Carol Myer takes classes at Beyond Fitness in an effort to slow the progression of Parkinson’s.Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Sallie James

Carol Myer was never much for exercise, but now the petite blonde boxes three times a week, lifts weights, does yoga and walks.
She hasn’t become a health nut. She’s fighting for her life.
Two years ago, the Highland Beach snowbird was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, an incurable, progressive neuro-logical disorder characterized by tremors, limb rigidity and gait and balance loss.
Twenty years ago, the diagnosis was grim.
But not today.
Best known as the disease of Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox, Parkinson’s can be slowed by vigorous exercise, doctors have theorized. So, Parkinson’s patients everywhere are packing a punch.
“I’m not giving in to this disease,” said Myer, who participates regularly in the “Rock Steady” Parkinson’s boxing program at Beyond Fitness in Delray Beach. “You can’t turn back time, but you can hold off what is yet to come.”
Programs such as Rock Steady are giving Parkinson’s patients hope by improving their quality of life through a boxing-based fitness curriculum.
According to the national Parkinson’s Foundation, approximately 1 million people in the United States and 10 million worldwide have Parkinson’s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates complications from Parkinson’s as the No. 14 cause of death in the U.S.
“We don’t have clinical evidence that [exercise] is associated with a slower progression, but there is a lot of evidence from studies that people have improvements of symptoms,” said Corneliu Luca, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Miami and director of the school’s brain stimulation program. “We think vigorous exercise is much better than something that is slow. Twenty years ago, people were not aware of the beneficial effect of exercise” for people with Parkinson’s.
According to the Rock Steady website, Parkinson’s patients lose physical skills that are best improved by boxing workouts. And boxing is one of the most physically demanding sports, the website states.
Inside Beyond Fitness, the finger-snapping beat of the song Macarena is punctuated by the “thump, thump, thump” of gloved fists as people in the gym connect with leather bags. A Rock Steady class is about to start, as a group of mostly older adults sidles into the brightly lit space. They place their gear bags on a bench and head for a row of speed bags.
“The way I see it, I struggle with some things every day, but I am a lot more ahead than I would be if I wasn’t doing Rock Steady and other exercise,” said Pompano Beach resident Jim Emmerich, 64, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2014. “You have got to have a positive outlook. You can’t feel sorry for yourself.”

Colleen Sturgess, owner of Beyond Fitness in Delray Beach, offers encouragement at the end of a Rock Steady class (above) and urges on Jim Emmerich (below), who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Emmerich combines workouts at different gyms with exercises at home to keep moving. It’s working. The 6-foot retiree’s trim, fit physique and spry movements are tributes to his hard work.
“I can ride the exercise bike and lift weights for 45 minutes. That is medicine. The whole idea is yeah, I got PD, so what?” he said. “I am lifting weights, boxing, lifting heavy bags. The residual effect of all this lingers 24 to 48 hours.”
Whack! The black, column-shaped boxing bag shook and twirled as Emmerich laid into it with a boxing glove. Whack! The bag swung and wobbled as he landed another punch. Smack! A nearby boxer pummeled another bag with the same focused fury.
“Fighting back is what the program is about,” said Colleen Sturgess, who owns Beyond Fitness and teaches the Rock Steady program. “I like this program because it gives people hope. If someone is having a down day or their medication might be off, everyone supports them and encourages them to do their best. They get to be their friends.”
Sturgess holds a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and health promotion. She got certified to teach Rock Steady in Indianapolis and hasn’t looked back.
During class, she includes memory exercises, balance exercises, stretching and small talk. Because the disease can cause some patients’ voices to soften, Sturgess occasionally has her students shout. It can also affect memory, so sometimes they count in a foreign language.
At the end of class, they do a cheer of solidarity, putting their hands in a circle, one on top of the other, and shout, “Rock Steady!”
“We’re a family,” Sturgess explained.
Delray Beach resident Richard Levine, 65, has been battling Parkinson’s for eight years. The working neuroradiologist is a regular at Beyond Fitness but he goes for more than just exercise.
“It’s a brotherhood and sisterhood. To have a roomful of people with Parkinson’s disease is good for me,” Levine said. “You make friends. It’s very nice to have a bunch of people walk into the room and say, ‘It’s good to see you.’”
Personal trainer and physical therapist Craig Marks trains Parkinson’s patients at his gym — the Parkinson’s Fitness Center of South Florida — and thinks the future is bright for those who once had little hope. His father — who died in 2005 — was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1994. Marks learned then how intense exercise could work magic and worked out vigorously with his dad to help make his life better.
Today, he applies those same principles to others with Parkinson’s disease.
“Movement is key. Does it work and help everybody with Parkinson’s? No. But it’s about 72 percent improvement with the people who come in on a regular basis and follow up with their exercises at home,” said Marks, whose gym is at 12565 Orange Drive in Davie.
Emmerich works out regularly with Marks. Together they do squats, dead lifts, lunges, step-ups, kickboxing and heavy bags.
“Craig put a picture of me up on Facebook and the caption was, ‘Jim says F-U to Parkinson’s,’” Emmerich chuckled. “I don’t have Parkinson’s. That’s my attitude.”
He admits he fell apart when he was first diagnosed. Then he found out about the value of intense exercise and began healing himself.
“I said, ‘Is this a death sentence for me?’ [My doctor] said Parkinson’s doesn’t kill, but there’s no cure,” Emmerich recalled. “Parkinson’s is all about the chemistry in the brain. There is not a good balance of dopamine being released; exercise can generate that dopamine.”
That’s where boxing came in.
But treating Parkinson’s also involves medication, which can be tricky to get right. Too much causes severe shaking. It’s trial and error to get the right balance, Emmerich said.
Angela Wensley, 70, of Delray Beach, has been battling the disease since 2007 and is fierce in her unwillingness to let it own her. She calls the right mix of meds and exercise the “Goldilocks zone.”
She relies on a movement disorder specialist to adjust her medications periodically, so she can get on with her life. And then of course she exercises. As much as she can.
“Ten years ago, people went from mild to severe in a decade, and that is the way it was until about 2010-2012 when people got the exercise craze,” Wensley said. “I had gotten on to this in 2007 and found I was able to slow the progression. Now the floodgates have opened and people with Parkinson’s disease are exercising like crazy.”
Wensley shares her journey with others in a Parkinson’s e-newsletter she writes.
Whack! Wensley’s punching bag spun and twirled. Sweat glistened on her skin.
“I am going to enjoy my life as long as I can. I know eventually it’s going to get me,” she said wryly.
Wensley attends Rock Steady in Delray Beach as much for the exercise as the moral support. She always leaves with a smile.
“We love each other. We understand each other. We have bonded with each other. It’s better than a support group because we are all in it together,” said Wensley, a retired materials engineer. “It’s like being part of a team, but a team we are really invested in. We are fighting for our lives and we are winning.”
Myer agreed wholeheartedly.
“I know people are really frightened of this, but I don’t look at it that way,” Myer said. “You can run away from a bad marriage, but Parkinson’s disease you have to face. And I don’t think you necessarily have to face it with fear, but rather the desire to do whatever it takes.”
She added, “I do know you have to live in the here and now. So it takes me a little longer to get out of the car — so what? I can still wear high heels and go dancing. I hope other people can look at it and say, ‘I can deal with that.’ ”

For information about the Rock Steady program or to find a class, go to www.rocksteadyboxing.org

For information about the Parkinson’s Fitness Center of South Florida, visit www.parkinsonsfitnesscenter.com. 

Uncertain months ahead as deposed mayor faces corruption charges

By Mary Hladky

Over a dizzying two weeks in April, Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie was reprimanded and fined for ethics violations, arrested on state corruption charges, withdrew from the District 4 Palm Beach County Commission race and was suspended from office by Gov. Rick Scott.
The sudden downfall of Haynie, a mainstay of city politics for 18 years who was aiming for higher office, threw the city into political turmoil and will have major repercussions.
The city moved swiftly to fill the mayoral void, elevating Deputy Mayor Scott Singer to the top job for now. City Council members expect to pass a resolution at their May 8 meeting to set Aug. 28 as the date of a special election to choose a mayor who will serve until the end of Haynie’s term of office in March 2020.
Singer has announced he will run for mayor, and he will have to resign from office at the time of the special election to do so. If he loses, Singer will be off the City Council.
Other mayoral candidates are lining up, including former Planning and Zoning Board member Glenn Gromann.
With Singer now mayor, his City Council seat is vacant. Other council members anticipate they will temporarily appoint someone to the council by late May or early June, with voters deciding a permanent replacement on Aug. 28.
Singer and council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte have called on Haynie to resign, but as of the end of April she had not. Even so, her April 27 suspension created a temporary vacancy.
City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser said the city charter and state statute set out the steps the city is taking to fill it.

