The trial of former Ocean Ridge Vice Mayor Richard Lucibella, accused of felony battery on a law enforcement officer and other charges, will begin now April 30, Circuit Judge Meenu Sasser ordered Feb. 20.
     The case of an accused burglar who sought a speedy trial knocked Lucibella's date off the judge's calendar.
     Lucibella's new trial date is a year and three weeks past the original schedule, which called for the proceedings to begin April 10, 2017.

     Lucibella, who also faces charges of resisting arrest with violence, another felony, and firing a weapon while under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor, waived his right to a speedy trial when the lawyers needed more time to question witnesses.
     He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
     Lucibella was arrested Oct. 22, 2016, after Ocean Ridge police went to his oceanfront home answering neighbors' reports of hearing gunfire. They confiscated a .40-caliber handgun and found five spent shell casings on the backyard patio.
     He and one of the officers’ supervisors, Lt. Steven Wohlfiel, were both on the patio and “obviously intoxicated,” the police said.
     Lucibella resigned his vice mayor and town commissioner positions Dec. 7, 2016.
     His trial was postponed first to July 2017, then October, then this April.

Towns and cities holding elections March 13 will have the following forums for voters to meet the candidates:

Boca Raton

When: Feb. 8
Where: 6500 Building, 6500 Congress Ave.
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Sponsor: Federation of Boca Raton Homeowner Associations

Delray Beach

Feb. 7
Where: Arts Garage, 94 NE Second Ave.
Time: 7-9 p.m.
Sponsor: Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce
Feb. 27
Where: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 188 S. Swinton Ave.
Time: 7-9 p.m.
Sponsor: Delray Beach Green Candidate Forum

Highland Beach

The forum will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 5 at the Highland Beach Public Library, 3618 S. Ocean Blvd.
It will be hosted by the League of Women Voters.
Voters will hear from two candidates for vice mayor and four candidates for one commission seat.
Information about the ballot question regarding setting aside money for streetscape improvements will also be presented.
For additional information, call the Town Clerk’s office, 278-4548.

Ocean Ridge
Feb. 21: Three candidates for two seats on the Town Commission will take part ­— incumbent Gail Aaskov and political newcomers Kristine de Haseth and Phil Besler.
Where: Town Hall
Time: 6-8 p.m.
Sponsor: League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County

By Dan Moffett

Manalapan town commissioners are countering a spate of stolen cars with an aggressive plan to enhance security that includes hiring four police officers and expanding the town’s already extensive use of cameras and technology.
“We live here because it’s a unique community,” Mayor Keith Waters said. “It’s unlike any other community in America. I don’t want this to be a police state, but at the same time, I want there to be absolute certainty that when you go to bed at night, everything’s going to be OK.”
Over the last six months, seven residents have reported their cars stolen. All were crimes of opportunity, police say. In each case, the owner left keys in the car.
Police were able to recover five of the vehicles and make four arrests. The suspects came from Broward and Miami-Dade counties and traveled to Manalapan in groups.
“This will not stand,” Waters said. “We’ve been lulled into a sense of complacency where our town has operated over a period of time under the assumption that everyone is as good as we were. And that’s not the case.”
Commissioners unanimously approved spending $417,000 out of the town’s $2.2 million reserve fund to pay for the security upgrades. They include:
• Filling four new police positions by summer to increase the number of sworn officers to 15.
Police Chief Carmen Mattox, who during the Jan. 23 town meeting won praise from commissioners and residents for his performance, said the new hires will allow him to have three officers on patrol at all times — one assigned exclusively to Point Manalapan, one to the ocean side and another for backup.
Also, the increased manpower will enable the department to get more use out of the marine patrol boat the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office donated to the town last year.
• Increasing pay for all officers.
Waters said higher pay would reduce turnover in the department and attract a “higher caliber officer.” He said Manalapan has one of the highest tax bases and lowest tax rates (2.795 mills) in the county and shouldn’t rank near the bottom in the county for police pay.
Starting pay for officers will go from $46,700 to $51,200 and each of the current uniformed officers will receive a $4,500 raise.
• Hiring a private armed security guard to staff the Point Manalapan gatehouse and renovating it to increase floor space.
Commissioners approved adding a stop sign at the gatehouse to force motorists to stop for the cameras. “We can’t prohibit people from going in,” Waters said, “but they’re going to have to stop at the gate.”
• Expanding the use of license plate recognition cameras throughout the town.
Manalapan already makes wide use of LPR cameras and Waters wants more of them. “We know the legal rights, what can and can’t be done,” the mayor said. “We’re going to do everything exactly by the book.”
Commissioner Monica Oberting said the most important benefit of the changes is making police more visible.
“It’s not the response time that’s the issue,” Oberting said. “I think it’s the deterrence.”
Commissioner Clark Appleby said, with the new Publix scheduled to open in June at Plaza del Mar, police will be dealing with “more transients,” so the commission’s plan is well-timed.
Mayor Pro Tem Simone Bonutti said the town needs to get more help from Ocean Ridge and the county in patrolling Manalapan’s southern border and Ocean Inlet Park.
Stewart Satter, a resident on the ocean side, commended the commission’s plan and said he was willing to pay the cost (about $50,000) of equipping the third patrol officer with a new vehicle.
Waters called Satter’s offer “a remarkably generous gesture” — which the town accepted.

