A feisty winter sailfish jumps during this year’s West Palm Beach Fishing Club Silver Sailfish Derby. The 2021 derby is set for Jan. 7-8. Photos by Willie Howard/The Coastal Star

By Willie Howard

November’s northerly winds bring sailfish to South Florida waters, creating an opportunity for anglers who enjoy catching and releasing billfish — but also a responsibility for those who don’t intend to catch a sailfish but suddenly find one stripping line from a reel and leaping from the waves.

Almost all sailfish are released. Anglers must have a federal HMS angling permit to keep one, and the sailfish must be at least 63 inches long (measured from the tip of the lower jaw to the fork of the tail) to be legal to keep.

That means ocean anglers must be prepared to release sailfish in good condition. Sailfish, Florida’s official saltwater fish, are prone to acrobatic jumps and head shaking at the surface in attempts to throw the hook.

After the fish settles down and can be held alongside the boat, remove the hook, if possible, or cut the line as close to the hook as possible.

Non-offset circle hooks such as these 7/0 Mustads are commonly used by anglers targeting sailfish with live bait. The backswept point of a circle hook is less likely to snag soft tissue inside a fish than a traditional J hook.

Wear gloves before trying to grab the bill. Hold the fish in the water, gripping the bill a few inches above the mouth with two hands, thumb touching thumb. After the sailfish is stabilized on the surface, keep the boat moving slowly forward so the sailfish can extract oxygen from the water and regain strength. When the sailfish begins to kick with its tail, set it free.

The reviving process might take five minutes. A caught sailfish is like a boxer winded after a long bout. Generally, the longer the fight, the more exhausted the sailfish will be and the longer it should be revived.

James Swanwick revives his first sailfish, taken on a live pilchard in 100 feet of water straight outside Palm Beach Inlet, in January. The boat is moving slowly forward, pushing water over the sailfish’s gills so it can regain strength.

The resuscitation process creates time for photographs and short videos. Show the angler holding the sailfish in the water while it’s being revived. Have the captain move the boat so the sun illuminates the fish and the person holding it. Don’t forget to maintain a good grip on your cellphone or use the strap on your camera to avoid losing it overboard.

Avoid the temptation to haul a sailfish into the boat for photos.

Federal fisheries laws require anglers to release sailfish and other billfish “in a manner that will ensure maximum probability of survival, but without removing fish from the water.”
It’s acceptable to lift the fish’s head out of the water, briefly, for a photo while leaving most of the fish in the water.

Catching and releasing sailfish is not overly difficult during the cool months, November through April. No need to bother with fishing kites, though kite fishing is a popular and effective method for catching sailfish.

Live goggle-eyes, pilchards or threadfin herring attached to a 7/0 non-offset circle hook will catch sailfish. Smaller hooks can be used for smaller baits. Try using a live bait rod fitted with a conventional reel holding 20- to 30-pound main line and 30- to 40-pound leader.

Non-offset circle hooks (mandatory in sailfish tournaments) are recommended for sailfish because they’re designed to slide over soft tissue inside the fish’s mouth and lodge in the corner of the jaw, minimizing damage.

If you’re setting up your boat to drift over a reef for kingfish and snapper, put the live bait intended for sailfish out first and let it move 150 feet or so behind the boat before stopping. That should keep the bait from swimming back under the boat and wrapping around the other lines, but check the bait periodically just in case it has a case of wanderlust.

When a sailfish hits and feels the hook, it’s likely to jump. If it’s connected to your rod, have an angler gradually tighten the drag on the reel and fight the fish. Bring in the other lines and prepare to move the boat slowly toward the fish to regain line.

Have someone on the boat shoot photos or videos during the fight. Sailfish often make spectacular jumps, sometimes close to the boat. Photos of the angler battling a sailfish can be just as exciting.

Ft. Lauderdale boat show is on despite pandemic
The 61st annual Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show was scheduled for Oct. 28 to Nov. 1 at seven locations along the waterfront despite challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Producer Informa U.S. Boat Shows says extra cleaning, hand-sanitizing, touch-free ticketing and social distancing are part of the show. Extra entrance points aim to minimize lines, and docks are wider — up to 30 feet.
All exhibitors and attendees must wear face coverings.
The Fort Lauderdale boat show is the largest in-water boat show in the world, with more than 80% of the show taking place in open-air spaces, according to the Marine Industries Association of South Florida, which owns the show.
Show hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (except on Nov. 1, when the show closes at 6 p.m.) Adult admission is $35. Call 954-463-6762 or visit www.flibs.com.

Nautical flea market set for Nov. 14-15
The 12th annual Palm Beach Marine Flea Market and West Palm Beach Seafood Festival is set for Nov. 14-15 at the South Florida Fairgrounds, 9067 Southern Blvd.
The market, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, will feature new and used boats for sale along with boating and fishing gear and marine accessories.
Adult admission is $10. Youths 12 and under will be admitted free. For details, visit www.flnauticalfleamarket.com.

Manatee zones take effect Nov. 15
Seasonal speed zones that require boaters to slow down to avoid striking manatees begin Nov. 15 and continue through March 31 in Palm Beach County.
The area around Florida Power & Light Co.’s Riviera Beach power plant (south of Peanut Island) is one of the most manatee-sensitive areas in Palm Beach County. Manatees are attracted to warm-water discharges from the power plant during cold weather.
Boat operators should wear polarized sunglasses and avoid boating over shallow sea grass beds to reduce the chance of hitting manatees.
Boaters who encounter a sick, dead or injured manatee should call the state’s Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-3922.

Bahamas updates COVID guidelines
Boaters headed to the Bahamas still must present a negative COVID-19 swab test (less than seven days before arrival), but the requirement that visitors “vacation in place” expires Nov. 1, meaning they can move around beyond the confines of their accommodations.
To enter the Bahamas, visitors must obtain a negative COVID swab test and apply for a Bahamas Health Travel Visa at www.travel.gov.bs. Click on the international tab to upload the test results.
In addition, Bahamas visitors will be subject to a rapid antigen test upon arrival and four days (96 hours) after arrival. Details: www.bahamasmarinas.com/procedures-and-protocols.

Tip of the month
Want to better understand all the notes and symbols on nautical charts? Download NOAA’s free U.S. Chart No. 1 at www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/publications/us-chart-1.html.

Willie Howard is a freelance writer and licensed boat captain. Reach him at tiowillie@bellsouth.net.

Retiring principal Vikki Delgado’s kindergarten class this year included three students who are children of former students at St. Vincent Ferrer School. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Vikki Delgado never intended to become principal at St. Vincent Ferrer School in Delray Beach. But sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways.

A former preschool teacher at the Catholic school who had left four years earlier to help with family obligations, Delgado was at the YMCA in Boynton Beach when she was approached by a then teacher who brought up the idea of her becoming principal.

“She said, ‘Do you hear God calling you?’” Delgado recalls.

A short time later — on a Tuesday in May 2008 when she was scheduled to interview for the job — Delgado was at morning Mass and saw signs pointing to her future in the reading of the day, the psalm, and then the gospel that contains Jesus’ phrase “Let the little children come to me.”

The messages from above, she said, were hard to miss.

“My blessing has always been, ‘OK, God, what do you want me to do next,’ and every time he has shown me the way.’”

Now, 12 years after getting a job that felt like it was meant to be, Delgado is stepping down and has handed the reins to her former assistant principal, Denise O’Loughlin.

“I think it’s time,” Delgado said, adding that her Oct. 30 departure was bittersweet. “I feel like I’ve done the best work of my life here. All of the gifts that the Lord has given me, I feel like this is where they’ve best been used.”

Delgado will miss the children she has greeted every morning for the last 12 years, the parents she has gotten to know and the staff that has become like family. But she says she’s happy to have O’Loughlin step in.

As she takes over, the new principal is inheriting a school that has grown both physically and in enrollment under Delgado’s watch. Yet it has retained the closeness and high quality of education that first brought Delgado there as a parent looking for a school for her daughter.

Delgado recalls finding the school almost by accident and knowing right away that it was the place for her children. “I felt at home,” she said. “It reminded me of the Catholic school that I went to.”

Delgado, O’Loughlin says, had a knack for making sure people who came to the school always felt welcome.

“She makes everyone feel loved and accepted,” O’Loughlin said. “She has a kind, helping spirit that is infectious to everyone. She is just dearly, dearly loved by the students, parents and everyone she meets.”

O’Loughlin believes the strong religious beliefs that guide Delgado were key to her success as principal.

“She is a true light for what our Catholic faith is all about,” O’Loughlin said.

As principal, Delgado oversaw the multimillion-dollar expansion of the school, which was completed in August 2019. It includes a two-story building with 13 classrooms — many for the middle school students — and a new main office.

The expansion has enabled the school to reduce classroom size and provide improved facilities, including an expanded and modernized science lab.

