investigation by the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office public corruption unit found that Haying failed to report $335,000 in income in disclosure forms required by the state, including $84,000 from Batmasian or his company Investments Limited, from 2014 through 2017.

Zimet had filed two motions to dismiss the charges, contending the state made mistakes in the charges that warranted their dismissal.

The most consequential involves a state anti-corruption law that was amended by the legislature in 2016 to make it easier for prosecutors to prove corruption.

The law initially said the state had to establish that a public official acted with “corrupt intent.” The amended law changed that to “knowingly and intentionally,” a lesser standard of proof.

But in two of the felony official misconduct charges against Haynie, prosecutors said she acted “knowingly and intentionally” even though her alleged crimes occurred before that language went into effect. As a result, Haynie was charged with a “non-existent crime,” the motion to dismiss states.

The third felony official misconduct count did not lay out how she violated the law, while the felony perjury count does not say what false statement Haynie is accused of making. The three misdemeanor charges do not say Haynie’s violations were “willful” and so do not allege a criminal offense, the motion states.

In response, the state amended its charging document in July, conceding Zimet’s contention that it had used the wrong language in the first two official misconduct charges and said the new wording made moot Zimet’s effort to get those charges tossed.

The state also changed the misdemeanor charges to state that Haynie acted “willfully.”

At the Sept. 11 hearing, Fernandes said those actions remedied any “perceived” problems with the charging document.

But Zimet argued that the state had not adequately fixed the problems. The charges remain so vague that it is not clear what the actual allegations are against Haynie and how she benefited from her allegedly illegal actions, he said.

Kelley, however, ruled that the charging document is “sufficient.”

The next scheduled hearing in the case is an Oct. 26 status check.

Richard Lucibella listens as his attorney and the prosecutor tell Circuit Judge Daliah Weiss that she will have to resolve a motion seeking to limit what the jury can hear. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett

Former Ocean Ridge Vice Mayor Richard Lucibella will wait at least another four months for his day in court.

At a Sept. 7 hearing Circuit Judge Daliah Weiss checked her calendar and gave Lucibella his new trial date of Jan. 28, 2019. He will also return to her courtroom Oct. 12 when she will rule on prosecutor’s Danielle Grundt’s motion to limit what attorneys and witnesses for Lucibella can tell the jury.

Lucibella, 65, is charged with battery on an Ocean Ridge police officer and resisting arrest with violence, both felonies, and a misdemeanor count of using a firearm while intoxicated. He has pleaded not guilty.

Police went to Lucibella’s backyard Oct. 22, 2016, when neighbors reported hearing gunfire. He resigned from the Town Commission seven weeks later.

Lucibella’s first trial date was in April 2017 but was postponed several times. Most recently it was to start Aug. 20, but Grundt’s motion derailed that schedule.

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher (standing) watches as ballots are examined during the recount of the Boca Raton City Council Seat A election Aug. 31. There were 16 previously uncounted ballots. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett and Dan Moffett

 And the winner is: Andy Thomson!

An agonizing 67 hours after the polls closed Aug. 28 and following almost six hours of recounting ballots by machine and by hand, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher declared that Thomson won Seat A on the City Council—by maybe 32 votes.

Complete results were delayed by her computer’s programming, but Thomson is “clearly the winner,” Bucher said before her software spit out the final results.

The almost-final tally was 7,929 votes for Thompson and 7,897 for Kathy Cottrell. Tamara McKee, the third candidate, had 2,133.

“I’m thrilled to be in this position,” Thomson said from Scotland, where he and his wife, Joanna, are celebrating an anniversary trip they planned long before the recount was ordered. “Nobody would have expected it would have come to this.”

Thomson, who campaigned on a message of “responsible, managed growth,” is expected to often side with Mayor Scott Singer, who touted a record “of opposing overdevelopment” in this election, and Deputy Mayor Jeremy Rodgers, who attended both Singer's and Thomson's election night gatherings.

Thomson said his narrow victory showed him voters are split about the city’s future. “I look forward to working together to bridge this divide,” he said.

Council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte attended Cottrell’s election night watch. O’Rourke, who endorsed Cottrell early on, defeated Thomson in a sometimes-bitter campaign for Seat B in March 2017.

Bucher said the recount ensures that the totals are accurate and that Thomson won. “I don’t want to be 99 percent,” she said. “I want to be 100 percent accurate.”