Barbara Mulvey and Andy Neureuther play at the monthly jam at the Boynton Beach VFW. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

On the second Friday of most months, Barbara Mulvey takes her dobro across the water from her home in Briny Breezes to VFW Post 5335 in Boynton Beach to see if anybody else shows up.
You’re welcome to come, too, but don’t be too disappointed if nobody does.
“There might be a good group,” Mulvey will warn you, “and then it might be nothing. Health is a big problem, so some people can’t come sometimes. We’re certainly quite aged.”
Mulvey, a retired art teacher and farmer from the Adirondacks, is 82, and she’s not the oldest by far.
“One of the people who sings and plays cowboy songs is in his 90s,” Mulvey says. “He always wears a cowboy shirt and hat, but he’s not in the best of health.”
Sometimes as few as three show up, but never mind. They circle their chairs back away from the pool table and bar and play for a couple of hours anyway. Nobody quits pool to come listen, but nobody is paying to listen or gets paid to play, and besides, this makeshift band doesn’t even have an official name.

ABOVE: Ray Senecal plays guitar as Jimmy and Connie Abbott watch. The Abbotts started the sessions, and the group is informally called Jimmy & the Geriatrics. BELOW: Barbara Mulvey’s dobro has lyrics from If I Could Only Win Your Love, by the Louvin Brothers.

Mulvey started joining these monthly acoustic jams with her dobro after a friend in her tai chi class at the Boynton Beach Senior Center told her about them.
Friends tell friends, who tell friends. That’s how it’s been for nearly three years now, ever since Jimmy and Connie Abbott, VFW regulars, spotted a photo of Dale Kane, another member, and her big old Gibson guitar taped to the fridge in the post kitchen. The Abbotts had a country band called Southern Moon that played around town off and on.
“Do you play?” Jimmy asked Dale, who did, and pretty soon they heard about others and asked Bill Bourke, the post commander, if they could have a venue.
The first and third Fridays are trivia nights, so they got the second.
“It gives the vets a part of their youth back,” Jimmy Abbott says. When they show up, that is.
This second Friday, Jan. 12, is a very good night, even though Wes Smith, the 93-year-old cowboy singer, isn’t here. Somebody heard he moved to Fort Pierce. But nine others are. Five women and four men. Four guitars, an accordion, mandolin, ukulele, dobro, and Connie, who mostly sings.
“Waltz Across Texas,” Mulvey calls out. “In C. And I don’t know this one very well.”
Pages flutter in the binders full of cheat sheets — just the lyrics and chord changes, minus the fancy melody lines — and the January jam begins.
“When we dance together my world’s in disguise,
It’s a fairyland tale that’s come true,
When you look at me girl with those stars in your eyes
I could waltz across Texas with you.
Oh, waltz across Texas … waltz across Texas …”
They don’t waltz across Texas as smoothly as Ernest Tubb did back in 1965, but they make a joyful noise.
Tonight, Mulvey has brought along a neighbor in Briny Breezes named Andy Neureuther, 76, who taught electrical engineering at UC Berkeley for 40 years. Neureuther has recently switched from guitar to ukulele because, he explains, he can just leave the uke in Briny when he returns to Walnut Creek, Calif.
“I’ve been playing two weeks and I know two keys,” he reports. “But I can’t sing and play at the same time.”
Next, Ray Senecal tackles Kansas City. A retired firefighter from Schenectady, N.Y., Senecal favors a bright yellow guitar strap with black letters that read “Crime Scene, Do Not Cross.”
“I come a few times a year,” he says. “It’s fun. It’s spontaneous. I appreciate that they let me play.” He laughs. “Anybody who’s 60 years old here is a kid.”
Senecal is 78, and the closest this gang has to kids are Jimmy and Connie Abbott, both 64.
Joyce Michayluk, 80, a retired critical care nurse, takes a lead break on the accordion during Kansas City.
“I’m playing since I’m a kid,” she says. “I play bass guitar, too, but there’s nobody to play with until I go to Canada and play with my two brothers.”
They play Crazy, that Patsy Cline classic, and Take Me Home, Country Roads, John Denver, of course. If anyone starts strumming I Can’t Help Falling in Love, everyone sings along without checking the cheat sheets, and for a few minutes Elvis is back in the building.
They play the songs they heard first when they were first falling in love.
“I love ’em all, but I’m partial to the old stuff,” says Dale Kane, 68, a VFW member for 45 years, former president of the Ladies Auxiliary, and player of guitars, mandolins, banjos and bass. “But I don’t have anybody to play with now. My whole family plays, but they’re not here. I’ve got one brother in Jacksonville and the other one’s in Rhode Island. And my parents have passed, so I come here. It’s so nice. It’s so nice.”
Ida Sands, 71, is a retired special education teacher from Boynton Beach who adds a slight touch of the risqué to the evening’s entertainment, strumming her guitar and singing.
“Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates,
You got a brand new key.
I think that we should get together
And try them out, you see.”
When the folk singer Melanie debuted that tune back in the early 1970s, some perceived a hidden, hornier relationship between those skates and the key.
“Yuh think!” Sands chirps, and knowing laughter fills the circle.
“I go to different jams,” she says, “but I think of this as the fun jam. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.”
They don’t even have a name.
Well, not an official name.
“We call it Jimmy & The Geriatrics,” the bartender, Tina Black, confesses.
Most of the regulars seem to find that unofficial name cheeky and funny and true, but Mulvey doesn’t like it at all.
“No, I don’t like it,” she says. “And it might make younger people feel they’re not welcome.”
She has a point.
“Anybody’s welcome,” says Bourke, the post commander. “You can come with bongo drums or anything, you’re welcome. You don’t have to be a member of the post.”
Tonight, the honor of oldest Geriatric goes to Lauren Bates of Boynton Beach, who is 88.
“I had a country-western band back in Leominster, Mass.,” he says. “We called ourselves The Country Neighbors. Because we were all neighbors. I played guitar and my wife played bass and sang in French and English. I lost her six years ago.”
When the mic stand comes his way, Bates strums and sings an old Merle Haggard tune called Swinging Doors.
“I’ve got swinging doors, a jukebox and a bar stool,
And my new home has a flashing neon sign.
Stop by and see me any time you want to,
’Cause I’m always here at home till closing time …”
“Sometimes I play at home now,” he says when the song is done. “I put on the CDs and play to them. It just keeps you going. I’m going to karaoke in Palm Springs after I get out of here.”
Ray Senecal does Bed of Roses and Barbara Mulvey croons Have You Ever Been Lonely? and then it’s pushing toward 8 o’clock and Lauren Bates is packing up his new guitar and slipping out a little early, heading to karaoke.
Finally, they do the one everybody knows and no one can resist.
“You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine …”
They strum fast, and they sing loud, and for a circle of geriatrics, they sound almost young.
This does not surprise Connie Abbott.
“You can lose your hair,” she says. “You can lose your figure. But you don’t lose your music.”