City carries on amid uproar
City officials have taken pains to assure residents that the political tumult is having no impact on city operations.
“The city is bigger than one person” and will continue to provide “world-class services,” Singer said after he assumed his new role.
Haynie was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on April 24 and released about 90 minutes later on $12,000 bail. She will be arraigned on May 24 and faces more than 20 years in prison. As of May 1 she had not spoken publicly since her arrest.
“Ms. Haynie wholeheartedly and completely denies the allegations, which we plan to fight in court to the fullest extent,” her attorney, Leonard Feuer, said in an email to The Coastal Star on the night of her arrest.
Stunned council members were in the midst of a regular meeting when word spread that Haynie was absent because she was at the jail.
“I find news of this as I sit up here as beyond upsetting,” O’Rourke said.
“We are all surprised, flabbergasted … ” Singer said.

Scott Singer is now mayor and plans to run for that position in August. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Haynie was charged with four felonies and three misdemeanors by the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office public corruption unit, including official misconduct, perjury in an official proceeding, misuse of public office, corrupt misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflict.
The investigation began in March 2017 when the State Attorney’s Office received complaints that Haynie used her position on the City Council to vote on matters that financially benefited James Batmasian, the city’s largest downtown commercial landowner, and failed to disclose income she received from him, the arrest affidavit states.
The investigation found that Haynie failed to report $335,000 in income on disclosure forms required by the state, including $84,000 from Batmasian or from his company Investments Limited, from 2014 through 2017.
Of that total, $45,000 came from rent paid to Haynie for a property she and her husband, Neil, own in Key Largo.
The Haynies formed Community Reliance, a property management company, in 2007. The company managed Tivoli Park, a 1,600-unit apartment complex in Deerfield Beach. Batmasian and his wife, Marta, own 80 percent of the Tivoli Park units, and five of six Tivoli board members work for Investments Limited, The Palm Beach Post has reported.
Community Reliance earned between $10,057 and $16,490 a year between 2014 and 2017 from Tivoli’s master association, according to the arrest affidavit.
“This amount is well below the expected income for managing a property of this size, which would normally command an income of nearly $150,000 to $200,000 a year,” the affidavit states.

Haynie denied company work
Haynie told investigators that she had no involvement in running Community Reliance and another company she and her husband started, Computer Golf Software of Nevada Inc., and derived no income from them.
But subpoenaed bank records revealed she wrote two checks to herself from the Community Reliance account totaling $5,300 and received $72,600 from Computer Golf Software.
During 2016 and 2017, Haynie cast four votes that benefited Batmasian, the affidavit states, although none of them were on significant matters.
Haynie left Community Reliance in 2016 and announced in December that her husband had ended his business relationship with the Tivoli Park master association.
Haynie was in the crosshairs of the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics months before the State Attorney’s Office investigation came to light.
The ethics commission launched its investigation of Haynie on Nov. 2, one day before The Post reported that the Tivoli Park master association had paid Community Reliance.
That probe corroborated The Post’s key findings but also unearthed an additional, and more direct, financial link between the Haynies and Batmasian.
Community Reliance was paid at least $64,000 in 2016 and 2017 for installing security cameras at several properties owned by Batmasian, including Royal Palm Place in downtown Boca Raton, according to the commission’s investigative file. Investments Limited made the payments to Community Reliance.
Haynie did not disclose that before voting on matters involving the landowner.
Haynie has denied that she acted improperly and said she requested in 2013 an Ethics Commission opinion on whether she should recuse herself from voting. The opinion said she could vote.
But the opinion was narrowly written and was based on a specific instance in which Batmasian was neither the applicant nor the developer of a project coming to the City Council for approval. In other instances, he was the applicant or developer.
Mark Bannon, the ethics commission’s executive director, said Haynie should have understood the opinion to mean that she should not vote in such circumstances.
“The advisory opinion said [Batmasian] was not the developer or applicant, which tells you when he is the developer or applicant, you can’t do that [vote],” Bannon said.
In a settlement agreement reached on April 16, Haynie admitted to violating the county’s ethics code and agreed to pay a $500 fine — the stiffest fine the commission could levy — for failing to disclose a conflict of interest. The commission dismissed its second allegation that Haynie misused her public office.
The settlement states that Haynie “believes it to be in her best interest to resolve the issues contained in the complaint and avoid the expense and time of litigation in this matter. Accordingly, (Haynie) admits to participating in and voting on matters that gave a special financial benefit to a customer or client of her outside business and she accepts a letter of reprimand.”
The criminal charges against Haynie caught many unawares.
“It was shocking,” O’Rourke said. “No one had any idea this was coming down.”
But BocaWatch publisher Al Zucaro, a Haynie adversary whom she defeated in last year’s mayoral race and who has called on her to resign, knew an investigation was underway last spring.
He said the state attorney’s public corruption unit investigators interviewed him not long after he filed a complaint about Haynie with the county’s Ethics Commission. He also filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Ethics, and that case may be ongoing.
Speculation about why Haynie has not resigned is rampant in the city, and Zucaro posited that her thinking is that she can enter into an agreement with prosecutors to plead no contest to the charges with a judge withholding adjudication. By avoiding a conviction, she could then return to office.
But Frieser seemed to squelch that possibility at an April 30 meeting held to discuss procedures to hold a special election.
A no contest plea with a withholding of adjudication or suspension of a sentence is deemed a conviction, she said, and if Haynie is convicted, Scott must remove her from office. If she is acquitted, Scott must reinstate her.

2016 anti-corruption law

The state’s case against Susan Haynie on official misconduct charges could be bolstered by an anti-corruption law passed by the Florida legislature in 2016.
The law removes the requirement that state prosecutors prove the accused acted “corruptly” or with “corrupt intent.” Instead, prosecutors only have to prove the suspects acted “knowingly and intentionally,” a lesser burden of proof.
Elected state attorneys across Florida endorsed the bill, saying they needed the change to better prosecute public corruption. It was unanimously approved by both the Florida House and Senate.
The bill was based on recommendations contained in a 2010 Statewide Grand Jury report titled “A Study of Public Corruption in Florida and Recommended Solutions.”
Haynie is charged with three counts of official misconduct, perjury, misuse of public office, corrupt misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflict.

Susan Haynie

Susan Haynie during a 2017 Boca Raton City Council meeting. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Haynie, 62, has long been a fixture in Boca Raton politics.
A 45-year city resident, she is a graduate of Lynn University and holds certifications in traffic engineering studies from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Northwestern University.
She began her career as an engineering analyst for the city and entered politics in 2000, when she was first elected to the Boca Raton City Council. She was forced out by term limits in 2006 and returned in 2008. Haynie became mayor in 2014 and was re-elected in 2017, when she defeated BocaWatch publisher Al Zucaro.
Setting her sights on higher office, Haynie announced her candidacy for the Palm Beach County Commission last year to fill the seat held by former Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams, who is term-limited. She withdrew from that race on April 24.
Haynie is a past president of the Florida League of Cities and Palm Beach County League of Cities.
Haynie has chaired the Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency (formerly known as the Metropolitan Planning Organization), the Florida Metropolitan Planning Organization Advisory Council, the Southeast Florida Transportation Council and was appointed to the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council.
Before her election to the City Council, she served on the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment and Planning and Zoning Board. Haynie has been a member of numerous civic and charity organizations.
Haynie is a licensed general contractor and community association manager.
She has two children of her own and three stepchildren with her husband, Neal Haynie, whom she married in 1995.