Bucher’s staff, since Election Day, found a bin with 16 ballots that were overvotes or undervotes that were set aside but not counted. No one can say how this happened, but her office’s attorney says it was definitely a mistake.

“We should have done them Tuesday night,” said Andrew Baumann, Bucher’s attorney.

Thomson won nine of the 16 votes and Cottrell won three. McKee got one; the others were tossed out by the canvassing board, which included Bucher and Circuit Judges August Bonavita and Bradley Harper.

Cottrell and Thomson both received about 1,600 votes more than Al Zucaro did in the mayor’s race. Zucaro lost to Singer in a landslide, 63 percent to 33 percent. Zucaro's BocaWatch blog supported Cottrell, as it did O'Rourke and Mayotte before.

A 19-vote difference, 0.1 percent, triggered the hand count of 1,518 undervotes and overvotes, ballots without a choice or with two or more candidates chosen. Most were undervotes and had no impact on the race.

State law requires a hand count when the difference is 0.25 percent or less.

On election night Cottrell held a lead of more than 200 votes after early votes were counted and again when about two-thirds of the city's precincts were tallied.

Her lead narrowed to 37 votes by 10 p.m. Two hours later she and Thomson were tied. Mail-in and provisional ballots counted near midnight gave Thomson first a three-vote advantage, then pushed him ahead by 19.

By Mary Hladky

The Boca Raton City Council has endorsed changes that would make it simpler and less time-consuming for small-business owners to get approvals for their projects in the downtown.
Council members have long talked about the need to streamline the process for reviewing downtown building and renovation projects, and the issue was highlighted earlier this year by the saga of an entrepreneur who wanted to open an ice cream shop on Palmetto Park Road.
Rick Felberbaum said it took nearly two years to get City Council approval to change the allowable use of his building from office space to a 971-square-foot ice cream shop. But when Felberbaum still needed to jump through more hoops to launch his business, he gave up and opened his shop in June in Delray Beach.
“The city took such a long time to approve my plans, I had to make other plans,” he told The Coastal Star in March. “I had no other choice.”
Council member Andrea O’Rourke, sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency chair, brought up the city’s loss of Felberbaum’s small business on Aug. 20 as CRA commissioners discussed city staff-recommended changes to the ordinance governing downtown development and CRA rules.
A potential buyer of Felberbaum’s building wants to open a retail shop but fears going through a cumbersome process, she said.
“How can we encourage this business to prosper … on Palmetto Park Road so we have vitality in our downtown, but we don’t have to put the potential buyer through that type of long-term process?” she asked.
Development Services Director Brandon Schaad said the changes likely would shorten the length of time to complete approvals, which now can take 18 to 24 months, to just a few months for that potential buyer.
The changes would benefit small projects or when a business owner or developer wants to make minor changes to projects that already have completed the approval process.
The new rules, which must be finalized and formally approved by the City Council at a future meeting, in effect would make a distinction between a major condominium, apartment or hotel project, and smaller projects such as a retail shop or restaurant in the downtown.
The rules would allow City Manager Leif Ahnell, who also serves as CRA executive director, to approve a project that includes a new building or addition to an existing building that is 5,000 square feet or less, and to approve minor changes to landscaping and parking on land parcels of one-half acre or less.
Changes to paint color, roofing material, window trims and the like would go to the Community Appearance Board for approval after city staff recommends in favor, and then placed on the CRA consent agenda for final approval without debate unless a council member asks for discussion or more information.
Another proposal would allow 10 percent of trees and plants in an already approved landscape plan to be changed if the CAB approves.
The long list of proposed changes includes establishing valet parking standards and electric vehicle parking standards in the downtown. Such standards already exist outside downtown.
If a building project causes the loss of on-street parking, the developer would be required to replace it at another on-street location. Currently, the developer can provide for the parking in the project’s parking garage, but drivers don’t necessarily know they have access to it.
The changes also clarify existing rules, such as to explicitly state that industrial uses are not allowed in the downtown and to more clearly specify when electricity, telephone and other distribution lines must be placed underground.
Council members supported the changes.
“I think these are all really good clarifications and modifications,” said council member Monica Mayotte.
Architect Derek Vander Ploeg, who has long advocated streamlining the development approval process, also voiced his support.
“I think this is great. Long overdue,” he said.