By Mary Hladky

Groundbreaking is expected next summer for Boca Beach House, a 32-unit luxury condominium on Lake Boca Raton across the water from the Boca Raton Resort & Club.
Units in the four-story condo will start at $3 million and have two to five bedrooms, ranging in size up to 7,500 square feet. The project includes a 14-slip marina.
Miami developers Key International and Integra Investments purchased the 3-acre site, formerly owned by the resort, for $17.3 million in 2017.
At the time the purchase was announced, Key and Integra said they had acquired one of the last developable waterfront parcels in east Boca Raton.
Buyers who pay dues will be able to use the resort’s facilities, including restaurants, golf courses, tennis courts, pools and spa.
Billionaire Michael S. Dell acquired the resort last summer for nearly $900 million in the largest property deal in Palm Beach County history. It continues to be managed by Hilton under the Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts brand.
The seller was an affiliate of Blackstone, a New York-based private equity firm that acquired the 337-acre resort in 2004.
Boca Raton has seen a spate of luxury development in recent years. Rising from the ground now are the 384-unit Alina Residences on Southeast Mizner Boulevard and the 92-unit Residences at Mandarin Oriental, adjacent to a Mandarin Oriental hotel, on Federal Highway north of Camino Real.

By Mary Thurwachter

Three Lantana police officers were given lifesaving awards — and a standing ovation — for having prevented two suicide attempts on I-95 overpasses in September.
Police Chief Sean Scheller, who made the presentations during the Nov. 25 Town Council meeting, shared the details, and in one case video from the police car, of the rescues.
On Sept. 24, Officer Ngin Tuang responded to I-95 and West Lantana Road regarding a suicidal woman atop the overpass, Scheller said. Tuang establish rapport with the woman to distract her. During the conversation, Tuang was able to inch close enough to grab her from the railing and pull her to safety.
“Officer Tuang’s swift and decisive action clearly saved this woman’s life and may have prevented additional injury or death on an unsuspecting motorist traveling on the interstate,” Scheller said.
On Sept. 29, police were called to the I-95 overpass at Hypoluxo Road, where a man was straddling the guardrail above the southbound lanes of the interstate.
Officer Jacquelyn Cucca talked to the man until she and her partner, Officer Luis Morales, were able to get close enough to pull him off the wall. Scheller, who showed a video captured by a squad car camera, praised Cucca for her patience and calming demeanor, and both officers for their work.
“Their decisive action and teamwork clearly saved this man’s life and may have prevented additional deaths or injuries to the unsuspecting motorists below,” Scheller said.
“This doesn’t happen often,” he said, referring to suicide attempts from overpasses, “and I’m so proud of these officers.”
Among other police honored at the meeting was Officer Elizabeth Waldkoetter, who received the Employee of the Third Quarter award for leading the department’s efforts to collect and deliver supplies to the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian.
“Elizabeth worked diligently with town staff and local residents in coordinating relief efforts for those dramatically affected in the Bahamas,” Scheller said. Waldkoetter secured a local vessel, which made several trips to the Bahamas.
In other news, Town Manager Deborah Manzo introduced the town’s new development services director, Nicole Dritz, effective Nov. 18.
Dritz, 30, has worked for the town for five years and has been the town clerk. She replaces David Thatcher, who resigned in October after 19 years with the town.
Her responsibilities will include managing the building division, code enforcement, planning and economic development functions. She will oversee the town’s redevelopment efforts, which include drafting codes, creating land use categories, amending the comprehensive plan and developing strategies for commercial and residential revitalization.
Dritz has a bachelor’s degree in urban and regional planning from FAU and served as the town’s community planner for three years. She also served as assistant public works director and interim library director.
Until a new clerk is hired, Dritz will do double duty as clerk and development services director.
In other action, the Town Council gave Manzo a glowing evaluation and a 6% pay increase — from $148,542 a year to $157,455. Her contract was extended until 2023.

Decorations at Highland Beach Town Hall are a little more modest this year. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

The holidays are bright at Town Hall again this year but not quite as eye-catching since two oversize decorations have been mothballed following concerns that last year’s display was a little over the top.
For the second year in a row, the Highland Beach decorations feature a 25-foot holiday tree surrounded by thousands of lights, a 12-foot menorah and other festive decorations.
Missing from last year are a giant dreidel and a life-size Nativity scene.
“Overall, the concept was that there was a little too much for a small site,” Town Manager Marshall Labadie said.
During a meeting in late September, town commissioners wrestled with scaling back the decorations — which one unhappy resident said made Highland Beach look like Disney World — or abandoning the contract with the outside firm that provides the displays.
“There has to be a happy medium between doing nothing and going over the top,” said Commissioner Evalyn David.
Last year, the town agreed to a four-year lease-to-own agreement in which Highland Beach would pay $25,000 a year for Brandano Displays of Margate to install thousands of lights around the municipal complex, including at the entrances of the Police Department, Fire Department and Town Hall.
The agreement also called for Brandano to put up the artificial Southern pine Christmas tree as well as the menorah, the 7-foot-tall dreidel and a seven-piece Nativity with pieces 6 feet tall.
Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman said she agreed with some residents who felt the oversize decorations were too big for the location in front of Town Hall.
“Having OK’d them on an 8 ½-by-11 piece of paper, you really couldn’t determine how they would look on the site,” she said.
Labadie was able to negotiate an agreement with Brandano this year in which the company would not include the dreidel and Nativity scene and reduce the overall cost by $4,000 a year for this year and the next two years.
Some commissioners felt the reduction of $12,000 on the remaining $75,000 contract was minimal, but Gossett-Seidman said that “getting $12,000 back is enough to make it worthwhile.”
Labadie has pointed out that the contact includes Brandano’s putting up and taking down the remaining displays — including the tree — as well as storage.
The tree, the menorah and the lights will become town property after the 2021 holiday season, he said.
Residents had the opportunity to see the decorations for themselves during the scheduled Dec. 5 Light Up the Holidays celebration, which also honored the town’s 70th anniversary.
Trolley service was planned to once again bring visitors to the annual celebration, which was to include refreshments and a performance by the Dimensional Harmony chorus from Boynton Beach High School.