The next acoustic jam will be 6-8 p.m. Feb. 9 at VFW Post 5335, 500 NE 21st Ave., Boynton Beach. Everyone is welcome. Post membership is not required.

Part of Ted Hoskinson’s Roots and Wings nonprofit raises funds to help Delray Beach third-graders prepare after school for the state’s standardized test. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

There was a time, before he became a successful business owner, when Ted Hoskinson’s world revolved around education.
Soon after he graduated from Tulane University, Hoskinson returned to St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., a prestigious private school where he had once been a classmate of future prominent figures, including former Vice President Al Gore.
Hoskinson taught fourth grade and ran the school’s summer program during his 15 years there, gaining an understanding of the challenges educators face and the lack of recognition that often comes with the territory.
So it comes as no surprise that Hoskinson, now 70, is devoting much of his retirement to making sure the educators and staff in Delray Beach’s public schools get a chance to be in the spotlight.
Through Roots and Wings, a nonprofit he founded in 2016, Hoskinson is not only focused on educators but also on helping students in public schools improve their reading skills so they can succeed.
“In this city, this town, we have a tremendous need to make sure people can go to any level they want to, and we have to give them the opportunity to do so,” he said.
Working largely under the radar, Hoskinson and Roots and Wings put time and money into three programs.
The first program — the Above and Beyond Awards — focuses on rewarding teachers and staff members selected by their principals for outstanding work. The teachers receive gift cards during small ceremonies in the classroom, with students involved.
Presentations are made three times a year in elementary schools and four times a year in middle schools and high schools.
Last year, in its first full year, Above and Beyond recognized 144 public school teachers and 27 staff members.
“Teachers at all levels need to be appreciated, and it wasn’t being done to this level,” Hoskinson said.
Under the umbrella of what has been dubbed Project Uplift, Roots and Wings last year awarded $10,000 to the Achievement Centers for Children & Families to make it possible for 25 students to attend a summer program with an academic element at Pine Grove Elementary School.
The group also funds a program at Pine Grove to help third-graders pass the Florida Standards Assessments test so they can move into fourth grade. In the pilot program Hoskinson hopes will be successful and spread to other schools, students attend a one-hour after-school class three days a week taught by Pine Grove teachers.
For Hoskinson, who along with his board raises money for the programs, a personal motivation drives Roots and Wings.
When he and his lawyer wife of 34 years, Anne, retired to Florida 12 years ago, they decided that when they died they would give their money to elementary education.
“Nobody was focusing on elementary education,” he said.
For his first 10 years in South Florida, Hoskinson took it easy, playing tennis, traveling with Anne and enjoying all that Delray Beach had to offer.
After Anne died in April 2016, Hoskinson decided he wouldn’t wait to start building their legacy and, inspired by his wife’s commitment to education, started the nonprofit organization.
“I could have ridden off into the sunset and done whatever I wanted to, but I didn’t because there’s a real need at both the teacher level and the student level,” he said, adding that he was financially secure after selling a business that included 10 card and gift stores and a wholesale balloon and accessories company.
Hoskinson, who lives in Coastal Delray Beach, says that running Roots and Wings takes a lot of time and effort, but is well worth the investment.
“For me a good day is when I wake up and say, ‘This is going to be a great day because we’re going to reward teachers,’ ” he said.