Lisa Rome Steiner practices yoga to help with her back pain. Here, she does the dancer’s pose under the eye of a Hindu deity. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Were it not for severe back pain, Lisa Rome Steiner might never have discovered yoga.
Now a well-known instructor who leads 13 classes a week as well as yoga fundraisers for local nonprofits, Rome Steiner remembers when she was in constant pain as the result of four herniated disks that came after three decades of running.
Fearful of surgery, Rome Steiner took the advice of a friend who suggested she give yoga a chance.
“I went in trying to heal my back and then I came to realize the emotional and spiritual benefits,” she said. “The nice part of yoga is that these benefits sneak in.”
After going to yoga classes for 10 years, much of that while working in a leadership role for a financially focused magazine, Rome Steiner, 53, quit her job and, a few years later, began leading yoga classes.
Certified to teach for the last three years, Rome Steiner trained under Jimmy Barkan, creator of the Barkan method of hot yoga, which is taught around the world.
In addition to teaching regularly scheduled classes, Rome Steiner leads yoga fundraisers and this month will help to recognize national Mental Health Awareness Month by hosting an event benefiting Boca Raton’s Faulk Center for Counseling.
Set for May 20 at the Barkan Method of Boca Raton, the event includes a yoga class, as well as vendors. There is a $25 fee with all proceeds going to the Faulk Center.
For Rome Steiner, supporting nonprofit organizations ties in well with yoga and specifically with the Faulk Center, which provides free and low-cost mental health services to children and families.
“Yoga is a tool that helps Faulk Center clients and others to better handle stress, anxiety and life’s challenges,” she said.
Over the past three years, Rome Steiner has helped raise more than $12,000 for the Alzheimer’s Association, Hope Gel Foundation, Girl Up and Best Foot Forward. 
“Helping others gives you a feeling that’s better than money,” she said. “It’s a feeling of having the chance to make people a little happier, and that makes the world a better place.”
Rome Steiner, who is from a small town in western Massachusetts, graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and landed a job with a British bank as a financial analyst specializing in utilities.
Following a chance meeting on a train, she was offered a job by the publisher of Institutional Investor magazine and soon began a 21-year career in the publishing industry. During that time, she and her husband, Barry, settled in Boca Raton, raising two boys who are now in college.
“It’s weird that I became a yoga teacher because I was always very goal-oriented,” she said.
One of the students in the Boca Raton class Rome Steiner teaches happened to be Vicki Katz, CEO of the Faulk Center, who knew about the fundraising events her instructor hosted.
“Lisa’s a great teacher and she’s been very supportive of her friends in the nonprofit world,” Katz said.
Recognizing the connection between yoga and the center’s mission, Katz asked Rome Steiner if she would host a fundraiser in May during Mental Health Awareness Month.
“The whole practice of yoga is very much a part of mental health and wellness,” Katz said.
Besides raising money, the May 20 event will help raise awareness for the Faulk Center and the mental health programs it provides.
The center will also bring attention to mental health programs in the community during a butterfly release set for 5:30 p.m. May 17 at the Faulk Center for Counseling, 22455 Boca Rio Road, Boca Raton. There is no charge for the event but donations are appreciated. 

For more information on the Faulk Center, call 483-5300 or visit www.faulkcenterforcounseling.org.

If You Go
What: Yoga Fundraiser for the Faulk Center for Counseling
When: 2:15 p.m. May 20
Where: Barkan Method of Boca Raton, 2240 NW 19th St.
Who: Lisa Rome Steiner will lead the yoga class.
Cost: $25 minimum donation
Info: BarkanMethod.com, 750-4400.

Mom loved animals. The first time I ever saw her cry was when the kitten she’d saved with every-three-hour eyedropper feedings was hit by a car as he strutted home from a week of tomcatting around the neighborhood.
I was a teenager.
One of the last times was when I stopped in Briny Breezes to pick her up for a doctor’s appointment and found her watching The Incredible Journey. The classic 1963 film follows three displaced pets finding their way home through the Canadian wilderness.
I was in my 50s, and by then Mom’s advancing dementia had her determined to return “home.”
The place locked into her memory wasn’t in Florida, so the kids all agreed to honor her wishes and help her move into assisted living near my sister back in Illinois.
We packed up her heavy, handmade china cabinet, her other sparse belongings, and a ceramic cat I had given her that lingered by her porch as a garden statue.
My sister’s rental van carted these items north as my husband and I helped Mom pack a small suitcase and get her large yellow cat, George, into a carrier.
Worried that the vast, busy Atlanta airport would confuse her, I flew the first leg of the trip with my mom — and then stood helplessly at the gate as she struggled to lug the cat carrier down the jetway. But my heart was lifted when a flight attendant engaged my tiny 80-year-old mom in conversation and carried George onto the plane for her.

She made it safely “home” and even in her decline was able to keep her buddy George as she moved from the ALF into a memory care facility. While she was able, she would carry George around
Mom’s cat has found its way back home.                 to visit the other residents.

I, too, love cats, and in this setting it was easy to see the comfort that animals bring, especially to those who are lonely.
Mom has been gone for several years now, and George, too, has died. My sister is retiring and moving to Florida.
When she texted to ask if I wanted her to bring me Mom’s ceramic garden cat, I had forgotten about that old statue. But there was no hesitation in my decision.
The heavy, oddly shaped cat-replica with a broken paw now holds court near the goldfish pond in my yard. He looks comfortable there — like he’s returned home.
I have a feeling that Mom approves.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

By Rich Pollack

Just weeks after praising Town Manager Valerie Oakes’ performance and giving her a raise, Highland Beach town commissioners voted at their meeting May 1 to fire her, effective immediately.
In a 3-2 vote, with Mayor Carl Feldman and Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman dissenting, commissioners agreed to terminate Oakes’ contract, which paid her a base of $139,000 a year plus benefits.
“I personally have lost confidence in our town manager,” Commissioner Rhoda Zelniker said. “I think it’s time for new leadership at the top.”
Vice Mayor Alysen Africano Nila, who was elected to the commission in March, agreed with Zelniker, as did Commissioner Elyse Riesa.
“We really need strong, experienced leadership,” Africano Nila said. “I feel it would be the best thing for the town.”
Riesa said she thinks the town needs a manager with more experience than Oakes, 32, a former town clerk, and pointed out that the past two town managers were appointed from the town’s workforce.
“This is about the town and doing what’s right,” she said.
Feldman, who has been on the losing side of several 4-1 votes since the March election, disagreed.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Feldman said. “Valerie is a well-respected employee. I’ve never heard a resident complain about her, I’ve never heard employees complain about her.”
Commissioners agreed to have Town Clerk Lanelda Gaskins serve as temporary town manager. Zelniker suggested the town look for a retired city manager who could serve as interim during a search for a new town manager.
The discussion of the town manager’s performance was added to the commission agenda during the opening minutes of the meeting. Few residents in attendance had any idea it would be brought up.
Many of the residents who were at the meeting said they were surprised and upset.
“What they want to do is micromanage the town, and they don’t know what they’re doing,” said Carol Stern, the wife of late Commissioner Lou Stern and a former chair of the town’s planning board. “They’re going to run the town into the toilet.”
Others praised Oakes, who has been popular with employees and with residents.
“She’s been one of the best town managers that I’ve seen,” said resident Tim Burnich, a former chair of the Code Enforcement Board. “We’re going to be looking into a possible recall for certain commissioners.”
Also critical of the commission’s vote was the Rev. D. Brian Horgan, pastor of St. Lucy Catholic Church, who said he received a half dozen calls from residents after news of Oakes’ termination spread.
“To lose Valerie is to lose a very important link in the chain in Highland Beach government,” he said. “She worked tirelessly to build bridges instead of building walls.”
Horgan praised Oakes for serving the town faithfully and admirably.
“It’s almost as if an air of sadness has crept upon us,” he said. “I don’t believe some commissioners are acting in the best interest of the town. There are some that don’t understand the concept of service.”
Horgan said that even before the recent meeting, residents had asked him questions about the commission.
“They see some commissioners acting on a personal agenda,” he said.
Oakes’ firing comes just a few weeks after another surprise personnel move in which commissioners asked that Town Attorney Glen Torcivia be replaced by another member of his law firm, Pam Ryan. Discussion of that issue was also added to the agenda at the beginning of a commission meeting without public notice.
Within minutes of the vote, Oakes had packed up her office and was surrounded by employees as she walked to the parking lot. Some were in tears.
An employee for nine years, Oakes started as a deputy clerk and has been town manager since February 2017, having served as interim town manager after the September 2016 forced departure of then-Town Manager Beverly Brown.
Oakes has a severance clause in her contract that says the town must pay her an estimated $55,000. Also, the town must pay for six months of health insurance and accrued and unused vacation and sick leave.
Oakes said she plans to spend time with her two children before returning to work.
“I’ve truly enjoyed serving the community of Highland Beach for the last nine years,” she said. “I’m proud of the work that’s been accomplished during my time as town manager.”