Once construction of the four main buildings is complete in the Atlantic Crossing project, art that represents fishing nets will be erected to link them. Rendering provided

By Jane Smith

The Atlantic Crossing project in downtown Delray Beach will sport an aerial net sculpture when it’s finished in about four years.
There are four buildings that need to be finished to hold up the 209-foot-long aerial sculpture spanning Northeast Seventh Avenue, about one block north of East Atlantic Avenue, said Paul Campbell.
Campbell, the project’s main architect, said he didn’t know the estimated end date when he appeared Nov. 13 before a city advisory board.
The Atlantic Crossing developer, the Ohio-based Edwards Cos., also declined to give an estimated end date. In August, the company predicted the project would be fully developed by 2023.
The $300 million mixed-use project occupies 9.2 acres at the northeast corner of Northeast Fifth and East Atlantic avenues.
Don DeVere, Edwards vice president, wrote through his publicist Andrea Knibbs that the first building is on schedule to break ground by the end of the year. It will be a combination of retail, restaurant and office space with three signed tenants.
The first floor of that building will stand at 11 feet on the east side and 13.3 feet on the west side, Delray Beach spokeswoman Gina Carter wrote in a Nov. 18 email.
The garage underneath that building has a 3-foot-thick slab, making the garage ceiling height 9 feet 6 inches, according to Carter, who answered questions directed to the city’s Public Works Department.
The city’s Site Plan Review and Appearance Board approved the aerial sculpture and other project changes unanimously on Nov. 13 in its second meeting on the issues. When Campbell came before board members on Oct. 16, he was unable to answer all their questions about the aerial sculpture and other changes.
The sculpture, made by fiber artist Janet Echelman, will be supported on a frame that is attached to the four buildings, Campbell said. The frame stands out 8 to 10 feet from the buildings, minimizing contact with the structures.
“It can withstand 185-mph winds, just like the buildings,” he said. “But the sculpture can be damaged by flying debris.”
The Atlantic Crossing developer is discussing at what wind speed the sculpture will come down, what kind of process will be used — manual or powered — and what kind of fabric will be used to create the netting.
“There are two choices,” Campbell said. “Polyester nylon is cheaper but lasts about five years. The 20-year solution is a Teflon fabric, but it’s more costly.”
A similar Echelman sculpture is going up in the St. Petersburg Pier District, he said. There, the team had to satisfy the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission concerns about bird safety. The team was able to show that even a subtle breeze makes the sculpture move, keeping birds away, Campbell said.
Trellis added to road
Another noticeable Atlantic Crossing change is the addition of a trellis covering the two-way road that will be created to connect Northeast Federal Highway to Northeast Seventh Avenue. The road also will have a speed bump to slow traffic.
Nearby raised planters will be deeper, allowing for more soil and a variety of plants, Campbell said.
Other changes are minor touches to the architecture to create more interesting columns and other features.
A Palm Trail Homeowners Association representative asked about the temporary closure of Northeast Seventh Avenue and Northeast First Street. That group wants to close the intersection permanently to vehicles.
The city’s principal planner, Scott Pape, explained the review process.
One year after the last building is issued a certificate of occupancy, the city engineer and city staff will evaluate whether a permanent closure is needed, Pape said. The process was included in the developer’s conditions of approval.
Overall, the SPRAB members liked the changes that Campbell presented.
“I like it,” said vice chairman Todd L’Herrou. “A lot of little changes made a big difference.”

By Dan Moffett

South Palm Beach voters will have several important charter amendments to consider when they go to the polls for the March 17 municipal election, and the results of the voting could change the town’s governance for years to come.
Probably the most consequential amendment proposal is a referendum that would increase the term of Town Council members and the mayor from two years to four. It would also extend the terms of council members elected in March 2019 to March 2022.
The change to longer terms has the approval of at least four current council members who believe the town should reduce the expense of frequent elections, improve efficiency by allowing officials to gain experience and decrease the time spent on campaigning.
“It will save us some money,” said Mayor Bonnie Fischer, “and it should help with stability.”
Fischer was elected to council in 2011. She is halfway through her fifth 2-year term.
The extended term referendum was one of a bundle of ballot measures the council approved at its Nov. 12 meeting.
Another proposed amendment calls for removing charter restrictions on the council’s power to increase or decrease council members’ pay. In 2017, the council narrowly passed an ordinance that raised the mayor’s monthly salary from $250 to $500 and boosted council members’ pay from $250 to $300. The proposed amendment would make it easier for the council to change compensation.
“We’re not extending our terms or giving ourselves raises,” said Councilman Bill LeRoy. “We’re asking you to allow us to do that.”
Also approved for the March election is a proposal that would make it easier for citizens to put initiatives on the ballot by reducing the number of petition signatures needed to qualify, from 15% of registered voters to 10%.
Council members also approved a proposed amendment that would give the mayor’s position the power to declare emergencies — a measure they hope would help expedite storm evacuations.
Two other charter issues on the ballot are essentially housekeeping measures that clean up outdated language.
Two seats on the council are scheduled to be contested in the March election, those held by Vice Mayor Robert Gottlieb and Councilwoman Stella Gaddy Jordan. The qualifying period for candidates began at noon Dec. 3 and runs until noon Dec. 17.
In other business:
• Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Maj. Chris Keane told the council his deputies “were completely over the moon” because of the warm reception they’ve received from residents.
Keane said he expects the seven former South Palm Beach police officers to complete their sheriff’s training regimen in November and be ready to return to duty in the town by December.
In June, the council voted to approve a 10-year contract with PBSO for its law enforcement services.
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw has scheduled a meet-and-greet barbecue luncheon for the town from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 12 at The Barclay condominiums, 3546 S. Ocean Blvd.
Deputies will be on hand to show off new equipment and answer questions.
• Town Manager Robert Kellogg said officials are making progress on getting the last of the 16 easements needed from condo and property owners to begin a three-week, $700,000 dune restoration project with the town of Palm Beach early next year — perhaps before the end of April.
Kellogg and Fischer said the management of the sand distribution, start date and timetable will be up to Palm Beach, which holds the permits and funding for the project.
“We’re going along for the ride,” said Kellogg.
“They’re basically doing us a favor,” said Fischer.