Every season in Briny Breezes there is rumbling from a handful of residents who still believe they were somehow cheated out of their “million” dollars because of the failed Ocean Land sales deal in 2007-2008. Ten years later there are still residents who think they are entitled to make it rich since they are convinced they almost did once before.
This year a group of malcontents has grown exceptionally aggressive and loud. So much so, they’ve intimidated the corporate board of directors into holding discussions on whether to call a vote to determine shareholders’ interest in marketing Briny Breezes for sale.
Why would anyone vote to do this? Look at Briny Breezes! She’s a lovely, classy lady. A natural beauty. There’s no need to put her in a tight skirt and send her out on Federal Highway.
Do some people really believe there’s an investor/developer out there — who can get a billion dollars in financing — who doesn’t already know about the 48 ocean-to-Intracoastal acres of Briny Breezes?
Why would they vote to cheapen the value of this special piece of property by appearing desperate to shed themselves of paradise?
Yes, the cost of maintaining a unit in Briny is increasing. The town is maxed out on what it can tax residents — thanks partly to the failed Ocean Land sale and its depletion of the town’s reserves. And the park has some infrastructure repair needs, many of which are needed now because of the years the park sat idle before, during and after the Ocean Land episode.
Are there people who believe that same inertia won’t happen again if the park is actively marketed? Do they believe there won’t be a fiscal downside for residents from this ridiculous plan?
Briny Breezes offers affordable vacation housing in one of the most desirable locations along the eastern coast of Florida. She’s a bathing beauty on a Florida tourism postcard. There will be suitors. There’s no need to turn on a red light.

— Mary Kate Leming,
Editor

Note: Coastal Star owners Mary Kate Leming and Jerry Lower have been Briny Breezes shareholders since 2003.

By Jane Smith

City residents who live along the Intracoastal Waterway are seeing surveyors from Aptim Environmental & Infrastructure in their backyards.
In October, Delray Beach city commissioners awarded the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, firm a $198,473 contract to analyze the sea walls along the Intracoastal. The city owns less than one mile of the estimated 21.4 miles of sea walls, including finger canals.
The workers are surveying the condition of all sea walls, including private ones, said Missie Barletto, deputy director of program and project management in the city’s Public Works Department.
After the sea wall survey is finished this summer, the next step will be to create a minimum sea wall height with a sea wall ordinance, she said in late January. Once passed, the law will cover Delray Beach property owners’ building or replacing their sea walls.
“The city will have many public meetings where property owners will have their say on the height of the sea walls,” Barletto said.

By Steve Plunkett

The election to replace term-limited County Commissioner Steven Abrams isn’t until November, but already the race threatens to overshadow the March vote for two Boca Raton City Council seats.
Council member Robert Weinroth, who opened a re-election campaign account in June, shifted gears during Boca Raton’s official Jan. 2-10 qualifying period and filed instead to seek Abrams’ seat. He will face Mayor Susan Haynie, who opened a County Commission campaign account in October.
Weinroth, in a memo withdrawing from the City Council race, said it was “apparent” to him that Haynie’s campaign for the commission seat “has faltered.”
Weinroth switched races after a Palm Beach Post article in November questioned Haynie’s votes on matters involving James and Marta Batmasian, the city’s largest commercial landowners. The Batmasians also own most of a Deerfield Beach apartment complex that in 2010 hired Haynie and her husband as property managers.
Haynie said she voted on Batmasian projects in Boca Raton only after she asked for and received clearance from the county Ethics Commission. She resigned from her husband’s company in 2016 and announced in December that he had given up the Deerfield Beach work.
As of Dec. 31 Weinroth had amassed $115,905 in donations for his council re-election bid. Under state law he had to notify all contributors within 15 days that he changed races and offer to return their money.
Haynie sent a letter to all his donors Jan. 22 encouraging them to do just that.
“A donation to Robert’s County Commission campaign is a contribution opposing me,” Haynie wrote.
She also messaged her supporters, saying she was “all in, working hard and ready to go.”
“Despite the best attempts of my political opponents, my campaign continues to move forward and build support,” she wrote.
Haynie reported collecting $18,901 in donations as of Dec. 31. Her endorsements include Abrams, state Rep. Bill Hager, South Palm Beach Mayor Bonnie Fischer and Vice Mayor Robert Gottlieb, Lantana Mayor Dave Stewart, former Ocean Ridge Mayor Ken Kaleel, incoming Delray Beach City Commissioner Bill Bathurst, Boca Raton Deputy Mayor Jeremy Rodgers and City Council member Scott Singer, and former Deputy Mayor Michael Mullaugh.
Weinroth’s campaign war chest included donations of $1,000 each from James and Marta Batmasian, whom he linked to Haynie’s troubles. Their son Armen Batmasian also gave $1,000.