Delgado, who was born in Cuba, has also focused on diversity and making the school more accessible. Since she took over as principal, the number of scholarships awarded through grants and donations has doubled.

Throughout her years at St. Vincent Ferrer School, Delgado has always focused on building relationships with students and with families and helping children grow educationally as well as in character.

In her final months she was out front greeting children and doing temperature checks while learning to recognize masked students by their eyes.

“Kids here discover their God-given gift and in turn give it back as a gift to the world,” she said.

For Delgado, a knack for teaching and working with children could well be a gift — one that she exhibited at an early age while leading her three younger siblings, but also a gift she fought.

The daughter of a kindergarten teacher, Delgado earned degrees in music and education at the University of Miami and spent several years working in music therapy with special needs children.

While earning her master’s degree in educational leadership she was introduced to a teaching job at Miami Dade’s Jan Mann Opportunity School, an alternative school for challenging students who may have been disruptive and disinterested at other schools.

“That was my turning point,” she said. “I could see how I could make a difference.”

All the while, she said, she kept thinking that teachers could do more if they could just reach children earlier.

After her two daughters enrolled at St. Vincent, Delgado was asked to fill in for the preschool teacher, who was out on maternity leave. She did that for eight years before leaving to take care of an ailing mother.

She was about ready to return to education, and in fact had a job lined up with Palm Beach County schools, when she got the call from St. Vincent’s to be principal.

While her job for most of the past 12 years has been as an administrator, Delgado has also made it a point to visit classrooms and go back to teaching. Last year, in fact, she spent much of the school year teaching a sixth-grade writing and English literature class.

Delgado, 59, says that she had originally planned to leave at the end of last school year but stayed to help with the transition brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

She says she will spend her time “getting off the bus,” enjoying things like gardening and just being a grandmother, relaxing until whatever is supposed to come her way arrives.
“We’ll see what God has for me next,” she said.

It's all about the views at this Delray Beach oceanview estate, which has walls of windows along balconies that invite the outside in.

Artfully designed by Rick Brautigan Inc., this ultra-contemporary five-bedroom, 4.5-bath residence is a study in contrasts.

Built on a deep quarter-acre lot, its 5,817 square feet of living space has hard industrial-style elements such as a metal roof, steel spiral staircases and built-in metal bookcases; and sleek urban design, with its stunning master bath and gourmet chef’s kitchen. It’s all juxtaposed against interior architectural curves, exterior water elements and a lush tropical setting.

With the kitchen (left), dining room (right) and balconies beyond, the house has ample space for gracious entertaining.

This fenced property has a gray brick motor court lined with fiber-optic night lighting and rimmed by specimen palms and manicured hedges.

Reflecting its beachy locale, it boasts custom-designed water elements, including a covered heated lap pool with spa and spillover waterfall as well as an outdoor shower.

There are covered and uncovered patios in this home, which has ample space and privacy for elegant as well as casual entertaining, grilling and alfresco dining.

The spacious family room offers a perfect spot to unwind or entertain.

Important special features to the property include CBS construction, impact windows, volume ceilings, designer fireplaces, industrial style elevator, glass and steel stairs, porcelain flooring, a wet bar, four-zone AC and security system.

The split plan that separates guest rooms and secludes the master suite has nearly uninterrupted windows that show views of the Atlantic.

This house is offered partly furnished.

The east side of the home is virtually all windows to maximize views of the ocean.

Offered at $5,995,000. Call Pascal Liguori, Broker Associate, 561-278-0100, or Antonio Liguori, Broker Associate, 561-414-4849, at Premier Estate Properties, Waterway East, 900 E. Atlantic Ave., Suite 4, Delray Beach, FL 33483.

By Mary Hladky

With Jeremy Rodgers on military duty overseas and unable to attend City Council meetings, his fellow council members will soon appoint a resident to serve the remainder of his term of office or until his deployment ends.

Rodgers notified council members in an Oct. 14 letter that he can’t attend meetings remotely, as he had hoped to do, and asked them to fill his seat.

He recommended his wife, Mandy, saying she is “best qualified” and “has no political ambitions or intent to run” for office.

Council members thanked Mandy for her willingness to serve but said they wanted to give all residents the opportunity. The city will accept applications until 5 p.m. Oct. 22. Council members will interview applicants on Oct. 26 and make the appointment on Oct. 27.

Rodgers’ term ends on March 31.

A lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, Rodgers was called to active duty and deployed in August to Qatar in support of NATO operations in Afghanistan.

He was elected to a three-year council term in 2015 and won re-election in 2018.

“We miss you,” said Mayor Scott Singer. “We are grateful for your service.”

By Mary Hladky

Moving at lightning speed, the City Council unanimously accepted the donation of the 167-acre Boca Golf and Tennis Country Club to the city just eight days after the gift was announced.

Council members brushed aside pleas from country club neighbors at their Oct. 14 meeting to postpone the vote.

Speakers complained they were never consulted or even told that the new owners of the Boca Raton Resort & Club were offering the country club to the city, and voiced concerns about increases in traffic, possible decreases in their property values and whether the city had done adequate due diligence.

Many asked, “What’s the rush?”

But council members said the deal was simply too good to pass up.

“I think this is a slam dunk for the city,” said council member Andy Thomson.

Other cities would “salivate” over such a donation, said Mayor Scott Singer, who described it as “the most generous donation” ever made to the city. Answering residents' questions about the quick vote, City Manager Leif Ahnell said, “The donation is available now. … I am not under the impression it is available at a later date. This would be a fantastic opportunity.”

City officials expect to break even on operating the golf course, or possibly make a small profit.

Residents’ concerns can be addressed before the city takes over operation of the country club, council members said. The Boca Raton Resort & Club will continue operating the country club through Sept. 30, 2021.

MSD Partners, formed by billionaire Michael S. Dell, and Northview Hotel Group, acquired the country club as part of their purchase of the resort for $875 million in 2019. In announcing the donation, the owners said they want to concentrate on an ongoing massive, $150 million renovation of the resort. They said the country club had been underutilized for over a decade.

The country club is located outside the city limits on Congress Avenue north of Clint Moore Road, about 7 miles from the resort. It includes an 18-hole championship golf course, tennis courts, clubhouse and pool.

By Mary Hladky

The new owners of the Boca Raton Resort & Club plan to donate the 130-acre Boca Country Club to the city, which would take over the operation of the 18-hole championship golf course, tennis courts, clubhouse and pool, the city announced on Oct. 7.

The plans call for MSD Partners, formed by billionaire Michael S. Dell’s private investment firm, and Northview Hotel Group to convey the property to the city this month. But the resort will operate it as a private club through Sept. 30, 2021, after which the city would take over.

“This incredible opportunity will enable us to deliver world-class recreation to more residents, including championship golf on a beautiful course,” Mayor Scott Singer said.

MSD Partners and Northview acquired the Boca Country Club when it bought the resort in 2019 for $875 million in Palm Beach County’s biggest-ever property deal.

They now have embarked on a massive, $150 million makeover of the luxury resort and want to concentrate on that project, according to Coburn Packard, partner and co-head of real estate at MSD Partners.

“The Boca Country Club is an excellent facility, but as a private club, it has been underutilized for well over a decade,” he said. “We will be pleased to see it achieve its full potential while supporting the greater Boca Raton community.”

The Boca Country Club is located on Congress Avenue north of Clint Moore Road, in unincorporated Palm Beach County just north of the city limits and 7 miles from the resort property.

It was not immediately clear how the gift will affect the state of public golf in Boca Raton. An affiliate of developer GL Homes is under contract to buy the city’s municipal golf course, off Glades Road west of Florida’s Turnpike, for $65.5 million on April 30, 2021. But the city has an option to delay the sale until Oct. 30, 2021.

Meanwhile, the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District has submitted plans to the city to build a new 18-hole golf course on the site of the defunct Ocean Breeze golf course on Northwest Second Avenue north of Yamato Road. The district bought the site in 2018 for $24 million with financial help from the city.

Materials and tarps cover both of the unmoveable portions of the bridge over the Boca Raton Inlet in late August. The bridge is getting a cleaning and new paint. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett

The bridge over the Boca Raton Inlet, which has been closed for repainting, will reopen to vehicles and pedestrians at approximately noon on Oct. 8, the Florida Department of Transportation announced.

"Normal bridge operations have resumed with on-demand openings for marine vessels," FDOT spokeswoman Angel Streeter Gardner said. "Painting operations are anticipated to continue through the end of the month of October."

The bascule bridge, officially known as the Haven Ashe Bridge after a longtime bridge tender, closed to land traffic in August.

The state DOT is changing the paint color from light blue to dark blue.

The agency expects the work to be done by late fall.

By Jane Smith

Boynton Beach boaters were able to persuade the City Commission to raise the $50 annual parking pass at Harvey Oyer Jr. Park to just $200 instead of a proposed $350.