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach is tackling gridlock downtown by forcing delivery truck drivers and ride-share vehicles off bustling East Atlantic Avenue and onto the side streets.
The city now has seven designated side street stops that are marked with signs that read: Ride-share only.
Although the stops are designated for ride-share, delivery drivers must also use them during the day to unload their trucks. Ride-share drivers of vehicles, such as Uber and Freebee, must use the spots between 5 p.m. and 3 a.m. to pick up or drop off passengers. The drivers can spend only 5 minutes in the spot. Delivery drivers have no time limit for unloading.
The new rule also includes any drop-off or pickup of passengers on East Atlantic between Swinton and Fifth avenues. This includes friends or family.
The city started the program Nov. 1. Drivers caught discharging or picking up passengers were warned the first time, said Nairoby Bravo, police spokeswoman. The second time, they received a nonmoving citation of $115. The number of citations issued in November was not available.
“We’re following what airports do by having designated drop-off and pickup zones,” said Mark Denkler, chairman of the city’s Parking Management Advisory Board. Its members approved the plan.
Denkler operates three shoe stores downtown. He has seen that stretch of East Atlantic become clogged when no parking spaces are open, and the vehicles simply stop in the middle of East Atlantic to let out passengers or pick them up.
For people with mobility problems, the side-street solution is the lesser of two evils, Denkler said.
“It’s less dangerous for them,” he said. “Having the ride-share companies and even relatives turn down a side street, it adds only a half block that they have to walk or be pushed in a wheelchair.”

By Jane Smith

Hamid Hashemi and three other men resigned from their executive positions with iPic Entertainment on Nov. 15.
It was the same day that its lender gained control of the iPic luxury theater chain through an affiliate, iPic Theaters.
The new company operates iPic theaters in 15 cities and remains based in Boca Raton. The lender, Retirement Systems of Alabama, canceled the lease Oct. 31 for headquarters office space in its new theater building in Delray Beach, now called 4th & 5th Delray.
In 2015, Hashemi had promised to move the company’s headquarters to Delray Beach. He persuaded city leaders to approve his project with a promise of higher-paying jobs in Delray Beach.
Also, on Oct. 31, RSA canceled the lease for the corporate apartment in Boca Raton.
The changes were allowed because RSA had made the winning bid for the iPic assets in bankruptcy court, offering $51.8 million. The luxury movie theater chain had filed for bankruptcy court protection on Aug. 5 in Delaware, when it was crumbling under a $220 million debt load to RSA.
When iPic began in 2010, Hashemi had a novel approach to movie theaters by providing reclining seats and food service. Soon, competitors began providing the same luxury movie-watching experience.
In addition, fewer people were going to the movies, preferring to stream movies in the comfort of their homes.
In Delray Beach, a complex of eight iPic theaters opened in March. Its pod seating allows two people to sit together, perfect for date nights but not for a group of friends. Even with the membership program, people must pay about $26 for a movie ticket on weekends.
RSA has no comment at this time, spokeswoman Michelle Soudry said via email. The publicist for the 4th and 5th Delray building owners did not respond to an email seeking comment.
In bankruptcy court, the new company paid $78,000 of the $135,947 owed, or 57%, for theater space in Delray Beach, according to a Nov. 18 filing.
In Boca Raton’s Mizner Park, landlord Brookfield National Properties received nearly $42,966 of the $79,107 owed, or 54%, for office and theater space, also filed on Nov. 18.
Separately, the 4th and 5th Delray building owners asked for parking and valet sign approval on Nov. 13 from the city’s Site Plan Review and Appearance Board.
The owners need to remove two sandwich-board signs directing customers to the valet stand and 90 public parking spaces in its garage, which also serves iPic customers and office users.
Retailers and office building owners are not allowed to use those signs in Delray Beach, said Mark Denkler, chairman of the city’s Parking Management Advisory Board. Only restaurants can use them to show their menus, he said.
Delray Beach is working on a “wayfinding sign” program to show the location of public parking lots and garages, museums, shopping, etc. In December, some sign options will be shown to the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency board.
Consequently, the SPRAB members approved 4-foot-tall orange signs for the valet and public parking. The signs project out from the building by nearly 6 feet and will be attached at the bottom of the second floor.
The word “Valet” will be used and a capital P for the public parking. The white letters will be outlined in dark brown. The double-sided signs will be illuminated at night.