This email has been long overdue coming from my desk to yours.
Being a resident and a business in Palm Beach County since 1973, we have seen many local newspapers come and go in our communities — from Palm Beach to Boca Raton, from east to west.
Our thanks go out to the founding partners of The Coastal Star for the team that they put together to provide a great paper for all of us to enjoy.
The image and content that you provide each issue is very contemporary and informative. We look forward to your paper for 2018 and beyond.

Giovanni Marquez
FSB/Fashion Shoppes Boutique
Boynton Beach

By Rich Pollack

If you’ve traveled along State Road A1A in the last several months you’ve probably seen a crew or two working on the power lines.
FPL understands that the work might slightly inconvenience residents, but the company says in the long run customers will benefit by having more reliable service and quicker restoration of power after outages.
“We’re installing poles and equipment that will help us restore power faster and improve everyday reliability,” said FPL spokesman Bill Orlove.
Most of the work along A1A is part of FPL’s systemwide hardening project, which includes replacing some poles as well as main feeder lines — those that come directly from the company’s substation.
While the project continues throughout the area, there’s good news for those traveling A1A or who live on the barrier island throughout most of southern Palm Beach County.
In Highland Beach, all that needs to be done is for one phone and cable provider to move its wires to new poles. In Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes, work that FPL began last May is expected to be completed by early spring.
Work along A1A in Boca Raton and much of Delray Beach should be done by the end of this year.
Projects in Manalapan and some portions of South Palm Beach were completed six or seven years ago, according to Orlove.
Another project in South Palm Beach and one in Delray will be done down the road, FPL says.
In addition to the hardening projects, work is underway in the town of Gulf Stream, which is converting from overhead lines to underground utility services.
Like the hardening project, the conversion is designed to improve reliability of utility services.
All new poles and equipment installed as part of the hardening project, as well as main lines, are now capable of withstanding wind gusts of up to 145 miles per hour, Orlove said.
In some cases, the poles will be slightly taller than existing ones in order to accommodate equipment such as transformers, and to ensure they, too, can withstand high winds.
Orlove said FPL’s hardening efforts throughout the company’s service area have been going on for several years, with 40 percent of the distribution system already either hardened or underground.
That paid off last year during Hurricane Irma, a massive storm that affected all of FPL’s service area, with an estimated 2,500 poles needing to be replaced.
During Hurricane Wilma 12 years earlier, FPL replaced 12,400 poles.
Because of the nature of the work, with poles and wires needing replacement, some traffic-flow disruptions will occur, especially along heavily traveled roads such as A1A.
“We know it’s an inconvenience and we ask people for their patience as we work to make the energy grid stronger and more resilient,” Orlove said. “In the long run this will benefit residents in this area.”