The day after the Manalapan commission meeting on April 24, much of the south and east sides of the water tank had been concealed by a planting of areca palms. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

For two years, Manalapan officials have been trying to get a Publix built at the town’s Plaza del Mar, and the residents of La Coquille Villas next door have had plenty to say about the plan.
They have commented on the color palette for the Publix facade. They have offered tasteful font options for signage.
They have weighed in on the proper lumen limits for lighting and on environmentally sound choices for landscape buffers.
With the Publix scheduled to open in June, La Coquille residents figured every design detail had been taken care of.
The last thing they expected was to wake up one morning and see a shiny 20-foot metal can looming over their tennis courts.
It turns out the water distribution system at the 30-year-old plaza doesn’t generate enough pressure to meet fire suppression safety standards.
In order for the Publix to comply with fire codes and get inspectors’ approval to open, workers had to hastily construct a water storage tank to raise the pressure to acceptable levels.
And the corrugated steel structure could be there for two or three years, officials say, until the town can upgrade the distribution system and replace pumps for the plaza.
Town Manager Linda Stumpf said the plan was for Kitson & Partners, the plaza’s landlord, to plant dozens of 25-foot palm trees along the property’s southern boundary to conceal the 20-foot tank. Much of that was done by the day after the April 24 Town Commission meeting.
“What I would have much preferred is a short version of that [tank] versus a tall version of that,” Mayor Keith Waters said during the meeting. “We want to make sure that it is not visible in any way, shape or form.”
Waters said the town will try to have the tank painted — color palette to be determined — to make it less visible and promised that the commission would make sure the camouflage efforts satisfy residents.
Herb Newman, a longtime La Coquille homeowner, told commissioners that he and his neighbors understand that their property abuts the back of a shopping mall, and they don’t mind that. Newman said, as far as he is concerned, the tank can stay there forever — as long as he doesn’t know it’s there.
“We want assurance that when development is done, that we do not see the back of Publix and we do not see the water tank,” Newman said. He told the mayor La Coquille wants no more surprises.
Waters said the tank would soon disappear from view.
“Our job is to represent the community, and we’ve heard loud and clear that this is not acceptable,” he said. “So we are not going to rest until everyone is OK with this.”

By Steve Plunkett

The town has enough money to replace its worst water mains and rebuild frequently flooded streets without raising taxes or borrowing money.
With help from Town Commissioner Paul Lyons, Gulf Stream finance administrator Rebecca Tew developed a 10-year budget for the capital improvement project that will leave residents with $4.9 million in reserves after the work is completed, down only about $580,000 from an expected $5.5 million cushion this fiscal year.
Mayor Scott Morgan called the numbers “eye-opening.”
“I talk to residents all the time, and the main concern with this project is the fear of assessments and additional financial responsibilities,” Morgan said.
The plan calls for work to be done in five phases, with the town taking a year to develop construction designs and get permits, then having the work done the following May through November.
First to be tackled would be the northern core area: Bermuda Lane from Sea Road to the south end, Gulf Stream Road from Sea Road to Banyan Road, Old School Road from Gulfstream Road to the cul-de-sac, Oleander Way from Banyan to the north end, Polo Drive from Old School to Banyan, Wright Way from Old School to the cul-de-sac, Sea Road from Ocean Boulevard to Gulfstream Road, North County Road from Ocean to Sea Road, and Banyan from Ocean to the cul-de-sac. The work would be designed in 2019 and constructed in 2020.
The 2021-22 cycle would cover Place au Soleil repaving on Tangerine Way, Emerald Row, Orchid Lane, Indigo Point, Canary Walk, Cardinal Circle and Avenue Au Soleil.
In 2023-24 the project would shift back to the southern core, with work on Oleander Way, Polo Drive, Lakeview Drive, Middle Road, Golfview Drive, Gulfstream Road and Palm Way.
The remainder of replacing the water main along State Road A1A would come in 2025-26; repairs to Hidden Harbour and Pelican Lane would end the project in 2027-28.
Tew told commissioners at their April 13 meeting that she split the core work into two phases with the Place au Soleil work in between to let money build up for the southern core area rather than borrow money or raise taxes to do the core first, then Place au Soleil.
“We thought, why do that if your town doesn’t have to do that,” Tew said. “It just made more sense to break those projects out and kind of give us … two years to recover.”
Commissioner Joan Orthwein agreed. “Why would you borrow it if you have it?” she asked.
The finance plan, which commissioners took home to review, assumes that Gulf Stream will keep property taxes at the rollback rate through 2028 and that inflation will be 3 percent each year. It also includes money for new police cars, replacement computers and other routine capital expenses.
Morgan was relieved.
“I was always under the impression that this was going to require direct borrowing or a bond issue — the sums were so high. But the way you are budgeting it and staging it, monies are collected in-house and can be used over time,” Morgan said.
Mathews Consulting engineer Joe Kenney told commissioners in March that the water mains and streets would cost $10 million to fix. Another firm had estimated $8 million in 2012. The pipes are approaching the end of their 50-year service life. Improved technology means the replacement pipes should last 100 years.

By Jane Smith

Coastal residents who live near the FEC tracks will have until at least late June to continue listening to loud train horns from Brightline passenger trains and FEC freight trains.
In mid-April, Brightline said its subcontractor was diverted to Miami to complete safety upgrades before its train station would open there. That news meant the quiet zone work was delayed in five South County cities: Lantana, Hypoluxo, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach and Boca Raton.
Brightline simulated service, testing without passengers, began in late April between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
The quiet zone construction can include quad gates or a raised median between travel lanes to improve safety at the crossings. The county’s Transportation Planning Agency is paying for the construction. Individual cities will have to cover the maintenance costs.
Once safety features are installed, the cities can petition the Federal Railroad Administration about their intent to install quiet zones. Federal officials then need 21 days to review the plans and decide whether the safety upgrades are sufficient to allow train operators to stop blasting their horns at the crossings.
“During that time, final inspections take place and warning signs are posted at crossings to indicate that trains do not blow their horns,” said Malissa Booth, spokeswoman for the county TPA.
Brightline officials had promised last summer that the quiet zone work would be finished before the express passenger service started.
But in January, Brightline service began between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale at speeds up to 79 mph in Palm Beach County. In mid-April, the quiet zone work was finished in West Palm Beach. That city then applied to the federal agency for quiet zone approval and allowing the trains not to blast the horns when traveling to the West Palm Beach station.
“It is important for the public to understand that quiet zones replace the routine blowing of train horns,” Booth said. “Conductors always have the option to blow horns as they deem necessary. There still may be occasional train horns.”
Since Brightline passenger service began, four Palm Beach County people have been killed by the trains. Two men, one in Delray Beach and one in West Palm Beach, were deemed suicides. Another woman was killed trying to beat the train across the tracks in Boynton Beach; a male cyclist also was killed in Boynton Beach after he rode around the down crossing gates.
Brightline runs 22 passenger trains daily between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale in both directions starting at 6 a.m. Freight trains run along the Florida East Coast railway primarily at night. South County coastal residents who live near the FEC tracks often complain about the loud horns.
In downtown Delray Beach, the city is trying to balance the safety needs of Atlantic Avenue visitors with the noise level endured by downtown condo and apartment dwellers.
Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia favors petitioning the federal agency to install quiet zones. Too many residents live in condos and apartments downtown for the city to ignore their noise complaints, she said.