The Patriot Pickleball website shows players using the sound-dampening Sniper paddle. Photo provided

By Steve Plunkett

Pickleball may be coming to the Little Club but — shhh! — play will have to be very, very quiet.
Town commissioners asked that an independent acoustic engineer examine how loud two proposed pickleball courts would be, tabling a potential agreement hashed out over multiple meetings of the club, neighbors and the Architecture Review and Planning Board.
Conditions imposed by the ARPB would have players using only foam balls with “sound-dampening characteristics” and paddles no louder than the patent-pending Sniper “Quiet” paddle.
Play would be limited from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends.
The club would also put acoustic fencing around the courts along with landscaping to improve the looks.
“The Little Club has made tremendous effort, I believe from my research, made every effort that they can to reduce the noise impact from the proposed two pickleball courts,” Mayor Scott Morgan said.
But Morgan was not ready to approve the conditions of use.
“Noise is one of those features that is variable and ill-defined and not easily quantifiable,” he said.
Nine residents, mostly from the Hillside House and St. Andrews Club directly east and north of the proposed courts, urged commissioners to tell the Little Club to find another place for pickleball.
“If you haven’t played pickleball yourself or gone to it, go online and just Google pickleball, lawsuits, noise — and you’ll fall over at what it is that people have found out about the playing of this game,” St. Andrews Club resident and Little Club member Marilyn Benoit said.
The town’s code already restricts where comparatively quieter tennis courts can go, Commissioner Paul Lyons said. “No tennis court … shall be located, designed, operated or maintained to interfere unduly with the enjoyment of property rights by owners of the properties adjoining the tennis courts,” he said.
Sophie Bent, who owns two Hillside House units, said the Little Club’s original plan positioned the courts 25 feet from her window.
“Now the new plan is about 50 feet from our window so it’s kind of an improvement but not much of an improvement,” Bent said. “It’s not as bad of a plan but it’s still a bad plan, in my view.”
St. Andrews resident Carol Smith said a consultant in Arizona who specializes in controlling pickleball noise recommends that courts be at least 500 feet from residences.
Ros Curtis, president of the Little Club, welcomed the additional study the mayor wanted and said the club wants to be a good neighbor.
“Hopefully that will yield some more factual conclusions that people will be comfortable with, and we can go from there,” Curtis said.
A relatively new sport, pickleball is played on a court about one-fourth the size of a tennis court and combines elements of tennis, badminton and pingpong.
The game “is definitely noisier than tennis due to the hard paddle and plastic ball,” notes Pickleball Portal, an online blog. “Tennis is relatively quiet, the sound of the ball coming off the racket strings is very muted compared to the clack, clack, clack of pickleball paddles hitting the ball.”
The fast-growing sport has generated lawsuits from neighbors in Newport Beach, California, and Aiken, South Carolina, the blog says. Arizona’s Sun City Grand Pickleball Courts even has a list of “Approved (Green Zone)” and “Banned (Red Zone)” paddles.
The Sniper paddle that received the ARPB’s blessing coats a polypropylene honeycomb core with polyurethane foam to dampen noise. Patriot Pickleball, its manufacturer, promises that “for players who live in areas where the ‘pickleball pop’ is an issue for neighbors, this paddle promises to be the quietest yet.”
In other business, town commissioners hired Baxter and Woodman, their consultant on replacing the water main on north A1A, to update a 2002 study on building an underground sewer system for Gulf Stream and estimate construction costs. The firm will be paid $32,265 for the update and return with a final report in March.

The 1937 Wellbrock House, designed by Samuel Ogren Sr., was gingerly relocated Nov. 17 by the Community Redevelopment Agency to CRA property on North Swinton Avenue, where it will become CRA offices. It took house mover Pat Burdette nearly 11 hours to navigate the nine-block route. Delray Beach architect Roger Cope led the move to preserve the house, which was slated for demolition. It was the longtime winter home of John C. Wellbrock, a prominent produce broker. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

ABOVE: AT&T employees recorded the house move. BELOW: Utility lines and traffic lights were raised and lowered and some tree limbs removed to allow the house to pass.

By Steve Plunkett

Florida Press Club judges honored The Coastal Star with three first-place awards, five seconds and two thirds in the annual Excellence in Journalism Competition last month.
Top awards in their categories were to Editor Mary Kate Leming (commentary) for her columns on the murderous attack at a newspaper office in Maryland, guns and suicide, and local environmental awareness; to Ron Hayes (arts news) for a feature on murals being painted in a Boca Raton park; and to Scott Simmons and others (feature page design) for laying out stories and photos on Thanksgiving toasts, Publix scales and the new Norton Museum.
Runners-up went to Rich Pollack (in-depth reporting and education writing) for coverage of a Highland Beach homicide and a profile of the retiring head of Gulf Stream School; to Gretel Sarmiento (arts news) for reviews at the Norton and the Boca Museum of Art; to Dan Moffett (government news) for reports on South Palm Beach and Ocean Ridge; and to Steve Plunkett (public safety news) for coverage of a former Ocean Ridge vice mayor’s felony trial.
Third-place awards were given to Joyce Reingold (health writing) for columns on 3-D mammography at Bethesda Women’s Medical Center and other subjects, and to Brian Biggane (sports feature) for articles including Delray Beach’s renown as a mecca for tennis.

By Jane Smith

Boynton Beach Fire Rescue has a new leader.
Matthew Petty, previously deputy chief, is the interim chief after Glenn Joseph resigned on Nov. 29. Joseph’s salary was $145,376.
Boynton Beach hired Petty as a firefighter in February 2008. He received promotions over the years and most recently was named the deputy chief of administration in March. His salary was $117,998.
On Dec. 1, Petty became interim director of fire rescue services. His new salary is $135,000.
City Manager Lori LaVerriere is searching for a permanent fire chief.
Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes both contract with Boynton Beach for fire rescue services.
Joseph started as the Boynton Beach fire chief on May 2, 2016, following the retirement of Chief Ray Carter that January.
“I always planned to stay three to five years with Boynton,” said Joseph, who had spent 29 years with the city of Boca Raton, the last nine as deputy fire chief.
Joseph, 56, said he will take six months to one year off to regroup and then consider teaching or consulting.
“I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in more than three years,” he said. The stress and demanding nature of the job began to take their toll, he said. 