By Noreen Marcus and Michelle Quigley

Serious crime is uncommon in Palm Beach County’s coastal towns, and cases of resisting arrest with violence are about as rare a sight as white whales.
So the upcoming trial of former Ocean Ridge Vice Mayor Richard Lucibella on felony counts of resisting arrest with violence and battery on a police officer has drawn considerable attention.
Whatever happened Oct. 22, 2016, on the patio of Lucibella’s beachfront residence on Beachway North is scheduled for debate at a trial set to begin in late February in West Palm Beach Circuit Court. Judge Meenu Sasser has reserved an entire month for the proceedings.
Lucibella, a 64-year-old health care executive, pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The case’s notoriety and impact on Lucibella, who resigned from office Dec. 7, 2016, once moved Ocean Ridge Mayor Geoff Pugh to say, “Does it make the town look bad? I guess, yes.” Pugh could not be reached for comment for this story.
Lucibella responded to the obvious question — why hasn’t this case been resolved?— in a text message. He wants a trial. “I’ll gladly take my chances with that.”
“I have refused all overtures as to a plea,” Lucibella wrote. “Ocean Ridge’s police leadership has had their turn at bat. They may have succeeded in destroying my reputation to cover up their incompetence, but they’ll never get the chance to do it to another resident.”
Resisting arrest cases represent a tiny subcategory of total felonies over the past three years in Ocean Ridge and four nearby coastal towns, according to data from the clerk and comptroller of Palm Beach County. There was one in South Palm Beach, population 1,400, and there were two in Ocean Ridge, population 1,812. Period.
Why so few?
“Possibly it’s a reflection of the general crime rate in those jurisdictions,” said Mike Edmondson, spokesman for the office of Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg.
Ocean Ridge Police Chief Hal Hutchins had another suggestion. “I would like to believe it’s because we use a lot of de-escalation skills and people skills and perhaps we just don’t have as many people that present themselves in that fashion as other communities do,” he said.
In the South Palm Beach case, a 30-year-old man was originally charged with felony and misdemeanor resisting arrest, reckless driving and driving with an invalid license. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor resisting arrest and the driving violations on Oct. 20, 2016.
In Ocean Ridge there have been Lucibella’s case and that of Christian Stewart of West Palm Beach. On May 20, 2017, an Ocean Ridge policeman saw Stewart jogging on A1A. Because Stewart fit the description of a suspect the officer was seeking, he tried to stop Stewart.
The situation escalated when Stewart “took a fighting stance,” Officer Richard Ermeri wrote in his arrest report. Ermeri “believed that he was going to strike me at any moment.” Stewart turned out to be the wrong man and no one was hurt.
Stewart was charged with both felony and misdemeanor (nonviolent) resisting arrest. Eventually the charges were dropped and Stewart paid $50 to cover prosecution costs.
Ermeri was the same officer who had, seven months earlier, responded to calls from Lucibella’s neighbors that they heard gunfire coming from the direction of his house. Ermeri, Officer Nubia Plesnik and Sgt. William Hallahan found Lucibella and Lt. Steven Wohlfiel on the patio with five spent shell casings.
Both men were “obviously intoxicated,” the police reported. They confiscated a .40-caliber Glock handgun and a smaller pistol from Lucibella, a weapons enthusiast who publishes a gun magazine.
Accounts differ about what happened after that. The officers said Lucibella verbally and physically resisted arrest and had to be taken down to the ground to be subdued. Lucibella’s attorney Marc Shiner said police overreacted and used excessive force, which is a legal defense to the charge of battery on a law enforcement officer.
Lucibella, who reportedly was wearing glasses, suffered an injury to his eye that required medical attention.
According to Plesnik’s pending civil suit against him, her shoulder was hurt when she helped subdue him. Ermeri also said he was hurt in the scuffle.
Their boss, Chief Hutchins, said in an interview last month that he could not say how badly the officers were injured — “I’m not a doctor.” He said they have been back on duty for some time and that, contrary to demands by Shiner, there has been no Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation of their actions in the Lucibella incident.
An Internal Affairs investigation determined that the Glock was Wohlfiel’s personal property. His lawyer Ralph King of the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association has complained that the report produced no credible evidence Wohlfiel fired the gun. King did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story.
Wohlfiel was fired, on Hutchins’ recommendation, on Jan. 4, 2017. He has filed a court action to force the Town Commission to reconsider his firing, Hutchins said. In the interview, Hutchins supported Lucibella’s right to a trial.
“Would I have liked to see this case disposed of without a lot of cost to taxpayers and use of resources? Yeah, I think so, that’s the administrator in me. But in reality that’s not how our system is set up,” he said.
“All the evidence will be weighed out in court before either a judge or a judge and a jury,” Hutchins said, “and that’s the best thing that could happen.”

By Dan Moffett

Mayor Bonnie Fischer swore in new Town Manager Majella “Mo” Thornton at the beginning of January’s council meeting and declared a fresh start for South Palm Beach as it enters the new year.
“We have now made significant changes to the administration of South Palm Beach,” Fischer said. “We have brought in seasoned local professionals that have proven their integrity over a period of years in Palm Beach County. I think that’s important.”
Thornton replaces Bob Vitas, who was forced out of the manager’s position in October after a unanimous vote of no-confidence by the Town Council, ending a yearlong dispute over a new contract and pay raise.
Also gone is Brad Biggs, who served as the town attorney for more than a decade. Biggs decided to resign last summer after his contract expired and the council refused to negotiate a new one. Replacing Biggs is veteran municipal attorney Glen Torcivia, founder of the West Palm Beach law firm Torcivia, Donlon, Goddeau & Ansay.
Thornton comes to South Palm Beach after 21 years as city manager in Atlantis.
“I’m happy with the changes we’ve made,” Fischer said, “and I look forward to bringing the town together and having a successful year.”
Fischer said the first order of business for the overhauled administration is to get the foundering beach stabilization project moving again. The joint plan with Palm Beach County to install seven groins from the town’s northern border to the southern end of Lantana Municipal Beach has languished after complaints from Manalapan and questions from state officials who are considering whether to grant permits for the project.
“There’s been a lot of issues lately and it’s been stalled,” Fischer said. “Apparently there seem to be concerns with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that has some issues with the county and their permits. I’d like to get the professionals in here and see what’s going on that’s negative and give us more insights into the project.”
Fischer said she and Thornton plan to meet with county environmental managers soon to find out what the town can do to jump-start the groin installation, which officials still hope to begin in November.
“This project is taking too long and there’s too much effort to it,” the mayor said. “I certainly don’t want to see it fall by the wayside. We need answers.”
In other business, George Turenne, president of American Lighting Maintenance in Riviera Beach, told the council during the Jan. 23 town meeting that his company was nearly finished replacing the street and sidewalk lighting on A1A.
The new LED lights cost about $28,000 to install, roughly half the expense of traditional halogen lighting. The new lights use about a third of the electricity of halogen lamps and have a life expectancy of about 11 years, four times that of the halogens.
“The new lights are turtle-friendly too,” Turenne said.