The decision was made at the city’s Sept. 22 final budget hearing. The new rate takes effect on Oct. 1.

“The $350 rate is causing quite an uproar,” said Boynton Beach resident Sven Mautner. “They are basing it on $1 a day.”

But he said the annual parking pass cost just $50 in the financial year that ends Sept. 30.

“I have a 21-foot boat with a single motor,” said Mautner, who first read about the proposed increase in The Coastal Star. “I use it to go snorkeling with my wife.”

Resident Clifton J. Bell emailed Commissioner Christina Romelus and Public Works Director Andrew Mack with this subject line: “City Resident Boat Decal 700% Increase is EXTREME.”

He objected to residents having to pay the higher cost of the permit when Boynton Beach plans to install metered kiosks that will operate 24/7, seven days a week. “Our taxes already go towards funding of city parks,” he wrote.

The city will charge any vehicle that uses the long boat spaces $1.50 per hour, payable at the two parking kiosks. The maximum charge is $10 on weekdays and $25 on weekends.

Boynton Beach will offer boat owners an annual parking pass at $200 for Florida residents and $350 for non-residents.

At the final budget hearing, Mack explained that the city is using penny sales tax money and a Florida Inland Navigation District grant to replace the Oyer Park boat ramp, on the Intracoastal Waterway. Requests for proposals will go out before the end of the year, he said. Construction will start in late spring or early summer.

Because of the construction, Commissioner Justin Katz proposed a $100 annual parking pass. “Boaters might not be able to use the ramp,” he said.

But Mayor Steven Grant wanted to keep the parking pass at $200.

“If you use the boat ramp eight times during the weekends or 20 times during the week, the pass will pay for itself,” he said. “People abuse the boat ramp and leave their trailers there.”

The idea of charging for parking is to allow more boaters to use the park, said Colin Groff, assistant city manager. “Ten shorter spots will be free. But if you park in the longer spaces, you will have to pay,” he said.

Reducing the pass cost by $150 will mean about $50,000 less in revenue to the city, Groff said. “But the city could sell more passes at the lower rate. We just don’t know where the numbers will be,” he said.

City commissioners narrowly approved the $200 annual parking pass rate, with Vice Mayor Ty Penserga and Katz voting no. Penserga had said at the first budget hearing that the pandemic was not the time to be raising rates.

By Steve Plunkett

Boca Raton’s City Council must reconsider its 5-0 decision not to grant permission to build a duplex on the beach, Palm Beach County circuit judges say.

Council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte prejudged the application by 2600 N Ocean LLC proposing a four-story, 14,270-square-foot residence east of A1A between Spanish River Park and Ocean Strand, the judges decided.

At a Feb. 26, 2019, City Council meeting, attorney Robert Sweetapple, representing the landowner, showed a campaign video of then-council member and now Mayor Scott Singer standing on a dune and declaring he could not support plans for a house on the beach. Sweetapple also had copies of emails that O’Rourke and Mayotte had sent constituents saying they would vote against variances for construction seaward of the Coastal Construction Control Line.

In a ruling issued Sept. 16, Circuit Judges Jaimie Goodman, Janis Keyser and G. Joseph Curley said Singer’s statements constituted a “general political stance made in a campaign video” and were permissible. But O’Rourke’s and Mayotte’s emails to residents — saying they had “no intention of granting [the application]” and “[would] do all I can to prevent this from happening” — showed they were not impartial, the judges said.

“This was more than mere political bias or an adverse political philosophy — it was express prejudgment of Petitioner’s application,” they said.

Their ruling said 2600 N. Ocean LLC “is entitled to a new hearing without the participation” of Mayotte and O’Rourke, who has since become deputy mayor. That would leave Singer and council members Jeremy Rodgers and Andy Thomson to rehear the application.

But Rodgers, a Navy Reserve officer, has been deployed on active duty to the Mideast and has not attended a council meeting since late June.

Sweetapple promised even more litigation over the parcel, which was recently appraised at $7.2 million.

“Boca Raton has engaged in a decades-long program to deny any development of this private, taxpaying, oceanfront property. To date it has failed to acquire the property as part of its spectacular oceanfront park system,” he said. “The continued denial of any reasonable development of this parcel constitutes a taking. The ongoing illegal actions of the city will continue to be addressed in the courts.”

Each side of the proposed duplex would have had a roof level with a pool, spa, fire pit and outdoor kitchen. Sweetapple said the building would have special glass facing the ocean that would transmit only 10 percent of interior light, below the city’s request for 15 percent, and have only 8 percent reflectivity. Lighting is a concern for nesting and hatchling sea turtles.

Council members caused an uproar when they gave a zoning variance in late 2015 for a four-story beachfront home two parcels south, at 2500 N. Ocean Blvd. The state Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice to proceed with that project, which still needs review by the city's Environmental Advisory Board and another council vote.

By Mary Hladky

Former Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie’s trial on public corruption charges has been postponed for the fourth time, and is now set to begin on Jan. 11, 2021.

Prosecutors and Bruce Zimet, Haynie’s criminal defense lawyer, agreed to move back the trial date from Oct. 26, citing disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, additional time needed to complete pre-trial discovery and the possibility that not enough potential jurors would be available.

Palm Beach County Chief Judge Krista Marx suspended all jury trials in April because of the coronavirus pandemic but issued an administrative order on Sept. 9 allowing a limited number of trials to begin after Oct. 9.

Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen ordered the new trial date on Sept. 11.

Haynie, 64, was arrested on April 24, 2018, on charges of official misconduct, perjury, misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflicts. She faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted.

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

Haynie has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Zimet has repeatedly said she will not accept a plea deal.

Then-Gov. Rick Scott suspended Haynie from office, but she never resigned. Scott Singer won a special election to claim the position in 2018 and was re-elected in March.

This arch and four others near the Atlantic Avenue pavilion will be cut down to 48 inches high to allow more plants to grow underneath. A city consultant in February advised leaving the tall sea grapes uncut to provide habitat for migrating songbirds and a buffer from streetlights for sea turtles.

By Jane Smith

The sea grapes along the municipal beach — including five iconic arches — will be trimmed, Delray Beach city commissioners decided on Sept. 10.

More than half of the 42 people who spoke on the sea grape issue at the commission meeting preferred trimming them. The sea grapes will be trimmed to be 48 inches in height.

Donald Robinson, representing 40 residents of the Manor House condominiums at 100 N. Ocean Blvd., called the arches a security issue. As he did more than three years ago, he complained about the arches “housing homeless people.”

He also said Manor House residents were worried about parts of the sea grapes breaking off during a storm, blowing across Ocean Boulevard and damaging their condos.

Other speakers who supported trimming the sea grapes said a lower height would let them see the ocean during their daily walks on the promenade.

Vice Mayor Ryan Boylston, who voted for trimming all the sea grapes on Aug. 18, also in a 3-2 vote, asked for the issue to be reheard at the Sept. 10 meeting.

He first talked about his kids geocaching (using GPS coordinates to find outdoor treasures) in the sea grape arches and wheeling his grandmother into the pavilion at Atlantic Avenue and Ocean Boulevard to see the ocean.

He also went to the beach before the meeting to take pictures of the arches and where the trimming has happened. He pointed out in the images how the area without the tunnels was “healthy and biodiverse” in its plants. The photos of the tunnels showed little plant life underneath the sea grapes.

Commissioner Adam Frankel, who supported the trimming on Aug. 18, continued to say they should be trimmed. He read a letter by Rob Barron, a dune consultant and former Delray Beach lifeguard, about how several of his native plantings died underneath the sea grapes.

“I believe in the science and Mr. Barron,” Frankel said.

But the two who voted for keeping the arches pointed out that Barron does not have a biology or other advanced degree as the coastal engineers hired to do the February study on the sea grape trimming plan.

Barron “is valuable to us in that he knows where all the native plants are,” said Missie Barletto, public works director.

“Mr. Barron said all the sea grapes should be removed,” said Commissioner Juli Casale, who wanted to keep the five arches.

Casale also said more than 1,600 residents signed a petition for keeping the arches.

“People come from all over and take pictures of the sea grape tunnels,” said Mayor Shelly Petrolia, who wanted to save the arches.

“The public wants the sea grape tunnels. Govern yourselves accordingly,” she said before the vote.

The trimming will continue in October after two colonies of honeybees are moved, Barletto said.

Materials and tarps cover both of the unmoveable portions of the bridge over the Boca Raton Inlet in late August. The bridge is getting a cleaning and new paint. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Tall ships, beware!

The bridge over the Boca Raton Inlet, which is being repainted, will have restricted daytime access for boaters starting Sept. 8 through Sept. 28, the Florida Department of Transportation says. Boats that need the bridge raised on weekdays can only transit the inlet before 7 a.m., after 5:30 p.m. and during three scheduled 30-minute openings: at 10 a.m., noon and 2:30 p.m.