By Steve Plunkett

A Palm Beach County circuit judge has awarded Martin O’Boyle’s attorneys $122,687 in fees for a lawsuit that sought 15 months’ worth of a town commissioner’s emails and text messages.
The total was slashed after an expert witness for O’Boyle’s side testified that the fees the O’Boyle Law Firm wanted should be cut from $87,007 to $53,599, Circuit Judge Janis Brustares Keyser wrote in her Nov. 22 order.
Nine lawyers and paralegals at the O’Boyle Law Firm and four lawyers at threes other firms submitted bills.
A lawyer for the town, Joanne O’Connor, said Gulf Stream considers the ruling a win. “We do certainly think it reflects a significant reduction of fees,” O’Connor said. “Their own expert said reduce the fees by 40%.”
Elaine Johnson James, who represents O’Boyle’s StopDirtyGovernment LLC in the case, said Keyser still has to determine how much the expert is owed.
“With litigation ongoing, my client believes it is not appropriate to comment,” said James, who billed $27,137.
The lesser amount the expert recommended included approximately $21,000 for work done by Martin O’Boyle’s son, Jonathan, who heads the O’Boyle Law Firm. But the judge ruled that Jonathan O’Boyle was not entitled to fees for work he did after his father replaced him with another attorney, Robert Rivas, and further trimmed his allowable bill to $10,360.
Jonathan O’Boyle sent an automatic reply to an email seeking comment saying he was out of the country.
Rivas, who separately has represented The Coastal Star in First Amendment and other issues, was due $63,753, the judge said. But Rivas and Martin O’Boyle had a falling-out in 2018 over this and other cases, and Rivas sued for $120,019 in unpaid bills. Rivas dropped his lawsuit after settling for $50,000, he testified in a deposition in another public records case.
Keyser’s decision leaves two cases unresolved of the four left open in the global settlement that Gulf Stream and Martin O’Boyle reached in December 2018. The town paid O’Boyle $15,000 in that agreement, in which both sides dropped five cases and part of a sixth.
Gulf Stream in August agreed to pay $6,000 to settle a lawsuit over an O’Boyle request for a bill by another attorney for the town, Robert Sweetapple.
Still to be decided are O’Boyle attorney’s fees in lawsuits over a second Sweetapple bill and a letter O’Boyle sent the town regarding rules for sober houses. Also unresolved are the fees in another public records lawsuit that was not covered by the global agreement and which sought Gulf Stream police communications during the 2014 municipal election when O’Boyle ran for a Town Commission seat.
O’Boyle and town resident Chris O’Hare began blanketing Town Hall with public records requests in 2013, ultimately making more than 2,000 demands and filing dozens of lawsuits.
Both men said they were exercising their right to inspect government records; Gulf Stream argued it was a scheme to extort inflated attorney’s fees from small municipalities.

By Steve Plunkett

Gulf Stream had every reason to think it would win its ultimately unsuccessful RICO claim against resident Martin O’Boyle and others and so was not wrong to pursue the case, federal appellate judges say.
“Simply put, the town did not need to be certain of success on its civil RICO claim in order to have probable cause to assert it,” wrote the trio of judges from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the same court that upheld the dismissal of the town’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations lawsuit in 2016.
Mayor Scott Morgan noted the court held that the town had “a mountain of fraudulent and extortionate conduct to present” about the “O’Boyle-led scheme.”
“Gulf Stream will not be cowed by O’Boyle’s abusive tactics,” Morgan said.
The Nov. 21 opinion came in a derivative lawsuit filed by Denise DeMartini, whom O’Boyle called his “left-hand” woman and who sued the town shortly after the RICO case was dismissed, claiming Gulf Stream’s legal maneuvering amounted to illegal retaliation for her constitutionally protected activity of making public records requests.
DeMartini also claimed Wantman Group Inc., a contractor for the town and co-plaintiff in the RICO action, was guilty of malicious prosecution.
The appellate panel’s detailed, 73-page opinion examined district, circuit and U.S. Supreme court rulings on retaliation claims in criminal and civil actions. In contrast, the court’s earlier opinion upholding the dismissal of the RICO suit was 13 pages.
Richard Ovelmen, DeMartini’s lawyer, declined to comment on the decision, saying he had not yet talked with his client.
DeMartini was treasurer and later director of O’Boyle’s Citizens Awareness Foundation Inc., which had a stated purpose of testing and enforcing compliance with the public records law. She lost that job in 2015.
The panel noted that DeMartini failed to dispute numerous facts the town presented, including details on “what the town knew about her personal involvement in CAFI’s scheme,” that “employees of CAFI and the O’Boyle Law Firm dumped thousands of public records requests on the town” costing it attorney’s fees of about $370,000, and that former CAFI director Joel Chandler “gave the town detailed insight into the scheme.”
The court concluded that the town had reason to believe that CAFI’s conduct “was part of an illegal and fraudulent scheme to improperly extort settlement money and attorney’s fees.”
Earlier, the panel observed, “This court assumed that the defendants [O’Boyle, CAFI, DeMartini and others] had ‘engaged in a pattern of frivolous litigation activity while abusing, on a grand scale, their statutory right to request public documents from the government.’ ”