As part of its research of U.S. 1, the Transportation Planning Agency held walking workshops in Boca Raton and other cities. File photo by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

After more than a year of study and hours of research, the Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency has come up with a draft report for improvements to 42 miles of U.S. Highway 1 in Palm Beach County.
The 176-page report focuses on roadway improvements that can make travel along the corridor safer for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists. It also focuses on creating a branded express bus service that would be safe and convenient for people using public transportation.
“Our core goal was to improve the corridor for all users and make it safer,” said Valerie Neilson, the Transportation Planning Agency’s deputy director for multimodal development and the project manager.
The draft of the U.S.-1 Multimodal Corridor Study, scheduled to be presented to the agency’s board this month, includes dozens of recommendations for improvements that could be implemented by the Florida Department of Transportation. The agency also makes improvement recommendations to municipalities along the route.
A blueprint of sorts, the plan is just one of the first steps in a long process that would include reviews by other agencies and could take several years before many of the most extensive recommendations could be implemented.
“We need to do further analysis,” Neilson said.
In looking at roadway improvements along the corridor, the staff members and consultants behind the report recommend changes such as connecting sidewalks in areas where there are gaps and creating bike lanes where they don’t exist. The report also looked at areas where landscaping could provide shade for pedestrians as well as those using public transportation.
In some cases, the study recommends reducing speed limits to enhance safety and in other instances recommends reconfiguring roads to make room for bike paths and walkways.
On the stretch of U.S. 1 from Camino Real to Southeast Mizner Boulevard in south Boca Raton, for example, the study’s authors recommend the roadway be narrowed from six lanes to four lanes to make room for on-street parking and a protected bike lane. In coming up with the recommendation, the team considered many factors, including projected traffic volumes along the roadway in 2040.
In some areas, the team does not recommend lane changes but does suggest narrowing landscaped or green areas to add two-way bike paths on either side of the roadway.
In some cases, the report recommends that bike paths be buffered from traffic by a structure or barrier.
In areas where lanes would be reduced — including sections of U.S. 1 in Hypoluxo and Lantana — approval from local municipalities would be required, in addition to consent from FDOT.
Neilson said while the study was being conducted, the team found areas where improvements could be made that were outside the FDOT right of way, which is the area under study. In those cases the FDOT is making recommendations to the local municipality.
For example, one recommendation to the city of Delray Beach for a portion of the road near Linton Boulevard would be to add trees and landscaping for additional pedestrian comfort.
In looking at public transportation, the report’s authors took comfort and health factors and convenience into consideration when recommending where bus stops along the rapid transit system’s line would be.
Locating a bus stop near a grocery store, for example, would add convenience and perhaps safety for those who use public transportation.
The report also concluded that well-connected bicycle, walking, and transit safety and comfort features can contribute to increased rates of physical activity, which has multiple benefits.
Neilson said after the report is presented to the board, coordination with other government agencies and organizations will continue, as will additional analysis.
To view the report or find out more, visit www.palmbeachtpa.org/us1

By Dan Moffett

It seems certain that 2017 was a record-breaking year for calls from Ocean Ridge to the Boynton Beach Fire Rescue Department.
Just how big a record is not quite so certain.
Boynton Beach Fire Chief Glenn Joseph says his department responded to 292 calls for service from Ocean Ridge last year, a whopping 88 percent increase over the 155 calls in 2016.
Police Chief Hal Hutchins, Ocean Ridge’s top public safety official, thinks that number might be a bit high. Hutchins says his count for Boynton responses to the town last year is 202, a still-robust increase of 30 percent over the previous year.
Why the difference? Town Manager Jamie Titcomb believes there may have been “a change in methodology” in record-keeping when Joseph took over the department two years ago. Hutchins thinks it could be that some Briny Breezes numbers may have gotten swept into Ocean Ridge’s account when Boynton took over policing the mobile home community in late 2016.
No matter, because whether it’s 292 or 202 or something in between, service calls from Ocean Ridge were unusually high. Consider the numbers from the previous three years were 133 (2014), 145 (2015) and 155 (2016). No other South County coastal community has seen a similar rise.
Hutchins says after studying the statistics he found reasons for the increase.
“In review, I did see a pattern of response to a few addresses for multiple medical calls, as well as an increased fire and elevator alarm response to two condo properties, which would have caused a spike in calls for the year,” he said.
Typically in South Florida, nearly 70 percent of the calls to fire departments are for emergency medical services. Fire calls, especially those to significant fires, make up a relatively small percentage of requests for assistance.
Joseph, 55, who was born in Castries, St. Lucia, immigrated to Florida when he was 13 and grew up in Belle Glade. He is a 29-year veteran of the Boca Raton Fire Department who holds a bachelor’s degree from Palm Beach Atlantic University and a master’s in emergency planning and administration from Lynn University.
Joseph says he has confidence in the accuracy of his numbers but believes the 292 “may be an anomaly” that will fall back into place over time.
“It’s something we’ll be tracking,” he said. “The number that’s really important is response time — about 41/2 minutes.”
That’s one statistic first responders on both sides of the bridge can celebrate. Three years ago, the average response time from Boynton to Ocean Ridge was 6 minutes, 19 seconds.

By Dan Moffett and Jane Smith

With a 3-2 vote, Boynton Beach city commissioners approved exploring the possibility of opening Oceanfront Park to some level of dog use.
“I’d like to see some middle ground,” said Mayor Steven Grant, who cast a deciding vote at the city’s May 1 meeting. “Saying dogs get zero days a year doesn’t make sense to me.”
Grant says he wants staff to draft a proposal for limited use of the beach by dogs on a trial basis and to bring it back to the commission at its next meeting.
Commissioners Joe Casello and Justin Katz sided with Grant. Vice Mayor Christina Romelus and Commissioner Mack McCray opposed the idea.
“I love my dog but I would not force my dog on anyone,” Romelus said.
Grant said whatever the city ultimately decides to do, it will need Ocean Ridge’s help to do it. And Ocean Ridge, which polices the beach, has made it clear to Boynton Beach that the town’s ordinances prohibit dogs and that is not going to change, City Attorney James Cherof said.
“It’s our beach,” Casello said. “Ocean Ridge can’t tell us what to do.”
Katz said a “well-crafted program” could work and was worth trying at least on a temporary basis. He also was persuaded by the results of an online survey.
Boynton Recreation & Parks Chairwoman Betty Pierce-Roe presented the findings of the advisory board and the results from a resident’s survey about allowing dogs on the beach.
In late March, the advisory board members recommended against allowing dogs at Oceanfront Park.
They voted 5-1 after reviewing the results of a residents’ survey where nearly 70 percent were for allowing dogs on the beach during select days and hours. About 56 percent of the survey takers wanted the dogs to be leashed. Close to 900 people responded to the unscientific survey posted on the city’s website. 
“Our beach is not the right place to have it,” said Charles Kanter, a board member who made the motion. He said the short length of the beach — 960 feet — does not provide enough space for a dog park. The residents’ survey did not specify the beach length available for dogs.
A dog owner, board member Christina Johnson wanted to allow dogs at Oceanfront Park.
“Not that many residents would buy the permits,” she said.
Casello raised the topic in August after taking his dog, Charlie, a Cairn terrier, to the dog beach in Jupiter.
“He really loves it,” Casello said last year.
At Jupiter’s Dog Beach, no permits are required for the 2.5-mile stretch of beach. Lately, Jupiter’s vice mayor has talked about decreasing the beach portion where dogs are allowed.
In December, Grant asked the city’s Parks Advisory Board to poll residents about allowing dogs on the beach at Oceanfront Park.
The park, while owned by Boynton Beach, sits within the town of Ocean Ridge. That arrangement led to an October meeting between Boynton Beach city management and their Ocean Ridge counterparts. The message from Ocean Ridge was clear: Its laws do not allow animals on the public beach. Private beach owners, though, could allow dogs.
Boynton Beach staff delivered that message in December. Even so, Casello wanted to proceed with creating a dog beach at Oceanfront Park.

Workers with Caltran Engineering Group finish mounting a pair of cameras on light poles just east of the Ocean Avenue Bridge in Ocean Ridge. The cameras will be used in a study of vehicle, bicycle and foot traffic. Jerry Lower/ The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

The Florida Department of Transportation wants to know how safe South Florida bridges are for pedestrians and bicyclists so it can begin planning improvements for bridges with the biggest needs first.
Recently, contractors working with FDOT installed cameras on the Ocean Avenue bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway between Boynton Beach and Ocean Ridge to measure pedestrian, bicycle and vehicle usage. FDOT is also taking inventory of pedestrian and bicycle amenities such as sidewalks and bike lanes.
It will then compile the information from the Ocean Avenue project with information collected at 78 other bridges over the Intracoastal in a five-county region stretching from Broward County north to Indian River County.
That data will then be used to determine which bridges should be considered first for pedestrian- and bicycle-safety improvements and which improvements should be applied to which location, according to Thomas Miller, a bicycle and pedestrian safety program specialist for FDOT.
The improvements, Miller said, will be broken down into short-term, mid-term and long-term enhancement.
“Short-term improvements may include installing new or additional pavement markings, and installing new or additional signs,” Miller said.
Long-term projects, for example, could include modifications to existing sidewalks or installing plates over grates on bridges that are difficult for bicycles to cross.
Many of the decisions on what improvements will be made where will depend on an analysis of each bridge to determine whether it can handle additional weight or has space for other improvements.
The project, Miller said, is the result of concerns expressed by residents regarding the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians on bridges over the Intracoastal.
Data collection should wrap up this month; and some short-term improvements could be implemented before the end of the year, Miller said. Mid- to long-term improvements could be incorporated into a five-year work program as schedules and resources allow.