“Vessels that may pass through the bridge without an opening may do so at any time,” the U.S. Coast Guard added.

In addition, the bridge vertical clearance will be reduced from 22.1 feet to 20.1 feet, the FDOT said. The bridge will operate on its normal schedule from 5:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily and on weekends and may open for emergencies at any time.

It remains closed to land traffic. Vehicles and pedestrians are being detoured to Federal Highway via Palmetto Park Road and Hillsboro Boulevard.

The repainting is scheduled to be finished in late fall.

—Steve Plunkett

A $1 million donation has been made to the Boca Raton Regional Hospital Foundation’s Keeping the Promise Campaign to support the current and future needs of the medical facility.

The monetary source: Sun Capital Partners Foundation founders Rodger Krouse and Marc Leder.

“This generous gift from the Sun Capital Partners Foundation, Rodger and Hillary Krouse, and Marc and Lisa Leder, will enable our hospital to better serve the evolving health care needs of our community for years to come,” Boca Raton Regional Hospital CEO

Lincoln Mendez said. “We are deeply appreciative of their past support and this new commitment to our efforts to modernize and renovate our campus, add key services and new technology capabilities and continuously improve the experience for patients and their families, physicians, staff and visitors.”

For more information, call 561-955-4142 or visit https://donate.brrh.com.

$85,000 in grants go to South County initiatives

The Jewish Women’s Foundation of South Palm Beach County graced nine organizations with donations that will aid and empower women and children in the community.

The money — $85,000 total — comes from the pooled resources of trustees who contribute a minimum of $2,000 annually. Through an intensive, hands-on process, the philanthropists decide which organizations will most effectively achieve the agency’s goals.

“I am very proud to be part of JWF,” said Amy Rosenberg, grants chairwoman. “Reviewing grants, researching organizations and having in-depth discussions about key issues are an empowering experience for our trustees. We come from varied backgrounds and experiences, yet we all bring a strong desire to collaborate together to help improve the lives of Jewish women and children and strengthen Jewish families.”

For more information, call 561-852-6027 or visit https://jewishboca.org/jwf.

Community Foundation awards 88 scholarships

The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties has granted 88 local students more than $1 million in scholarships, averaging $11,000 per recipient.

The recipients were evaluated by an advisory committee based on applications, essays, interviews and résumés.

“The process of choosing who will be awarded each of these scholarships is undertaken with dedication and discipline,” said January Reissman, the foundation’s vice president for community impact. “The process is never easy because our student applicants are outstanding.”

Since 1983, the organization has awarded $15 million-plus in scholarships and helped nearly 2,500 youths.

For more information, call 561-659-6800 or visit www.yourcommunityfoundation.org.

Amid pandemic, nonprofits share $250,000 allocation

The Quantum Foundation has distributed $250,000 to select area charities to help their clients pay the bills and put food on the table.
A total of 20 nonprofits assisting the community’s most vulnerable residents were allocated funds in the wake of the coronavirus.

“The COVID-19 pandemic brought forward longstanding health inequities in disinvested communities, exposing the impacts of the social determinants of health such as economic and social conditions that influence a group’s health status,” Quantum Foundation President Eric Kelly said. “Health is not the absence of illness but rather a positive state of physical and mental well-being, and these grants are a step in the right direction.”

For more information, call 561-832-7497 or visit www.quantumfnd.org.

Delray Beach museum selected for $50K grant

To maintain operations and staffing during the pandemic, the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum landed $50,000 in grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The nonprofit was one of three arts organizations in Palm Beach County — and one of 855 nationwide — to receive funding from the NEA through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

The Delray Beach museum received additional funding stemming from the CARES Act: $7,500 from Florida Humanities Council and $1,929 from the Florida Department of State’s Division of Cultural Affairs.

“All of us at the National Endowment for the Arts are keenly aware that arts organizations across the country are hurting, struggling and trying to survive, and that our supply of funding does not come close to meeting the demand for assistance,” Chairwoman Mary Anne Carter said.

“That said, I am enormously proud of the over-and-above efforts of the arts endowment staff to swiftly and professionally manage such a large amount of additional work in a relatively short period of time on behalf of the American public.”

For more information, call 561-279-8883 or visit www.spadymuseum.com.

Underserved kids get much-needed computers

With the shift to distance learning amid the pandemic, a longtime Achievement Centers for Children & Families supporter saw the need for access to laptops for underserved children.

The anonymous donor partnered with the Education Foundation of Palm Beach County to donate 55 Chromebooks to ACCF, which in turn were distributed to students enrolled in the Delray Beach-based organization’s programs. Families of the students will receive training on how to use the devices.

“We were thrilled to receive this generous donation of 55 Chromebooks to distribute to our students for the upcoming school year,” Achievement Centers CEO Stephanie Seibel said. “These devices are a basic component to a student’s ability to work virtually and be successful.”

For more information, call 561-266-0003 or visit www.achievementcentersfl.org.

South County residents join Impact 100 board

Impact 100 Palm Beach County has named Emily McMullin and Nicole Mugavero of Boca Raton and Lisa Warren of Boynton Beach to the board for the 2020-21 season.

The women will help advance the nonprofit’s mission of elevating philanthropy by combining members’ donations to create high-impact grants.

“Impact 100 Palm Beach County welcomes Emily, Nicole and Lisa to the board of directors,” President Kathy Adkins said. “With all of their combined nonprofit leadership experience as well as their passion for giving back and many years of involvement with Impact 100 PBC, they will be exceptional assets to the board.”

For more information, call 561-336-4623 or visit www.impact100pbc.org.

Diabetes foundation names execs, board members

Dr. David Lubetkin, former chief of staff at West Boca Medical Center, has been named president of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Greater Palm Beach chapter.

In addition, Donna DeSanctis, a financial adviser who has served in several roles at the chapter, has been named vice president.

Joining Dr. Lubetkin and DeSanctis on the board are members RoseMarie Antonacci-Pollock, Summer Dennis, Neil Efron, Steven Fried, Scott Meece, Deborah Morawski, Nicole Oden, Dr. Miladys Palau, Dr. Michael Patipa, Mark Patten, Debbie Roosth, Ryan Rothstein, Dane Sheldon, Marc Tanner, Daniel Tumba and Bryan Weinstein.

For more information, call 561-686-7701 or visit www.jdrf.org/southernflorida.

By Mary Thurwachter

Not long after the coronavirus prompted stay-at-home orders last spring, Michelle Donahue noticed how many people from both the Manalapan and Lantana sides of Hypoluxo Island took advantage of the time to walk, jog or bike around the neighborhood. Beaches and parks were closed, and residents were eager to get outside.

Donahue, a history buff who is president of the Hypoluxo Island Property Owners Association and author of the Brown Wrapper newsletter, used the quarantine to fast-track a project that she had been considering for a while — creating a self-guided tour of Hypoluxo Island.

The island, just 3 miles long and a half-mile wide, boasts fascinating history that few seem to know, she says.

Her online guide came out just before the Fourth of July — an appropriate time, Donahue determined, since people would be looking for fun things to do and the beaches were closed for the holiday weekend.

She thought it would be nice for residents and others to “get out their phones and flip through the pages of the brochure and at least walk through the neighborhood and get exercise and learn a little something about where they lived.”

She explains: “You ask people about Hypoluxo Island and they say, ‘Oh, it’s a hidden gem,’ but no one ever really knows what the history is here.”

Donahue thought about doing the guide, but given her job as a Realtor with Douglas Elliman and other commitments, “it took me a few months just to kind of get it together.”

Since the online version of the tour came out, Donahue, 51, published a printed version as well, and on the first Friday of each month, she began a Happy Hour History Tour of the island. Donahue, a Miami native who grew up in Delray Beach, paid for the printing and did all the writing and research.

Hannibal Pierce, an assistant keeper at the Jupiter Lighthouse, settled on the island in 1873. He built a thatched-roof cabin and other pioneers followed suit, carving a community out of the wilderness. Until the 1950s and 1960s, when snowbirds started putting up cottages, the island was sparsely settled.

Donahue’s guide points out many historical sights, from McKinley Park, originally known as Beach Curve Park but renamed in the mid-1970s for Floyd Charles McKinley to honor his many years of community service to Lantana; to Casa Alva, the 26,000-square-foot, Maurice Fatio-designed home built for Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan.

Producing both the Brown Wrapper — a local history publication that debuted in 2017 — and the self-guided tour are labors of love, she says. The Property Owners Association pays printing costs of the newsletter, an annual publication.

“When you’re passionate about something, it’s more enjoyable than anything else,” Donahue says. “I really have gotten such great pleasure out of doing this and learning from it.”

She particularly enjoys connecting history with people who still live on the island, such as Narine Ebersold, who has lived on Hypoluxo since 1946; and Don Edge, an architect who helped create Manalapan’s La Coquille Club, where the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa stands today.