A circuit judge issued an emergency order on Thanksgiving Day stopping work in the canal behind Martin O’Boyle’s home.
O’Boyle is “enjoined from any further construction activity on the proposed water structure without approval by the [town] or further order from this court,” Judge James Nutt said.
Town officials sought the injunction after workers drove 20 concrete piles into the canal. O’Boyle has been seeking a building permit from Gulf Stream since April 2017 for a 12-foot-wide structure he first called a “dock” and later a “promenade.”
Town code prohibits docks wider than 5 feet.
— Steve Plunkett

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach won the first round of the wrongful-dismissal lawsuit filed by former City Manager Mark Lauzier.
On Nov. 18, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Lisa Small ruled that Lauzier’s complaint did not meet the requirements of the state’s Whistleblower Act. She dismissed that count with prejudice, meaning Lauzier cannot refile it.
Small said the printout of an Expedia travel itinerary with the word “Denied” written on it was not enough to be a written complaint.
Lauzier’s attorney, Isidro “Sid” Garcia, said he would file a motion for a rehearing, which must be made 10 days after the order is entered. Garcia could not be reached for comment. No motion had been entered by Dec. 3.
“I’m very, very happy with the ruling,” Lynn Gelin, the city attorney, said at the City Commission meeting Nov. 19.
Lauzier, who was fired March 1 after the city’s internal auditor had found questionable hiring and promotion practices, did not attend the hearing.
His whistleblower count centered on a printout of an Expedia travel itinerary to Tallahassee for Mayor Shelly Petrolia and her son, Anthony. In early March, the mayor was flying to Tallahassee for Palm Beach County Days. Anthony was going to be a state Senate page for the week.
Petrolia said she planned to reimburse the city, and wanted to travel with her son on the same flight in case one was bumped.
On Feb. 25, Lauzier when reviewing the travel itinerary wrote “Denied” with his signature and a note that Anthony is “not an official city employee. Travel — must be reimbursed.”
The next day, the mayor’s husband wrote a check to the city for $291.60 to cover the cost of Anthony’s plane ticket.
During the short hearing, Garcia said, “The mayor attempted to scam taxpayers by charging an improper expenditure to a city credit card.
“What caused the city manager’s termination was him catching the mayor red-handed using a city benefit to her advantage.”
Petrolia attended the hearing.
“They thought they found the Holy Grail,” she said afterward. “Instead, the chalice held no water. … Our attorney focused on the real issue — no whistleblower complaint.
“The investigation into Lauzier’s actions had started weeks before,” Petrolia said.
The city will seek sanctions from Lauzier to cover its litigation costs, Gelin said. Delray Beach had hired Brett Schneider of the Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman law firm to represent it. Gelin did not want to reveal the amount the city would request.
Lauzier’s wrongful-dismissal lawsuit remains open with a breach of contract count. He is seeking a jury trial.

By Jane Smith

Some South County coastal residents reported hearing an unusual number of train horns recently even though quiet zones had been established nearly 18 months ago.
Engineers of Brightline, soon to be Virgin Trains, can blow the horns when there is construction work within the railroad right of way, according to a company spokesperson.
“The federal quiet zone regulation states that if work is occurring, the locomotive engineer must blow the horn in the area where workers are present,” Michael Hicks, Brightline director of media relations, wrote in a Nov. 20 email. “It is my understanding that the work has been completed.”
Brightline alerts the public about construction through emails to the cities, local broadcast and traffic reporters, and its social media posts.
Hicks also stressed the importance of educating the public to stay safe around the railroad tracks and how a quiet zone works. “The quiet zone does not mean 100% quiet all the time,” he wrote.
The train engineer also can blow the horn when there’s an emergency on the track — such as a pedestrian, bike rider or vehicle stopped, Hicks wrote.
Brightline, a high-speed passenger railroad, uses the Florida East Coast tracks that are also used by FEC freight trains. Both operate under the federal quiet zone regulations.
Brightline service is available from West Palm Beach to Miami with three stops. More stops, including one in Boca Raton, are planned in an effort to increase ridership.

Six people from Farindola, Italy, spent Thanksgiving week touring greater Boynton Beach. They traveled here to join the Greater Boynton Beach Sister Cities program. Their first adventure was a Nov. 26 trip to the beach and snorkeling. That day ended with a walk around the Wakodahatchee Wetlands, where Monica Damiani exclaimed ‘bellissimo’ when she saw her first alligator. The tour guides were Jeanne Heavilin, Sister Cities president, and Susan Oyer, Sister Cities vice president and Farindola Committee chair. The official signing between the two cities took place Nov. 29. ABOVE: (l-r) Oyer; Helen Conlon, who is administrative assistant to artist Paul Critchley; Heavilin; and Ilenia Damiani and Monica Damiani, visitors from Farindola. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Jeffrey Stoops, new chairman of the board of directors of the Kravis Center, is excited about the renovations completed on the main hall. Photo by Capehart

By Brian Biggane

Jeffrey Stoops, who has taken Boca Raton-based SBA Communications from the brink of bankruptcy to a position as one of the nation’s largest cell tower providers, was recently named only the fifth chairman of the board of directors of the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.
“This is quite an honor for me, and a testament to the trust my fellow directors have placed in me,” said Stoops, 71, who lives with his wife, Aggie, in coastal Delray Beach.
“A lot of it has to do with my background running large organizations, which Kravis is certainly one. It’s quite a machine, the Kravis Center, and a very well-run organization.”
Named one of Florida’s 500 most influential businesspeople by Florida Trend magazine in both 2018 and 2019, Stoops has received many awards, including Business Leader of the Year by Florida Atlantic University, the Excalibur Award from the Sun-Sentinel and CEO of the Year by the South Florida Business Journal.
This season marks the unveiling of a $50 million rejuvenation of the Kravis Center, the first major work that’s been done to the main hall in 25 years.
“And it’s just spectacular,” Stoops said. “It involves expanding the lobby, a lot of renovations inside — not seats but technical capabilities.
“(We have) an entirely new parking garage between the center and CityPlace, and an expansion of the existing garage, and a new ramp, so you have two ramps to get in and out, which dramatically changes the ingress and egress. We’re changing the look of the outside so it blends much more smoothly and easily with the rest of West Palm Beach.”
As the season gets underway, Stoops expressed excitement about the ongoing capital campaign and what he termed “our biggest year ever in terms of programming.”
“This is our Hamilton year, and Fiddler on the Roof, Miss Saigon, A Bronx Tale, among others.
“We have already surpassed the number of subscriptions for the Broadway series that we’ve sold at this point in time. So it’s going to be a very busy, active and I’m sure successful year.”

Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. I was born and raised there and lived there for 20 years, including attending the first two years of college at the University of Delaware. I definitely think it has had a large impact on my life, because I grew up in a very middle-class suburban environment, hung out with a bunch of lifetime friends, developed street smarts and common sense; and those qualities have a very relative place today and have served me very well.
Q: What professions have you worked in? What accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: I’ve actually only had two jobs out of college. I had a ton of them before college. Early on I was a Fuller Brush man. That certainly taught me the meaning of hard work: Don’t get discouraged, you may take several nos before you get to a yes. But I graduated from Florida State, came down to Palm Beach County sight unseen, based on an interview I had with Gunster, and my wife and I packed up the U-Haul and made the trip down from Tallahassee, and made this our home.
I worked at Gunster for 13 years — leaving not because I didn’t like the practice of law but because I wanted to take a shot at the business side — and came here to SBA before there was such a thing as independent ownership of cell towers. That was in 1997. So I’ve really only had two jobs.
Greatest professional accomplishment? Working my way up and making full partner at Gunster was an accomplishment that I continue to be proud of, but in my first year as CEO here the world took quite a turn in terms of financing, and SBA was on the verge of going bankrupt. And I rallied the team and we avoided that, when many people thought that would not be the case. We saved the company, saved the shareholders. At the depth of our troubles you could have bought the equity of the company for about $10 million, and now we’re up to about $28 billion. So I look back on that as job No. 1.

Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: Become an expert in something, and love what you do so that when you wake up in the morning you look forward and are eager to go about it. If that is what you find, it’ll never be a job.

Q: How did you choose to make your home in coastal Delray Beach?
A: We lived in Wellington for 24 years. Raised our children, had our family out there, but as they grew older our last two, twins Tim and Dan, were going to school at St. Andrews. We boarded them there because they were baseball players and from Wellington to St. Andrews was a long drive, their schedules were not predictable, so we wanted not only to get them back home with us for a period of time, but we also wanted to be closer to the water. … We had spent time in Delray, loved the kind of Lower Keys, beachy-town feel that it has as relative to other Palm Beach County cities.

Q: What is your favorite part of living in coastal Delray Beach?
A: It’s just a wonderful place to live. We’ve spent time in Boca, Palm Beach, but Delray has a very different feel. It matches the culture and personality of who my wife and I are.

Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I’ve read several recently. Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance, is a good one. I read a lot of financial press. I just read a fascinating book, The Kennedy Heirs, by J. Randy Taraborrelli, on the next generation of the Kennedys, the grandchildren of Joe Kennedy, being President Kennedy’s children, Robert Kennedy’s children. It was fascinating to read how both the triumphs and trials have affected that family.

Q: What music do you listen to when you want to relax? When you want to be inspired?
A: It’s usually the same artists, but different types of music from those artists. I’m very much a classic rock guy, ’60s and ’70s music, so Rolling Stones, Elton John. And Queen comes to mind from the recent Bohemian Rhapsody movie that was so enjoyable. The Beatles. And depending whether I want to relax or get charged up, if it’s Rolling Stones it could be Wild Horses or When the Whip Comes Down. You can go either way. I actually love music and have a fairly historical understanding of that era. I follow it and try and keep up with all the news that I can from that era. Though we continue to lose those members.

Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: There were senior partners in the law firm, Ken Beall and Mike Mitrione, who taught me the meaning of hard work and integrity, things that have survived and carried me through. But I really try to take inspiration from everywhere. I’m a big fan of historical figures, so I’ll read, I’ll take interest in all kinds of different things. I take my inspiration and my ideas from anywhere and every place. I consider myself a lifetime learner, and if you ever think you’re done learning, you need to go do something else.

Q: If your life story were to be made into a movie, who would play you?
A: Tom Hanks. For some strange reason more than one person has told me that either he reminds them of me or I remind them of him. Why they say that I don’t know, but I’ll go with that.

Q: Who/what makes you laugh?
A: My new grandson, Harrison Jeffrey Prieto. He is 9 months old. He’s the first and he’s just cute.