By Mary Thurwachter

Goodway Oil 902 Gas Station on South Dixie Highway in Lantana will soon add a car wash to its menu of services. And that’s not all the station will do to attract customers. It will sell fried chicken, too.
“We need something to give us a competitive edge over Wawa and RaceTrac,” said Jon Levinson, representing filling station owner Eli Buzaglo at the Jan. 8 Town Council meeting.
Buzaglo asked for — and received — a special exception variance to the town building code to build the car wash.
Adding a car wash at the front of the station will mean moving a large generator, something that concerned some of the council members.
“That’s a rather large generator,” said council member Edward Paul Shropshire. “You’re moving it to the back and when that’s running it will be noisy for neighbors.”
Levinson said the generator would run only after a hurricane, and he drew laughs from the council when he promised there would be no hurricanes this year.
The filling station, at 810 S. Dixie Highway, already has a convenience store. Now it will be offering Krispy Krunchy Chicken, something Levinson said has become a hot seller.
In other action the council:
• Approved the purchase of a sewer main line camera for $40,482 from Ferguson Waterworks.
• Approved a contract with M&M Asphalt Maintenance Inc. for paving town roads at a cost of $496,539.

A Brightline train zips through Delray Beach at Atlantic Avenue. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

Pressure is mounting on the express passenger railroad Brightline to improve its safety efforts.
The rail service started Jan. 12 with free rides between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale for politicians and other civic leaders.
Later that day, a northbound train hit a woman crossing the tracks in Boynton Beach. She died, but her male companion made it safely across.
On Jan. 17, a bicyclist was fatally struck as he rode around the down gates at Ocean Avenue in Boynton Beach.
Two days later, after Brightline’s president held a news conference about new safety initiatives and public education programs, a woman was struck in Fort Lauderdale by a Brightline train. She was attempting to cross the tracks when the gates were down. She is expected to survive.
“It’s amateur hour,” Delray Beach Mayor Cary Glickstein said about Brightline’s response to the fatalities. “Their solution to the fatalities is to have electronic signs that say ‘more and faster trains’ and ‘stay off train tracks.’ ”
Glickstein made those comments in late January at a roundtable of mayors assembled by U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel. She planned to ask Federal Railroad Administration officials to meet with the group in early February and answer technical questions about how the crossing arms work, how that information is sent to the train conductor and similar queries.
Then, the mayors could broadcast messages to their residents.
Boynton Beach Mayor Steven Grant proposed having quiet zones during the nighttime hours only and allowing the trains to blow their horns during daylight hours.
The quiet zones will be installed by the end of March, according to Brightline’s spokeswoman. The zones include dual gates on the travel lanes and a concrete median between the travel lanes.
The day before Frankel’s roundtable, Delray Beach had a City Commission meeting.
“The next commission,” Glickstein told his fellow commissioners, “will have to decide whether they want the quiet zones or public safety.” His term ends in March.
After the two fatalities, the train line hired safety ambassadors to patrol high-traffic intersections along the FEC line, according to its spokeswoman.
In addition, Florida’s two U.S. senators have asked the federal Department of Transportation to investigate the fatalities and report back.
Last year, when Brightline was testing the train system, two pedestrian trespassers were killed. One was deemed a suicide.
Delray Beach resident Patrick Halliday, who pushed for the pedestrian barrier between Atlantic Avenue and Northeast First Street, called for Brightline to install Euro-style crossing gates at each intersection. The crossing arms meet in the middle and have fencing underneath.
Halliday is vice chairman of Human Powered Delray, a nonprofit group that promotes pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
The city just paid about $30,644 to build a fence along both sides of the FEC tracks to prevent people from taking a well-used shortcut between Atlantic and Northeast First. In August 2016, a woman taking the shortcut was killed by a southbound FEC freight train.
Formerly called All Aboard Florida, Brightline trains travel nearly twice as fast as freight trains, at speeds up to 79 mph in southern Palm Beach County. Brightline plans three stops in South Florida: West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
At present, Brightline is running 11 trains weekdays between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, with introductory fares as low as $10 one way. Ten trains operate on weekends. Its goBrightline.com website says: “Miami will open soon.”
Brightline’s plans include building tracks between West Palm Beach and Cocoa, where the train speed will reach 110 mph. The final leg, on new track between Cocoa and Orlando, will allow trains to travel up to 125 mph.
Brightline is not saying when that service might start or what it will cost.
In the state Legislature now in session, two lawmakers have submitted bills to require train lines that operate at speeds over 80 mph to pay to install fencing along both sides of the track, install crossing arms and pay to maintain what was installed.
Brightline officials oppose more regulations as unnecessary, the spokeswoman said. “Brightline has been running PSAs [public service announcements] on local radio and broadcast stations since early last year reminding the public that when you see tracks, think train! And to stay off train tracks,” she said.
The train, which does not stop in Delray Beach, disrupts downtown commerce, Glickstein said.
“The crossing arms go down for one train and then stay down when a train travels into the downtown from the opposite direction,” he said.
“Brightline officials are very reactive. They only do something when they are shamed into acting.”