Both have become great sources of information for Donahue, who delights in visiting with them, even now when it’s socially distanced through screen doors and wearing masks.

“It’s so important because if we don’t capture it now, we’re going to lose it forever,” she says. “It’s too important not to tell the story of the island. I just feel like it’s never really had that opportunity.”

Donahue and her husband, Sean, live in an Addison Mizner home built in 1927. The historic house is called Casa Lillias, after Lillias Piper, a nationally known interior decorator who first owned the home. Since 1999, it has been declared the oldest house on the island.

Donahue’s day job keeps her very busy, and to keep in shape she runs in the morning.

“As much as I love to run, that’s my passion every day, this is just as much my passion,” Donahue says of her historical research and writing. “After dinner, when things settle down here at the house, I’ll just jump on the computer and do some more research. It’s always so fun. Especially when I find articles that are so relative to what I find to write in the papers.

“Of course, I don’t want to put anything out there that I haven’t totally documented or researched and … sometimes it can take days to get the answers. But it’s a good journey to be on.”

A car drives along Ocean Avenue in downtown Boynton Beach in 1915. Photos from Boynton Beach City Library collection

The city’s evolution from incorporation in 1920 to a dazzling new $118 million Town Square in 2020

By Ron Hayes

On July 14, 1920, a Wednesday that year, 50 qualified voters gathered to decide whether their little Florida community should incorporate.

Forty-eight of them said yes, one said no, and one apparently said nothing.

They adopted a town seal, elected a mayor, five aldermen, a marshal and a clerk, and a week later, on July 21, the town of Boynton (pop. 602) made it official.

Sun worshippers relax near the Boynton hotel, which opened in 1897 and was torn down in 1925.

History doesn’t record if the occasion was toasted with food and drink, but a century later, on July 21, 2020, in the towering lobby of a gleaming new City Hall, 100 vanilla bean cupcakes topped with buttercream frosting offered themselves to anyone in the city (pop. 79,000) who wanted to celebrate its centennial.

“Boynton Beach,” a sign behind the cupcakes boasted, “100 Years In The Making.”

Of course, some might argue that there should have been 125 cupcakes that morning.

Or at least 122?

Actually, the making of Boynton Beach began long before July 21, 1920.

•

Sometime in 1895, a charter boat called the Victor carried a former Union Army officer named Nathan Smith Boynton of Port Huron, Michigan, down what would become the Intracoastal Waterway in search of real estate.

Major Boynton liked what he saw, bought some land on an ocean ridge, and started building a beachfront hotel.

“The Boynton” opened two years later — 45 rooms, six cottages, a showplace.

A year after that, on Sept. 26, 1898, Birdie and Fred Dewey recorded a plat to be known as “the Town of Boynton.”

By 1920, when the town finally incorporated, Nathan Boynton had already been dead nine years.

•

The town of Boynton had incorporated just in time to enjoy the Florida land boom of the 1920s.

That first year, a Police Department was organized and a bridge built across the Intracoastal Waterway. The town got electric streetlights, a sewer system and a Chamber of Commerce.

By 1925, Dr. Nathaniel Marion Weems Sr. had opened the town’s first doctor’s office. A Woman’s Club building designed by Addison Mizner was being built, Nathan Boynton’s hotel was being torn down, and an inlet was being cut between the waterway and the ocean to flush out the brackish water flowing in from the Lake Worth Inlet to the north.

Completed in 1927, the inlet was 130 feet wide, 8 feet deep, and cost $225,000.

That would be about $3,331,000 today.

The town of Boynton was thriving, unless you weren’t white.

•

Of the 602 total residents counted in the 1920 census, 157 were Black.

The oldest church in town was the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded on Feb. 5, 1892. The original building, built in 1900, stood at the northeast corner of what is now U.S. 1 and Boynton Beach Boulevard, along a stretch of Black-owned homes and businesses. But it didn’t stay there.

On Feb. 19, 1924, the town passed Ordinance 37, which created a “Negro section” west of town.

The Black citizens living along U.S. 1 packed their belongings, put their small church building on a wagon and hauled it over to the new “Boynton Colored Town” along Wells Avenue, on land platted by Robert Wells.

“My great-grandfather helped build the church,” says Victor Norfus. “It was the family church on my mother’s side.”

Norfus, 57, is the great-grandson of Allen Meeks, who came to the area from Tallahassee in 1896 to work for the Florida East Coast Railway when it ended in West Palm Beach. He is the author, with Odessa Holt, of Foundations of Faith, a privately published history of Boynton’s Black community.

“The value of land went up in the early 1920s,” Norfus says, “so all the Blacks living on Boynton Beach Boulevard were forced to live in that area. It was like a reservation.”

But even then, some thought Black property rights mattered.

On July 18, 1924, the town sued James Butler, Nebraska B. Lee and Rhodia Lee for refusing to sell their property in the new “whites only” part of town. The property had been condemned so a new city hall could be built. The town won and was ordered to pay the Black landowners $2,500 for the two lots.

On Oct. 5, the town sued again to have the payment reduced to $2,000, which Butler and the Lees accepted.

•

Boynton hadn’t been incorporated two years when Charles Stanley Weaver was born on Jan. 19, 1922, in a wood frame house on South Federal Highway, just north of Southeast Fifth Avenue.

The young Weaver, the son of Marcus A. Weaver, who owned a small dairy farm west of town, was only 6 when the great “Okeechobee hurricane” of 1928 struck.

“The wind was so strong that even with the windows closed, water was coming in,” Weaver recalled in an oral history recorded for the Boynton Beach City Library in 1992. “In our dining room, which was on the east side of the house, Dad finally got a carpenter’s drill and drilled a couple holes in the floor. We had about 2 inches of water in the dining room.”

•

On May 15, 1931, the small community on the ocean ridge that had dubbed itself Boynton Beach split from the town of Boynton. Each municipality agreed to take on half the debt.

Boynton and Boynton Beach remained separate municipalities until 1938, when Boynton Beach, on the ocean ridge, changed its name to Ocean Ridge.

Three years later, by a vote of 155 to 3, the town of Boynton became the city of Boynton Beach.

•

Boynton’s Black citizens had been forcibly moved to a segregated district along Wells Avenue, but they didn’t stay in their place.

On Nov. 7, 1933, the town fathers passed Ordinance 136, a “sunset law” making it unlawful for any “person of the Negro race over the age of 18 years to loiter, wander, stroll or be about” in the “White District” after 9 p.m. in the winter months or 10 p.m. in the summer. To be fair, the law also prohibited “any person of the Caucasian race” from loitering in the Black District after dark.

•

The first of Dr. Nathaniel Marion Weems’ seven children arrived in 1927 and grew up to become Dr. Nathaniel Marion Weems Jr.

When he was a teenager in the 1940s, his hometown still had only 1,357 residents.

“It was a lot slower pace,” he would recall for the library’s oral histories. “Boynton was sort of a small town between Delray and Lake Worth. There was a movie usually at both of those places and not one in Boynton. A municipal swimming pool over on the beach in both Delray and Lake Worth, but not in Boynton.

“I’m not sure when the first red light went in between here and Fort Lauderdale,” Dr. Weems said. “I think it was probably in the ’50s.

“There was a caution light in Boca.”

•

In 1956, C. Stanley Weaver’s younger brother, Curtis, married Nathaniel Weems Jr.’s younger sister, Alice.

A year later, they had Curtis Weaver Jr.

The Weaver dairy farm stood west of town in an area now filled with shopping centers. Marcus A. Weaver (1887-1960) and his son Marcus (1924-1997) pose with a heifer. M.A. and his son C. Stanley Weaver each served as Boynton’s mayor. Photos from Boynton Beach City Library collection

Between 1950 and 1960, the city burgeoned from 2,542 residents to 10,467, and the Weaver Dairies had grown to 3,000 acres and 1,500 cows.

Bethesda Memorial Hospital opened in 1959.

Boynton Beach may have called itself a city, but even in the 1960s it was still a small town to Curtis Jr.

“We used to take our horses into town once or twice a month in the summer and ride them on the beach,” he recalled recently. “Right down Boynton Beach Boulevard all the way into town, up and over the bridge where the Two Georges restaurant is and go right up to the beach. All that wasn’t developed in the 1960s.

“We sold the horses and got motorcycles when I was 13 or 14.”

•

As in many Southern communities, Boynton Beach schools were segregated in the early years.

TOP: In 1924 teacher Ella Lakin posed with her class of sixth-graders at the Boynton Beach Elementary School.

BOTTOM: Still segregated in 1950, teacher Blanche Girtman with her class at Poinciana Elementary.

The 1960s were a decade of change, and Boynton Beach changed a lot in the coming decades.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ensured African-Americans’ right to stroll, eat and swim where they wished.