By Jane Smith

City commissioners unanimously agreed to install themselves as their Community Redevelopment Agency board members.
The May 1 vote was a formality. The real work will begin May 7 when the commission meets as the CRA board. That’s when they will vote on the CRA agenda that includes a proposal by Redevelopment Management Associates.
The Pompano Beach-based firm is the CRA’s development consultant for three West Atlantic Avenue blocks. RMA was started by Chris Brown, the first executive director of the Delray Beach CRA. Its employees include Diane Colonna, the CRA’s second executive director.
On May 1, five Delray Beach residents, including two former CRA board members, spoke on the topic with two for and two against the takeover.
Alice Finst asked, “How will it fit together if the commission is the same as the CRA board?”
Former CRA Chairwoman Annette Gray, who is for an independent CRA board, said, “As an individual who chose to volunteer, I didn’t do it for the accolades, but my reputation was tarnished” when the board was dissolved over claims of irresponsible spending.
“As a commission, you set the budget and then told the CRA how it should be spent,” Gray said. “We were required to pay for the nonprofits and give $2.5 million to Old School Square.”
In late April, Mayor Shelly Petrolia sent a letter to Gray thanking her for the CRA service.
Alan Schlossberg praised the commission.
“You really are responsible for the money,” he said.
The CRA has $19.5 million in tax dollars to spend on eliminating slum and blight this financial year in an area that includes Atlantic Avenue, east of Interstate 95. When budget carryovers are included, the CRA has about $28 million.
The City Commissioners were expected to take up the CRA issue at their goal-setting workshop in late April. Because they would not have taken a second vote by the time of that workshop, the city attorney advised that they could talk only about their aspirations of how the CRA should function.
“We ran out of time,” Petrolia said. “We decided it was better to discuss the CRA functions at a commission workshop on May 8.” The discussion then could include whether to expand the CRA board with two citizen members.
At the end of the goal-setting session, the CRA’s first May meeting date was changed from May 10 to May 7 to accommodate Deputy Vice Mayor Shirley Johnson. She will be out of town on May 10 and wanted to participate in the first CRA meeting with the commissioners as board members. The takeover was her idea.
Johnson is frustrated at the slow pace of development in The Set, formerly the Northwest and Southwest neighborhoods, while properties east of Swinton Avenue are thriving.
“Thirty-two years ago promises were made that parts of the city would be rebuilt,” Johnson said April 3. “There’s been no demonstrable development on West Atlantic.”
At the April 17 commission meeting when the first vote on the CRA takeover took place, two women residents spoke against it.
Ernestine Halliday, who lives in The Set, said, “I feel that disposing of the CRA board was a disadvantage to our community.”
Yvonne Odom, a retired educator who lives west of the interstate and runs various youth sports programs for kids living in The Set, asked the commission to reconsider its vote.
“That’s an award-winning CRA. They did everything they were supposed to because they have a lot of money,” she said.
On May 1, ex-CRA board member Daniel Rose said he agreed with the takeover.
He asked the commissioners to wait until the status of the three West Atlantic blocks was decided before deciding to add two citizen board members.
On May 7, Equity Delray will make another pitch for developing the three blocks.

By Emily J. Minor and Steve Plunkett

The trial of former Ocean Ridge Vice Mayor Richard Lucibella will be scheduled a fifth time because Lucibella’s defense attorney, Marc Shiner, has a torn calf muscle.
Lucibella, who appeared in court April 25 but stayed seated and silent during a brief hearing before Circuit Judge Meenu Sasser, will come back May 24 to see if a new trial date can be set. It depends, Shiner law partner Heidi Perlet said, on Shiner’s recovery.
“Naturally, I’m really disappointed,” Lucibella said after the hearing. “All I’ve asked for the past 18 months is my day in court. But my attorney’s well-being has to take precedence for now.”
The jury trial, most recently set to start April 30, stems from charges filed after police came to Lucibella’s Ocean Ridge home around 9:30 p.m. Oct. 22, 2016, to investigate the sound of gunfire.
Three police officers found the vice mayor, who later resigned, and former Ocean Ridge police Lt. Steven Wohlfiel, who later was fired, sitting outside on Lucibella’s back patio.
Officers later said the two men were drinking and that, when they first approached, they saw one of the men with a .40-caliber Glock pistol. Neither man has admitted to firing a gun that night.
The police visit quickly escalated into a contentious confrontation that put Lucibella on the ground in handcuffs. That scuffle, claims Lucibella’s legal team, left the former Ocean Ridge official with broken ribs and an injured eye. But one of the responding officers claims she was the one injured, and she’s suing Lucibella.
Refusing any plea deal from the State Attorney’s Office, Lucibella is going to trial on felony charges of battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting an officer with violence. He also faces one misdemeanor count of using a firearm while under the influence of alcohol.
When he and Perlet went to Sasser on Feb. 20, the soonest the judge could schedule his trial was April 30, almost 10 weeks later.
His first trial date was April 10, 2017. That was postponed to the following July, then October, then this April and now, perhaps, June or July.

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach’s fireworks will be set off from a barge offshore from the municipal beach this Fourth of July, City Manager Mark Lauzier said last month. The pyrotechnic show will no longer take place on the beach, as was done in recent years.
Lauzier planned to take the $30,000 barge rental cost from his contingency fund to safeguard Fourth of July attendees and the dunes on the beach from raining fireworks debris.
“It’s about risk to life, limb and public property,” Lauzier said in an email.
When he was working for the city of Pompano Beach, fireworks were set off on the municipal fishing pier. In 1994, the year before he started working there, a technician was killed when a fireworks shell exploded early and “blew apart the fishing pier,” Lauzier said. “It turned a festive celebration into a tragedy.”
Delray Beach used a barge through 2011, when barge rental rates skyrocketed. Most were in the Gulf of Mexico to help clean up the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to news reports.
From 2012 to 2017, Delray Beach leaders used the city beach as a base for the fireworks display to save money.
In mid-April, the City Commission agreed to pay $38,000 to its Delray Beach Marketing Cooperative for the Fourth of July fireworks, deployed by Zambelli Fireworks of Boca Raton. Daily beach walkers appreciate that a barge will be used again in Delray Beach.
“Shooting them off from the beach takes up too much of the city’s beach for days,” said Chris Heffernan, a barrier island resident who runs on the beach daily.
Delray Beach used a barge as a fireworks platform for decades, Heffernan said. “It was much nicer … safer,” he said.
The city manager agrees.
“The beach is not as wide as it needs to be for full pyrotechnic displays,” Lauzier said. “Even moving people away from the display area has risk and would allow only ‘close proximity’ fireworks.”
Mayor Shelly Petrolia concurs.
“The farther away the fireworks are from people, the safer it will be,” she said.
Petrolia said the barge could work well for Fourth of July fireworks because the seas are often calmer in the summer months.
Lauzier hopes the barge will be a suitable platform for the fireworks and the rental cost will become part of the general budget.
“I think our public safety chiefs will agree that it’s better to be safer than sorry,” he said, “and the safety is worth the increased cost.”

Jessie O’Neill, author of The Golden Ghetto, grew up in Gulf Stream and lives in coastal Delray Beach. Her grandfather served as U.S. defense secretary. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Jessie O’Neill gained some measure of celebrity after her book, The Golden Ghetto: The Psychology of Affluence, was published in 1996, and an even greater one when affluence was used as a defense for murder in a 2013 trial in Texas.
O’Neill, who has an oceanfront residence near the Delray Beach Club, knows about affluence.
Her grandfather Charles Erwin Wilson was the president of General Motors as well as secretary of defense under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nepotism was common in those days, so Wilson gave each of his six children a car dealership. Her father, Phil Hoyle, wound up with Hoyle Cadillac, a Delray Beach fixture for many years.
Going to the best schools and living a privileged life made O’Neill something of an expert on the subject, and when she was looking for a topic for her master’s thesis, she related her past to her adviser at Goddard College, Ellen Cole.
“We talked about my grandfather’s family, the six children, and how I had watched the destruction that wealth had brought into the different families, and how it wasn’t spoken about,” O’Neill said. “Money was always a god, nobody speaks bad about money, and more is always better, how people buy out of the consequences of their behavior with money, all sorts of things. So she said, ‘There’s your thesis and there’s your book.’ ”
O’Neill became in demand for counseling and speaking, and traveled extensively until the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks tempered that demand. “So I took that time to do more one-on-one counseling, either by phone or in person, and less traveling,” she said,
Affluenza made national headlines in 2013 when the lawyer for Ethan Couch, who had killed four people in a car accident in Texas, used it as his defense. O’Neill, 68, never testified at trial but was often interviewed on TV as an expert on affluenza.
“I never said it was a defense for murder,” she said. “I’m sure affluenza had a lot to do with it: He was drunk, there was poor parenting, there was entitlement issues, all the stuff that’s part of affluenza. But even rich kids know the difference between right and wrong.”
O’Neill most recently gave a lecture on affluenza at the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach.
— Brian Biggane

Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I grew up in Gulf Stream and went to Gulf Stream School when it was just a couple of converted polo stables. The school was originally created to accommodate the children of the polo players who came down from up North for the season. There were only a handful of us who attended full-time. Full-time was Oct. 15 through May 15, with a month off at Christmas and spring break.  I had a horse we kept next door at the stables, which I rode before and after school.
Attending a small school taught me the value of one-on-one relationships, and it certainly allowed me the luxury of a great deal of individual attention from my teachers. Growing up in Florida in the ’50s and ’60s, surrounded by nature and sunshine, has given me a lifelong appreciation for nature and the outdoors.
I graduated high school in 1967 from what was then called Palm Beach Private and is now Palm Beach Day School. I spent two years at Rollins College, then transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1971. I received my master’s degree in psychology and counseling from Goddard College in 1990. My master’s thesis was “The Psychology of Affluence,” which became the basis for my book, The Golden Ghetto: The Psychology of Affluence, published by Hazelden in 1996.

Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: I have had many jobs, but only one profession. In 1993, three other professionals in psychology and I opened the Acacia Clinic, a full psychiatric service clinic in Milwaukee, where I lived with my two daughters. I worked as a counselor there for several years before my book came out. I hit the road speaking, counseling and doing workshops all based on the term “affluenza,” which I defined in my book.  
I had much more than my allotted 15 minutes of fame, appearing on many television talk shows (Oprah, 20/20, Inside Edition, etc.) and news shows (CBS, NBC, etc.), doing hundreds of radio interviews and traveling the world working with individuals, families and organizations on the psychology of money, affluenza, and how it affects our relationships, personal and professional.
I am very proud of my work. My driving force has always been to help people, to make a difference in the world. I hope and believe that I have touched the lives of many people in a positive way. I believe I have, and continue to achieve my mission.

Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: My advice would be simple: Follow your heart. Whatever makes your heart sing will get you out of bed in the morning to take on another day. As I look at children with affluence, there’s not a money motivator. So when money isn’t motivating a young person, that person has to find out what is their mission, what makes them want to get out of bed. It tends to take children of affluence a longer time to find what path they want to follow.
In terms of an everyday person, what’s changed is there’s this student debt hanging over kids, which is a real problem. So young people are starting to look at other avenues. Maybe going to college isn’t the be-all, end-all. Going to a trade school, opening a coffee shop, something that allows them to make a living but not a four- or eight-year education that’s going to cost them for the rest of their lives. I see a shift in that.

Q: How did you choose to make your home in Delray Beach?
A: I have come back here from various places all over the country. My father, Phil Hoyle, was the first Cadillac and Oldsmobile dealer in Delray. He opened Hoyle Cadillac and Oldsmobile in 1951 and built the core of the building which houses Ed Morse Cadillac now.  I am happily semi-retired in our not-so-little-anymore Village by the Sea. I spend my days painting, swimming and playing canasta. Both my daughters and my two grandchildren live here. I am truly blessed.

Q: What do you enjoy most about living in Delray Beach?
A: I love the weather, and I’m fortunate enough to live on the ocean, so I get to look at the ocean every day. The beach. I’m retired, and there are a lot of people down here my age, so even though I’m single there’s no lack of social things to do. I enjoy that, and I enjoy the fact I’m not sloshing through the snow to get there. I enjoy playing cards, and my second career, if you want to call it that, is as an artist. I spend a lot of time painting. I used to have a little studio where I painted and had a few little openings, but it was never a gallery. I’m not that good. But it’s fun.

Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I read a lot of whodunits, mysteries, and half the time I don’t remember the name after I’ve finished. It’s not like I’m reading for a great, higher purpose. One I’ve read lately is The Road Less Traveled and Beyond, by Scott Peck. It’s a psychology book. Also, Living a Life of Value, a composite by several authors who have added value to their lives and then shared their stories.

Q: What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
A: I listen to a lot of Il Divo, four tenors that sing a sort of pop opera. I also listen to other tenors on Pandora, but they just waft out into the ether. I like harmony a lot. And I like country western for that reason. I like Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood, and on the male side Blake Shelton. It’s kind of an odd duo, but country western also has a lot of harmony. Country western is more for when I’m painting, and Il Divo is more for relaxing.

Q: Do you have a favorite quote?
A: “That which does not kill you, makes you stronger,” by Friedrich Nietzsche.  I also like “There is no there there,” by Gertrude Stein. In therapy people have the misconception that they’re going to be better in six months or a year. We do that in life, too; there’s this endless belief that some day we’re going to get there. And the truth is there is no there. It’s a process and one day the process ends. It isn’t so much a destination.

Q: Do you have a mentor? A person who has inspired your life decisions?
A: I had many great teachers and mentors along the way, each encouraging and guiding me in their own way. One was an English teacher at Rollins who encouraged me to transfer to UNC and study creative writing at a “real” school. Teachers at UNC who saw talent when I saw none and showed me the beauty of learning and the joy of achievement.
Also, my adviser at Goddard College, Ellen Cole, who cared enough to hear my life story and help me realize my mission lay within that story.
And my aunt Betty Hunt was a guiding beacon of sanity and love. She showed me what compassion and dedication were and stood by my side at all times. I miss her to this day.

Q: If your life was made into a movie, who should play you?
A: Meryl Streep. Not sure why, except I like her!

By Steve Plunkett

Without any fanfare, Gulf Stream has leapt from being a three-digit hamlet, population-wise, to a robust four-digit seaside burb.
The latest figures from the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research, for 2017, show the town has 1,001 residents. A year earlier it said Gulf Stream residents numbered 998.
“We’re just taking off,” Town Manager Greg Dunham joked.
The town’s official website still broadcasts the 2013 population estimate: 974. Since the 2010 census Gulf Stream’s populace has swelled by 215 new folks, or 27 percent, UF said.
The bulk of the growth, about 150 people, came with the 2011 annexation of 16.6 acres on the north side of town. Since then, the 43-unit 4001 North Ocean condominium and accompanying villas west of State Road A1A have been built, and the former Spence estate was subdivided into six-home Harbor View Estates.
Dunham said revenue sharing and grants are based on road miles and per-capita income levels, not population, so being in the four digits was not particularly momentous.
“It didn’t raise my attention,” Dunham said.
Other South County population figures for April 1, 2017, were South Palm Beach with 1,400 residents (up 42 since 2010), Manalapan with 421 (up 15), Ocean Ridge with 1,812 (up 26), Briny Breezes with 422 (down 179), and Highland Beach with 3,609 (up 70).
After the figures were released, Briny Breezes Town Manager Dale Sugerman persuaded the UF bureau to go with the higher 2010 census count of 601 residents.
Among larger South County municipalities, Lantana tallied 10,797 residents (up 374 since 2010), Boynton Beach had 73,992 (up 5,775), Delray Beach had 65,804 (up 5,282), and Boca Raton had 91,797 (up 7,405).
Palm Beach County’s total population was 1,414,144 people, up 94,010 or 7.1 percent from 2010.
Estimates for April 2018 will be released at the end of the year.

Boynton’s CRA voted 4-1 to pay for sailfish logos as part of the state’s upgrade of Federal. Photo illustration provided

By Jane Smith

Boynton Beach will beautify five key intersections along Federal Highway with city logos that feature a sailfish.
The state Department of Transportation is paying to redo Federal Highway. But Boynton Beach will pay for the cosmetic upgrades such as the logos.
City commissioners, sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency board, agreed by a 4-1 vote to pay for the logos at Gateway, Martin Luther King Jr. and Boynton Beach boulevards, Ocean Avenue and Woolbright Road.
“Staff is bringing this to you because state DOT is paying to resurface the road and add pedestrian and bike lanes,” CRA director Michael Simon said at the board’s April 10 meeting. “We don’t have any other option with DOT. We are not doing the work on our own.”
Materials have not yet been selected, but board member Joe Casello was concerned that the logos would fade over time under the harsh South Florida sun. He thinks the money could be better spent in the district and voted against the expense.
Mayor Steven Grant said he wants to know which direction the sailfish should point as drivers on Federal Highway see them.
“I think on Ocean, the sailfish should be pointed to the beach,” said Susan Oyer, a fifth-generation resident and member of the city’s Planning and Development Board.
Simon told the agency board members that they must decide whether they want to pay to add the logos, estimated to cost about $55,000 per intersection. The amount includes a 20 percent contingency fee for cost overruns.
The design details — such as the colors, the orientation of the sailfish and materials used to create the street logos — will be presented at a future meeting, said Thuy Shutt, assistant agency director.