By Dan Moffett

The town manager and deputy clerk of Briny Breezes are resigning their part-time positions, effective the end of the year, saying their workloads are too great and their pay too small.
“Part-time work, part-time wages but full-time responsibility,” Manager Dale Sugerman said during a hastily called special Town Council meeting on Nov. 14 to consider the resignations.
“People may not realize it but we only have two part-time employees, who have full-time responsibility for everything,” Sugerman told the council. “I think that’s what the real dilemma is.”
He said that since he became the first manager in Briny’s history two years ago, his duties have continued to expand: “I’m the utilities director, I’m the finance director, I’m the public safety director.”
Sugerman said that in his 40-year career as a municipal administrator, he’s never filled so many roles.
Deputy Clerk Maya Coffield, whom Sugerman hired shortly after he started, said she is overwhelmed by the nagging problems that have plagued the town’s building permit procedures.
Coffield complained of poor performance by C.A.P. Government Inc., the town’s building inspection contractor, and said she’s forced to work overtime to deal with permit errors and disputes.
Briny has had five different deputy clerks in the last six years.
Mayor Gene Adams said he asked Sugerman and Coffield to give the council a list of proposed changes that might persuade them to reconsider their resignations. They suggested hiring a part-time permit clerk, excluding council members from permit disputes and replacing C.A.P. with another vendor.
But the most problematic request from Sugerman and Coffield was for an increase in pay.
Sugerman requested a raise to $55,000 a year from his current salary of just under $40,000, and Coffield, an hourly employee, asked for a fixed annual salary of $41,000 to replace the roughly $31,000 she now earns with overtime.
The council voted 3-2 to reject the pay raises. Council President Sue Thaler, Kathy Gross and Christina Adams voted no; Chick Behringer and Bill Birch voted yes.
Sugerman and Coffield told the council they were a “package deal,” worked well together and were unwilling to negotiate separately. They said they were willing to stay on until Dec. 31 and help the town with the transition.
Residents and council members praised the two for their contributions over the past two years, but the call for higher wages found little support.
“That’s a large increase in money,” Gross said. “Where does that come from?”
Sugerman said the town had enough money in its unrestricted general reserve fund to cover the raises and hire the part-time permit clerk.
Alderwoman Adams suggested that addressing the permit problems with the contractor could improve conditions for the staff. “It does sound like we’re still having an issue with C.A.P.,” she said.
Thaler said both employees had added “tremendous value” to the town but said she was frustrated that the resignations came in before the council “had an opportunity to fix the permitting problems.”
Said Thaler: “I feel we were held hostage. I’m not happy with the way this was done.”
Birch said he thought it was in the town’s interest to do what was necessary to retain the employees — to “give them what they want so we can keep them.”
Behringer asked Sugerman if he was willing to accept a smaller raise. The manager said no. Though Behringer voted for the increases, he cited the manager’s proposed 38% raise and said, “Those are high numbers in any kind of business.”
In other business:
Five candidates have qualified for three council seats to be contested in the March 17 municipal election.
Incumbents Christina Adamas, Birch and Gross are seeking reelection to another two-year term. Newcomers Charles Swift and Lynne Weiner also qualified during the filing period that ended Nov. 26, Coffield said. The top three vote-getters will take the at-large seats. Incumbents Thaler and Behringer are not up in March.
Coffield said Gene Adams has preliminarily qualified for another term as mayor, pending verification of petition signatures.

By Sallie James

BRINY BREEZES — He was the voice of the resistance in 2005 when a developer offered residents of the beachside mobile home town known as Briny Breezes $500 million to buy their homes.
Thomas Byrne’s “Save Briny. Vote No” buttons garnered national attention, as did his unwillingness to trade a disappearing lifestyle for a $1 million windfall.
The deal fell through, but Mr. Byrne’s love for the quirky town never waned.
“We used to be an embarrassment,” Mr. Byrne, then 67, told The Washington Post in 2005. “Now it turns out we’re quaint.”
The man known to some as the “Godfather of Briny” and to others as “the Bird Man,” died Nov. 3 at Bethesda Hospital after a lengthy illness. He was 80.
Mr. Byrne was a carver of birds, an avid boater, a fisherman, a longtime drum major for the AOH Babylon Saffron Kilts in New York, an activist, a respected friend, a mentor and a beloved companion, said his fiancée, Jean Archibald. He stood 6-foot-5 and was a huge presence in every way, she said.
“He was bigger than life,” Archibald said. “He was always smiling and he was a happy man. But when he roared, he roared.”
Above all, he was a proud Irishman and Army veteran who never forgot his roots, she said.
Born on Dec. 20, 1938, in Brooklyn, New York, Mr. Byrne worked more than 30 years for Allstate Insurance before retiring to Florida with his wife, Maureen. The couple had been married more than 40 years when Maureen Byrne fell ill and died during a fashion show in February 2003 in Briny Breezes.
“She was a model,” said Archibald, Mr. Byrne’s companion and caretaker for more than 15 years. “She said she didn’t feel good and right there she died of heart issues.”
Mr. Byrne and Archibald met through a mutual friend. The first time she saw him he was carving a bird out of a block of cedar. His children said he loved to gift the birds to friends and carved a lot of them.
“I have birds in every window. He was amazing,” Archibald said.
Mr. Byrne also loved boating and owned several boats during his lifetime. His most recent boat was a pontoon, which he and Archibald would take out at 5 p.m. almost daily until he became too frail to go.
“It had a lot of drink holders. That was our joke — it’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” Archibald said.
His drink of choice? A Manhattan.
Brian Byrne said his father was a renowned M1 Garand expert who knew more about the standard World War II service rifle than just about anyone else around.
“He was one of the top experts in the United States,” said Byrne, who lives in Cleveland. He said his father mainly dealt in parts and would help gun collectors restore their weapons with original parts.
“When he got into something he would go in with both feet,” Brian Byrne said.
Those who knew Thomas Byrne said he had a good sense of humor and never met a camera he didn’t like. When TV cameras swarmed Briny Breezes in 2005 during the possible sale, Mr. Byrne was willing to chat with reporters.
Brian Byrne said he recently found a photo of his father with an interesting note scribbled on the back.
“This would be a great funeral photo,” Thomas Byrne had written, his son said, chuckling.
Mr. Byrne’s family plans to scatter his ashes off Fire Island sometime next summer.
In addition to his fiancée and son, Thomas Byrne is survived by two daughters, Kathleen Lloyd and Elizabeth Czelowalnik, both of Long Island, and four grandsons he referred to as his “princes.”