In the 1950s, the Negro Civic League served as an unofficial Black city commission because Black residents had no formal representation in government.

Today, the five-member City Commission has two Black members.

Interstate 95 was completed through the city in 1977, and in 1985 the Boynton Beach Mall opened.

C. Stanley Weaver, who served on the Boynton Beach Commission from 1951-1956 and was elected mayor in 1955, died Sept. 1, 2010.

Dr. Nathaniel Marion Weems Jr. practiced medicine in the city from 1957 until 1990. He died Aug. 14, 2015.

Victor Norfus continues to work for historic preservation and redevelopment in the city’s Black community.

Three years after being moved to Wells Avenue, the St. Paul AME Church was destroyed in the 1928 hurricane. A new church was built on the site a year later, and in 1954 the present church building rose directly across the street.

Wells Avenue is now called Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

•

Along with those 100 cupcakes, the centennial brought a proclamation from Mayor Steven B. Grant.

“As significantly important it is for the city of Boynton Beach to honor and celebrate its beginning,” the proclamation read in part, “it is equally important to look to our future and create future legacies.”

And then, 100 years to the day after the city was incorporated, he cut the ribbon on a beautiful new City Hall/Library complex called Town Square, which cost $118 million to build.

On July 21, 1920, it would have cost about $8.6 million.

By Ron Hayes

BOYNTON BEACH — When Alice Weems Weaver and Curtis Weaver Sr. died five days apart in late June, the city of Boynton Beach lost a treasury of local memories, and their love story found a bittersweet ending.

Alice, known to all since childhood as Nainie, died at home on June 25. She was 89.

Curtis, 92, died at home on June 30 — their 64th wedding anniversary.

Trying to separate their lives from the city where they were born, lived and died would be as fruitless as trying to separate their love for each other.

Nainie Weems was born March 24, 1931, the daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Marion Weems Sr., the town’s first physician, who opened his practice in 1925. Among the 7,500 babies Dr. Nat delivered during his 40-year career was the boy who would grow up to become her husband.

Curtis A. Weaver was born on March 18, 1928, the son of Marcus A. Weaver and Marion Grace Knuth. The Weavers owned a 90-acre dairy farm at what is now Old Boynton Road and Military Trail.

Both families were founding members of the First Methodist Church, where Curtis and Nainie were baptized, met and married.

As children, they attended the town’s one-room schoolhouse for the entire 12 years. As adults, they worked with others to resurrect the aging building as the Schoolhouse Children’s Museum.

After graduating from the University of Miami, Mrs. Weaver taught history and home economics at Seacrest High School in Delray Beach.

Mr. Weaver graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in milk chemistry and animal husbandry and, after service in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s, returned to work at the Weaver Dairies.

The couple were married in 1956, saw 350 friends and relatives attend the reception at the Boynton Woman’s Club, and honeymooned in Cashiers, North Carolina.

Their first child, Curtis Weaver Jr., was born in 1957, and a second, David, two years later.

Weaver Dairies grew into a 3,000-acre farm with 1,500 cows and nearly 100 employees.

“We moved to town when I was 4 years old, when David was born,” Curtis Weaver Jr. recalled recently. “Before that we lived on the farm in a small house — very, very small, wood-frame on cinder blocks with a wood joist floor with a porch patio. I would call it a shanty house or a row house.

“There were two roads built with housing, just for employees, where they lived with their families. I remember going to the barn and riding in the truck to pick up the employees.”

In the mid-’60s, the Weavers sold much of the dairy land to developers from Miami.

“And the western corridor of Boynton went from cows to townhouses,” their son said.

Later, Mr. Weaver and his siblings bought land on the south end of Nassau, Bahamas, and started another dairy farm, Golden Isles, which they later sold to Canadian developers.

In 1970, the couple renovated a small hotel in Cashiers, where they had spent their honeymoon 14 years before. For the next 20 years, they rented rooms and cabins at the Silver Slip Lodge to fellow vacationers from Boynton Beach.

In retirement, they traveled to Europe and Alaska, New England and the Canadian Rockies. But Boynton Beach was always their home, and their history.

Mr. Weaver was a president of the Boynton Beach Historical Society and a 35-year member of the local Rotary Club.

In addition to their sons Curtis Jr. and David Weaver, they are survived by their daughters-in-law, Diane and Eileen; grandchildren Josh and Brittany Weaver; Chelsea Weaver and her fiancé, Thomas McKeen; Leslie and Nate Beals; Lauren Weaver and her fiancé, Cage Regneris; and four great-grandchildren.

“My parents took a great deal of pride in being from Boynton and having been a part of the history of Boynton,” Curtis Weaver Jr. said. “They were tremendously loyal people to the town, and to their church.”

A memorial service will be held at a later date at the First Methodist Church of Boynton Beach.

The Butcher and The Bar opened in August and offers takeout and dining inside and out. Table service wasn’t available at first, but customers could place orders at the sandwich bar. The establishment includes a retail butcher shop. Photos provided by Jupiter Compass Digital Marketing Agency

By Jan Norris

Partners in The Butcher and The Bar worked through the COVID-19 shutdown and have managed to open — at least partially — their new eat-in butcher shop in Boynton Beach.

Eric Anderson, business partner, says the old-school, retail butcher shop and sandwich counter are open for takeout, and diners can sit inside or out and eat, but as of late August there was no table service.

“We were kind of supposed to open in April, but then contractors couldn’t send as many people at once to a job so there was a delay. We opened early August,” he said.

“Once Phase 2 is in place... we’ll be able to open the bar. We’ll start serving small plates there.”

In late August, the partners were still waiting for their liquor license to be approved.

From the counter, they serve breakfast biscuits from 9 a.m. until they’re sold out, and offer a variety of sandwiches and other prepared foods at lunch. The retail butcher case is open all day.

First and foremost, TBTB is a whole-animal butcher shop, Anderson said. “We bring in whole cows, pigs, chickens, and butcher them on site.” Fresh meats and poultry, most sourced in Florida, are cut to order in the retail side.

Jason Brown, a junior partner, is the butcher. He is largely self-taught but has taken classes in butchering from noted chefs. He and others from the shop visited several farms in Florida to see animal operations before choosing their meats.

Pork and chicken sausages and slaw are among the menu items. Everything is made from scratch. Photos provided by Jupiter Compass Digital Marketing Agency

“We get our hogs from HertaBerkSchwein Farms in Groveland, and cows from Watkins High Pasture Ranch, and Fort McCoy near Zolfo Springs,” Anderson said. For now, Bell and Evans chickens from Pennsylvania are on the menu until they find a quality poultry producer in Florida, he said.

All ground and smoked meats from the kitchen are house-made, including pork and chicken sausages, smoked bacon, tasso ham, porchetta, chicken meatballs and kielbasa.

“Everything is from scratch,” Anderson said. “All our condiments — our mayonnaise, ketchup, bone broth — we make everything here.” They have a “pickle program” as well.

Daniel Ramos, of the critically acclaimed Red Splendor Bone Broth, is a chef/partner, overseeing the menu, which changes daily.
Anderson said despite the name and concept, the shop has vegetarian and even vegan offerings.

“We had a party of three vegans who came in, and Chef Dan made them a whole vegan meal. There’s a joke there,” he laughed.

“Three vegans walk into a butcher shop. ...”

Hours for the shop are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, but once Phase 2 is initiated and the bar is open, hours will change.

The Butcher and The Bar, 510 E. Ocean Ave., Boynton Beach. Phone 561-903-7630; www.butcherandbar.com.

Feeding South Florida, the food bank that partners with other nonprofits throughout the county, has expanded with a 5,000-square-foot kitchen and food prep area that can now handle the production of 10,000 hot meals weekly. The Boynton Beach facility on Park Ridge Boulevard opened in July.

It’s just in time to meet much greater needs, said Sari Vatske, executive vice president.

“The need has doubled because of COVID,” Vatske said. She listed as recipients homebound older adults, school kids out on summer break, and numerous nonprofits that help food-insecure populations across the county.

Add to that people who are newly unemployed in the food and hospitality business, who find themselves needing basic help, and a potentially threatening hurricane season.

The organization also took over serving Boynton Beach’s homebound seniors for the Community Caring Center of Boynton Beach.

“We’re doing 1,000 meals weekly for CCC,” Vatske said.

The new facility has a pantry up front. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients can come in and get cleaning supplies, canned goods and dairy perishables as part of the program. The facility acts as a drive-through distribution center as well, providing boxes of SNAP benefit food weekly.

In the main production area, a gleaming new commercial kitchen line is in place.

“This is the culinary training kitchen,” Vatske said. “We’re going to have 10 to 12 people at a time, for 16 weeks, training here.”

Feeding South Florida chefs, led by Chrissy Benoit, will team with volunteer guest chefs from the community to train people to work in the culinary field, both kitchen and front-of-house positions.