LEFT: Professional quality Har-Tru tennis courts are just part of the draw at the Delray Beach Club. Coastal Star file photo
RIGHT: Children are a major part of the summer membership focus at the St. Andrews Club. Photo provided

By Brian Biggane

As spring unfolds and many of their full-time members head north, several area clubs open their doors for summer memberships.
For some, such as the Delray Beach Club, it’s a way to keep members engaged with dining, beach and pool activities with a more limited — but still busy — schedule.
For others, such as St. Andrews Club, it’s a means of raising additional revenue while potentially attracting future full-time applicants for membership.
The Royal Palm Yacht Club and the Boca Raton Resort and Club do not offer summer memberships.
Most summer memberships run from May 1 to Oct. 31 and are available only to applicants who are sponsored by one or more voting members. Applicants typically face a waiting period of 14-30 days for approval. Here’s a closer look at the clubs that responded to our request for summer membership information:

Delray Beach Club
2001 S. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach, 278-6226
Membership Director Diane Roberts said summer programs are nothing new at the iconic club in south Delray, having existed prior to her arrival nearly 25 years ago.
“We don’t curtail our programs that much from the season,” Roberts said. “We have a theme party every month, along with a full run of kids’ activities and camps.”
The club offers a 3.5-acre oceanfront beach, an expansive pool and activities that include canasta events on Wednesdays, known alternatively as “Cocktails and Canasta,” “Girlfriend Canasta” and “Classic Canasta.”
Other activities include bridge games, a book club, art club, theater trips, luncheons, lectures, musical entertainment, holiday theme dinner parties and cabaret night.
Four Har-Tru tennis courts are available, two on property and two off property, with lessons from a professional.
Food and beverage service is available outside Tuesday through Thursday and inside on the weekends. The club is open Mondays but no food is served.
“We’ll be capping our membership at 90 this year,” Roberts said. The club had 87 summer members last year. “We’re just as busy in the summer nowadays as we are in season.”

St. Andrews Club
4475 N. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach, 272-5050
After attracting 25 families to its inaugural summer membership program a year ago, St. Andrews has set a goal of 50 this year.
“We think our programming is a lot stronger than a lot of other clubs,” General Manager Robert Grassi said. “So we’re doing independent, large events. We’re going to have a surf camp and a lifeguard camp.”
Children are a focus of the various St. Andrews programs. The club produced a book at the end of last summer featuring color displays of kids involved in activities ranging from observing turtle hatchlings to golf and tennis to pool activities.
“We want to get them out to do a new activity or sport and get the phone out of their face,” Grassi said.
St. Andrews offers more facilities than most, including an 18-hole par-3 golf course, tennis and croquet courts, a fitness center, and pool and beach access.
Golf pro Amy Carver plans to do a variety of kids’ clinics along with a “Nine and Dine” program for adults.
“If you have kids just getting introduced to golf you can’t spend the whole day on the course,” Carver said. “They need time to work on basic skills, so we’ll do that in the mornings, have lunch and go play in the afternoon.”
Highlights of the dining schedule include Grillin’ and Chillin’ on Wednesdays and a pizza/pasta night on Fridays, with a snack bar on weekends.
The club is also stressing responsibility for the environment, as evidenced by the April release of 200 butterflies and the donation of an ATV to Sea Turtle Adventures, which monitors nests along the beach.

Seagate Beach Club
400 Seasage Drive, Delray Beach, 665-4800
GM William Sander reported that this will be the 10th year of summer memberships since the club reopened in 2009.
This is the third year that Seagate offers access to the Seagate Country Club. Golf memberships began May 1 but the Beach Club won’t open until June 1 due to a renovation project involving the replacement of the roof, redoing the upstairs dining room, new pavers on the pool deck, painting the pool and installing new bathrooms.

The Little Club
100 Little Club Road, Gulf Stream, 278-1010
The 18-hole par-3 golf course, a croquet court and dining are the highlights of a summer membership at The Little Club.
Membership liaison Marilyn Wobeser said the fee schedule is reduced in the summer months.
Summer members pay a dining room service fee but are not obligated to spend a minimum amount for food. Also, members pay no greens fees, though cart fees remain and guests are also charged greens fees.
The clubhouse closes down throughout August while the golf course shuts down for two weeks at that time. “We’ve always been able to generate new members from our summer program,” Wobeser said.

Colony Cabana Club
1801 S. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach, 276-4065
Owner Jestena Boughton said the club’s membership has topped out but the club, which features 250 feet of beach and a 25-meter pool, will continue its usual summer programs.
“We have a plunge pool that’s cool in the summer and warm in winter, we serve lunch from 12 to 2 for club members and their guests and have parties on full-moon nights,” Boughton said. “We don’t have a bar, but encourage bringing food and drinks on the nights we have parties.”
The club has nearly 30 beach cabanas that feature a community shower, and Boughton said members make the most of that feature in the summer.
“Our members love us,” Boughton said. “We’re as full as we can get.”

By Dan Moffett

For many years, police in Briny Breezes diplomatically looked the other way when a golf cart zipped down the sidewalk on A1A or drove the wrong way down a one-way street.
Those days are ending — and soon.
The Boynton Beach Police Department has told the town it has no choice but to start enforcing state statutes, and that means some serious changes for the roughly 130 golf cart owners in the town.
Soon, if you are operating a golf cart that is “street legal” — one converted to comply with state standards for a modified low-speed vehicle — you essentially are driving a small Ford or Chevy. Police will require you to follow the same rules of the road that would apply to the family car.
 If you own a cart that looks like it just came off the golf course and hasn’t been modified for street use (no headlights, seat belts, turn signals, state registration etc.), then your options for operating it legally in Briny will be extremely limited. In fact, there’s virtually nowhere in the town you can go, except on the internal private streets, without risking a violation.
One critical warning to all golf cart operators comes from Boynton Police Capt. Chris Yannuzzi: “Operating a golf cart along A1A has been illegal. Whether you’re going straight across A1A or up and down the sidewalk, it doesn’t matter.”
Yannuzzi says officers will immediately begin an education campaign to inform residents about the rules for golf carts and the penalties for violations. For the short term, police will issue warnings. Later, officers will write citations that have fines.
“We really did try the best we could to figure out some kind of compromise,” Yannuzzi said during the Town Council meeting on April 26. “Unfortunately that did not happen.”
Town Manager Dale Sugerman said he spent the last three months trying unsuccessfully to negotiate a solution with Florida Department of Transportation officials.
“No matter how hard we looked at the issue of changing directions of internal streets,” Sugerman said, “that would never result in all golf carts being able to completely avoid using at least a portion of the sidewalk on SR A1A.”
That sidewalk has become an insurmountable problem. It is state property and governed by the FDOT. It is 5 feet wide and designed for pedestrians only. The town would have to expand the sidewalk to 8 feet to get FDOT’s blessing to allow both pedestrians and golf carts to use it.
With an 8-foot sidewalk, FDOT would be willing to install a golf cart crossing at the intersection of Cordova Avenue and A1A, the essential link needed to make cart travel feasible in the town.
But widening the sidewalk would cost Briny hundreds of thousands of dollars, Sugerman said, because utility lines would have to be moved and perhaps even new FPL power poles would need to be installed. The state isn’t willing to share the cost.
“There is no FDOT funding to widen the sidewalk,” Sugerman said, “as the FDOT sidewalk is meant for pedestrians and not for golf carts.”
Council President Sue Thaler said there is no timetable for when police will switch from the education campaign to enforcement.
In other business, council members have a busy agenda set for May 17. Beginning at 3 p.m., they will hold a special meeting to discuss proposals for providing legal services to the town, then at 4 p.m. they will join corporate board members for a workshop on preparations for the hurricane season.
Thaler says current Town Attorney John Skrandel and five law firms have submitted proposals to handle the town’s legal work.