The goal is for graduates to find work in commercial restaurants. The program is open to anyone with at least a GED who wants to get into the culinary field or improve his or her career, she said.

The plan is for classes to be sponsored, Vatske said, with the goal that they are free for the trainees.

For now, the teaching kitchen is idle because of COVID-19. “We are hopeful by October we’ll have teaching and training,” Vatske said.

The organization also will add commercial events, such as catering large affairs.

“We will have a revenue-generating component. The money earned will be reinvested into our program,” she said.

In the past, Feeding South Florida relied on vendors to help produce its meals; FSF now will become a vendor to others, supplying hot meals for recipients of other programs.

For special events and catering work, the agency will hire from its grad pool.

“We’ll also have an incubator program for food products,” Vatske said. Entrepreneurs can learn to make and market their own products in a commercial environment.

“Right now, we’re focusing on scaling our production. We’re still hiring and training for current production.”

Workers on the production side are cooking and packing meals for distribution. Soups are prepared in one of the giant tilt skillets — cream of celery was the choice on a recent day. The menu rotates through a four-week plan.

Meals are cooked rapid-fire in the new combi ovens. These are high-volume ovens that perform multiple functions such as baking, steaming, poaching and roasting.

“These are amazing,” Vatske said. “They are state-of-the-art,” allowing them to turn out hundreds of complete meals much faster.

Volunteers are used to pack and seal the food trays.

A cold storage area is being added; for now, it shares space with the major distribution area. There’s also a small laundry room where kitchen linens and uniforms are laundered, keeping everything in house.

The agency also works with FEMA and Florida’s CERT (the emergency response team coordinators), as well as community groups to provide meals for emergency workers and people in shelters during disaster relief efforts.

Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm that devastated parts of Texas and Louisiana in 2017, wiping out resources for food, spurred a new program for Florida, Vatske said.

The state funds FSF and other organizations, which have high-production meal-distribution plans ready whenever a storm approaches.

Other funding comes from federal agencies, as well as a number of local partners such as Publix, the Quantum Foundation and other private groups.

Volunteers and donations are still needed from the community, she said, more than ever to help people outside the government programs.

Vatske said FSF is grateful for all donations. “Absolutely. We have general programs and supplies to fund.”
For information about the programs or volunteer opportunities, go to feedingsouthflorida.org.

Chef James Strine has taken the helm at Taru, the new moniker for the restaurant at the Sundy House.

It is billed as “New Florida Cuisine,” and puts a twist on Florida influences from the Caribbean (jerk ribs with tamarind barbecue sauce); Cuba’s croquettes (turkey and stuffing croquettes with cranberry mayo), or a Florida bouillabaisse (local fish, clams, shrimp, grits). He also dips into Asian influences, with Dynamite rice (furikake, crab, pork belly) and rice noodles and clams, with wine, garlic, bone marrow and Thai basil. Taru also gives a nod to a hot trend by offering poutine (fries covered with burrata and foie gravy).

Though Strine is a master at meats — he’s noted for charcuterie and his butchering skills — he knows vegetarian plates as well (cauliflower steak and waffles).

Strine comes from a string of noteworthy kitchens, including Cafe Boulud, Buccan and Grato, as well as his most recent gig at The Trophy Room in Wellington.

The restaurant is still open for its acclaimed Sunday brunch in the garden — a romantic setting on any occasion.
Taru at the Sundy House, 106 S. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach. Phone 561-272-5678; www.sundyhouse.com. Open for dinner Monday-Saturday; brunch Saturday (a la carte) and Sunday (prix fixe buffet).

In brief … Viva La Playa, a new Latin restaurant, takes over the former Mulligan’s space at the Lake Worth Casino beachfront plaza. Chef Jeremy Hanlon of Benny’s on the Beach, the sister restaurant, brings flavors from South America through Latin America to the menu. The eatery planned a September opening. ...

Plans are still on hold for the season’s green markets, but Delray’s GreenMarket is celebrating its 25th year anyway — with a new cookbook. Residents are asked to send in their favorite recipes to be included in the Community Cookbook Tastes of the Season. To participate or for more information, email Lori Nolan at nolan@mydelraybeach.com. The Vol. 2 cookbook is still available for $12 by calling the Community Redevelopment Agency at 561-276-8640.

Jan Norris is a food writer who can be reached at nativefla@gmail.com

By Christine Davis 

COVID-19 vaccine development is in the works across the globe with one Phase 3 trial — the final step before U.S. government approval — in progress locally. Massachusetts-based Moderna Inc. — in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health — aims to enroll 30,000 adults in Phase 3 of its testing with volunteers from all over the country.

In West Palm Beach, at the Palm Beach Research Center, a clinical trial began July 31 and has already enrolled and vaccinated hundreds of volunteers. It is still enrolling, said David Scott, president and CEO of the research center.

The study will continue for two years. The first visit takes 3-4 hours, with other quicker visits at days 28, 57, 209, 395 and 759, plus or minus a couple of days, he said. Participants will be paid up to $1,190.

Scott describes the vaccine: “Moderna uses a biodegradable lipid nanoparticle, which allows it to more effectively be absorbed by the body than any current vaccine technology. It carries a messenger RNA, which creates a protein that looks like COVID-19’s outer shell.

“It causes the body’s immune system to create proteins that look like COVID-19 (with spikes), but they are empty — they don’t have COVID-19. Since it looks like COVID-19, the body will be prepared; in the future it can recognize COVID-19 and eliminate it.

“While the trial is ongoing, if the data shows it’s effective, Dr. Fauci is confident the FDA may do an interim analysis and begin to manufacture it this winter and distribute soon after,” Scott says.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is one of the government’s top advisers on the coronavirus pandemic.

This is a randomized, double-blind trial, which means that volunteers are randomly assigned to either receive the vaccine or a placebo, and neither the vaccinated person nor the researcher knows which was given to each person until the end of the trial.

To volunteer, go to https://palmbeachresearch.com/2020/03/02/covid-19-vaccine-study/ or call 561-689-0606.

Researchers at Brain Matters Research are looking for participants age 50 and older with no memory loss to take part in the Alzheimer Prevention Trials web study, an online study that detects if people experience memory loss over time and need early intervention.

Volunteers take no-cost tests online every three months to monitor memory changes. If changes are observed, volunteers may be invited to in-person evaluations to determine eligibility for additional Alzheimer’s studies. To learn more and enroll, visit www.APTWebstudy.org.

Four researchers from Florida Atlantic University received the National Science Foundation Early Career Awards in August. The awards support early-career faculty members who have the potential to lead advances and serve as academic role models.

The award winners are Waseem Asghar, Ph.D., associate professor; Behnaz Ghoraani, Ph.D., associate professor;  Feng-Hao Liu, Ph.D., assistant professor, all within the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science; and Marianne E. Porter, Ph.D., assistant professor of biological sciences in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science.
Asghar received $500,000 over five years to develop a low-cost disposable point-of-care platform to detect current and emerging infectious diseases.

Ghoraani, who is also a fellow in FAU’s Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering, was given $524,191 over five years to develop a cognitive screening tool for the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease using wearables and a smartphone.

Liu got $500,000 over five years to develop new ways of coding to enhance cybersecurity.

Porter’s $625,943 over five years is for research to better understand how marine animals tune, or dynamically adjust their movements using their skin and skeletons.

In July, Boca Raton Regional Hospital received certification from DNV GL Healthcare as a comprehensive stroke center.

This signifies that the hospital’s Marcus Neuroscience Institute meets standards for providing care to all stroke patients, including endovascular embolization and surgical clipping of brain aneurysms, tPA administration and mechanical endovascular thrombectomy, a procedure used to remove a blood clot from the brain during an ischemic stroke.

JFK Medical Center received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award in July, recognizing the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment.

Additionally, JFK Medical Center received the association’s Stroke Honor Roll Elite award, recognizing that the hospital meets quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment.

JFK was also recognized by Healthgrades with a Five-Star Recipient Award for Treatment in Stroke for three consecutive years, 2018-2020.

The Palm Beach Health Network’s Delray Medical Center also earned the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Stroke and Heart Quality Achievement Award.

The hospital achieved high performance marks in the category of heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for the state of Florida in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2020-2021 Best Hospitals rankings for adult clinical specialties.

Dr. Lloyd Zucker, who has more than two decades of practice in South County, was named medical director of neurosurgery for Delray Medical Center and Good Samaritan Medical Center.

An honor graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Zucker was invited as an undergraduate to do research at the National Institutes of Health.

A neurosurgical residency at the University of Connecticut-Hartford Hospital followed his medical training at Rutgers University/University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. His extended training was completed by a fellowship in complex spinal surgery at the University of South Florida/Tampa General Hospital.

FoundCare, a nonprofit health center, has expanded its women’s health services to include OB/GYN care, well-woman exams, preventive care and screenings, bone density testing, breast and cervical cancer screening, sexual health services, birth control, Pap smear and HPV testing, pregnancy services, and prenatal and postpartum care. 

With 35 years in the community, FoundCare Inc. has several locations throughout Palm Beach County, offering services that include pediatric and adult primary care, new women’s health services, chronic disease management, behavioral health services, dentistry, pharmacy, laboratory services and X-rays.

FoundCare’s mission is to fulfill unmet health care and social service needs of individuals and families in Palm Beach County. For more information, call 561-432-5849 or visit www.foundcare.org.

A new exhibit at the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium, “Real Bodies,” will run from Sept. 28 through April 11.
It will give visitors a tour of human bodies that have been preserved using a process known as polymer impregnation, where bodily fluids are replaced by liquid plastic, which is then hardened to create a solid, durable anatomic specimen that will last indefinitely. The process leaves fine delicate tissue structures intact, down to the microscopic sphere, making the process invaluable for medical study.

The exhibit will feature a COVID-19 component, where visitors can learn more about the pandemic’s impact on the human body.

The South Florida Science Center and Aquarium is at 4801 Dreher Trail N., West Palm Beach. For more information, call 561-832-1988 or visit www.sfsciencecenter.org. ;

Send health news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com.

Carol Ann Keller for years has incorporated gratitude into her meditation sessions, but the practice can be as simple as jotting down thoughts on paper. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Joyce Reingold

Gratitude swept into Carol Ann Keller’s life in “full force” in 1993, when she felt she had absolutely nothing to be grateful for.

“Everything was a giant mess, mostly of my own making,” says Keller, a Lantana resident who works in the interior design field. “I had to make extreme life changes in order to change my own life. It was introduced to me that maybe a power greater than myself existed — whatever that looked like, whatever that would be called — and that was very humbling. And once humility started entering into my existence, the gratitude just came up, and I really learned … what gratitude looks like.”

She started with baby steps, acknowledging her good fortune at having a roof over her head and food in the refrigerator — basic but life-sustaining needs. Keller says as her gratitude practice grew, so did her sense of peace and well-being.

While skeptics may regard practicing gratitude as woo-woo, a phalanx of researchers says otherwise. Keller’s experiences mirror findings reported in “The Science of Gratitude,” a 2018 report from the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California in Berkeley, a locus for research into the psychology, sociology and neuroscience of well-being.

“In general, more-grateful people are happier, more satisfied with their lives, less materialistic, and less likely to suffer from burnout. Additionally, some studies have found that gratitude practices, like keeping a gratitude journal or writing a letter of gratitude, can increase people’s happiness and overall positive mood,” writes author Summer Allen in the report, which documents more than two decades of research. (To read more, visit ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Gratitude-FINAL.pdf)

In one cited study, Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough define gratitude as having two components: “Recognizing that one has obtained a positive outcome and recognizing that there is an external source for this positive outcome.” That external source can be a higher power, as it is for Keller, or someone whose actions have bestowed a kindness, or gift.

The important part, experts say, is to get outside of ourselves, acknowledging that navigating life does, indeed, take a village.
Expressing thanks to others directly is another way to practice gratitude. It can come in many forms, such as a letter of thanks. (And you can say thanks to the U.S. Postal Service at the same time by ordering its “Thank You” stamps, just issued in August.)

You might share appreciation in a conversation or as a random act of kindness. The nightly cheering, clapping and pots-and-pans clanging to honor front-line workers during the coronavirus pandemic upped the feel-good ante by giving thanks and building community.

As the pandemic upended life as it was, it prompted many of us to reflect on what we previously may have taken for granted — from lingering with a friend over lattes to visiting far-distant family members or hugging loved ones just across town. With gratitude, surely hindsight counts, too.

Keller says gratitude is helping to sustain her through the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic.

“When everything just kind of blew up, and nothing looked like it ever did before, I had to take myself down a notch to relieve that inner angst, because when I get anxious, it’s usually because I’m trying to control things that are out of my control,” she says. “And so, I go back to gratitude. Gratitude brings me back and I have so much to be grateful for in my life, I really do.”

Michelle Maros, co-founder of Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life in Boca Raton, a nonprofit organization offering mindfulness classes and workshops and other inspiration activities, believes gratitude is especially beneficial during times of crisis.

“Finding things to be grateful for, no matter how small, can allow us to feel a sense of optimism, hope and peace,” she says. “During difficult times, our minds may convince us that everything is going wrong. Gratitude can help shift that mind-set and allow us to remember that there is still so much light in the world, even when it feels dark.”

If you have room in your life to grow your gratitude, the good news is that you already have everything you need. Think about the people, pets, places and things for which you’re grateful. You decide on the where, when and how.

Some jot down their thanks on paper, a couple of nuggets at a time. Keeping a running list builds a storehouse of goodwill that may boost your mood when you review it.

Others, like Keller, make it part of a meditation practice, “an inner journey” that starts and ends her day. “Gratitude keeps me out of the headspace of, oh, why does that person have that, and I don’t?” she says. “It really alleviates any of that because when I’ve been grateful for really small things, bigger things have come along. And I don’t know how that works, I don’t know why that works, but it’s worked.

“My gratitude is increasing by leaps and bounds the older I get. I don’t know. Maybe I’m growing up at 66. Hopefully not,” she says, laughing. “But I’ll still be grateful.”

Joyce Reingold writes about health and healthy living. Send column ideas to joyce.reingold@yahoo.com.

By Janis Fontaine

Just as the response to the coronavirus varies in different cultural, social and political arenas, the same is true in local churches. The one thing they share is a desire to serve and help, and they are on the front lines when families are in crisis.
Here’s what’s happening at some churches.

At St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach, Father Paul Kane reports that “our Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida has mandated closure of all churches at least until there is a 14-day, gradual decrease in COVID-19 cases in Palm Beach County. So far, our numbers are not heading in the right direction.”
Kane says the church has a reentry plan that gives details on the protocols it will follow when it is deemed safe to reopen for in-person worship.
In the meantime, Kane says that online giving, the backbone of the church’s community support, has increased. People who used to put cash in the collection plate have signed up to give online. The congregation’s needs have increased as well, but its members have stepped up to help.
Kane says the complexity of the pandemic, and the myriad issues driving the demand for church support, make everything harder to manage.
“Consider,” he says, “we’re dealing with the health and well-being of our congregants, especially those living in nursing homes and crowded public housing facilities; the mental health of our entire community, especially those who live alone and those who suffer from addictions; the strain on our health care system; the economic impact, especially on small businesses and newly unemployed people; and the spiritual impact of not being able to gather in-person for worship.”
To help, Kane says, “Our clergy provide ongoing pastoral care by phone, and we have six ministries who have dedicated themselves to praying for those people on our parish prayer list. We have also initiated a Prayer by Phone ministry, with prayer partners available five days per week.”
Kane said the church hadn’t lost any members to COVID as of mid-August, but members have lost family, friends and co-workers to the virus. The prayer partners have been especially helpful to people who are grieving, he said.

Advent Lutheran Church reports in-person worship resumed at both its locations — Boca Raton and Lantana — under CDC and local guidelines. In Boca, attendance was increasing in August.

One happy first: Andrew Hagen, lead pastor for Advent Life Ministries, says the church performed its first socially distanced baptism in the church since the crisis began.
Hagen says donations are up slightly over previous years.

At Unity of Delray Beach, the Rev. Laurie Durgan reports, “We’re keeping members and guests close via digital virtual means.”
Programs to help keep people connected include:
• Sunday: Guest speakers and meditations, minister talks and children’s videos and music by musical director D. Shawn Berry and soloist Daniel Cochran.
• Tuesday: Prayer services
• Wednesday: Meditation services
• Thursday: The Morning Prosperity Class with Charlene Wilkinson (phone) and the Lunch Prosperity Class with Dymin Dyer (Zoom).
If you need prayer, listen to new prayers on the Dial-a-Prayer line at 561-900-2559, email a prayer request to unitychurch@unityschool.com or speak to a prayer chaplain at 561-276-5796. Info at www.unityofdelraybeach.org.

Hot news!
In early August, Pastor D. Brian Horgan of St. Lucy Catholic Church in Highland Beach says divine intervention woke him in the middle of the night to alert him to an electrical fire in the rectory, “right outside my bedroom door.”
The parish priest likes to play the radio to fall asleep at night, and the radio, plus the breathing device he uses for his sleep apnea, prevented him from hearing the smoke alarm. Instead, he says, God woke him.
Horgan tried to use a fire extinguisher he keeps on hand to fight the flames, but the fire was too big. He called the Fire Department, which quickly traveled the quarter-mile to the church to take care of the blaze.
“The place is mess,” Horgan said, and his clothes all smell like smoke, but he’s grateful.
“I was very lucky,” Horgan said. “I used to joke about divine intervention. I don’t anymore.”