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach appears to be shedding its image as a city full of rogue sober homes.
The city had “an explosion of flophouses” a few years ago, Chief Assistant State Attorney Al Johnson said at his office’s Sober Homes Task Force meeting in January.
Marc Woods, a code enforcement officer who inspects sober homes in Delray Beach, echoed his statement.
“While the stats on sober homes are hard to come by because of federal disability laws,” Woods said, “the telling stat in Delray Beach is the number of overdoses.”
The city hit a peak in October 2016 with 96 overdoses and 11 deaths, he said. By October 2017, the numbers dropped to 25 overdoses and three fatalities. A similar decline occurred between November 2016 with 77 overdoses and five deaths and a year later when 17 overdoses and four fatalities were recorded.
Woods said the first reason for the decrease was the 20 or so arrests on patient brokering charges that a Delray Beach detective helped make. “That led to 100-plus sober homes closing their doors,” Woods said.
Another factor was the Police Department’s hiring of a social worker, he said. Ariana Ciancio visits overdose patients and gives them options, including scholarships to treatment centers and sober homes.
She helps to rid the city of the people who are taxing the public safety system with four and five overdoses in the same day, Woods said.
“The overdose numbers are encouraging,” he said. “But a bad batch of heroin could cause the numbers to increase.”
Johnson estimated that about 10 percent of the overdose reduction is from recovery residences having and being able to administer a drug, Narcan, to revive an overdose patient. Also last summer, Delray Beach passed a group homes ordinance requiring landlords to register with the city when more than three unrelated people live together.
The city now requires each sober home to have a Florida Association of Recovery Residences certification. The rule also details the 600-foot space requirements for new group homes to prevent a block from becoming overwhelmed.

By Steve Plunkett

Outside lawyers for the town are representing Robert Ganger in a public records lawsuit seeking private emails and text messages he sent and received while he was vice mayor.
Resident Martin O’Boyle and his StopDirtyGovernment LLC want Gulf Stream to turn over all communications and public records Ganger had from Nov. 1, 2012, through Feb. 7, 2014.
Trey Nazzaro, the town’s staff attorney, told commissioners Jan. 12 that O’Boyle’s lawyers had subpoenaed Ganger for a deposition. Commissioners quickly approved the expense.
“Bob Ganger has devoted himself to this town selflessly for decades,” Mayor Scott Morgan said.
Ganger suffered a stroke in April 2016; he resigned from the commission three months later.
“Since that stroke he has in my opinion been harassed, and I don’t use that word loosely, he has been harassed by Mr. O’Boyle,” Morgan said.
In October 2016, Ganger asked the town to pay part of the legal bills he faced fighting a deposition O’Boyle scheduled shortly after his stroke. He later withdrew the request for fear that it would open him to more public records requests.
In July, Ganger sat through a nearly two-hour deposition in a slander lawsuit O’Boyle filed against another of the town’s attorneys. O’Boyle dropped the slander claim in November.
O’Boyle disputed Morgan’s characterization of the litigation as harassment.
“The town did not produce the emails and we filed suit. Although years have passed, we are still coming across documents that haven’t been produced. In my mind, they were (and still are) playing ‘hide the ball,’ ” O’Boyle said in an email.
Meanwhile, the public records war between the town and O’Boyle raged on; a proposed settlement was withdrawn from the Jan. 12 agenda. O’Boyle had sent two emails to Town Clerk Rita Taylor saying the settlement offer, which he signed in November, was now “invalid” and “not … on the table.”
The proposal would have dismissed nine of 11 court cases between him and Gulf Stream. A lawsuit over police radio transmissions that an appellate court recently upheld in O’Boyle’s favor was excluded, as was the lawsuit seeking Ganger’s emails.
Morgan, who has negotiated with O’Boyle for months, said the proposal left out certain litigation by the nonprofit Citizens Awareness Foundation Inc. and would have limited legal challenges the town could make.
“I was not inclined to approve it anyway,” he said.
The Florida Division of Corporations dissolved CAFI in September after it failed to file an annual report; until then top O’Boyle aide Brenda Russell handled its paperwork using the same address as O’Boyle’s Commerce Group Inc.
In related actions, the 4th District Court of Appeal changed its Nov. 2 opinion awarding appellate attorney’s fees to O’Boyle in the police records case. His attorneys can claim only the fees authorized by the state’s Public Records Act and not extra fees as a sanction against the town, the court said.
O’Boyle’s lawyers have filed documents with the Circuit Court seeking more than $575,000. The town argues they should get perhaps $20,000 because most of their work was done after Gulf Stream gave O’Boyle the records. A hearing to determine the amount due has not been scheduled.
Also, O’Boyle’s attorneys appealed a County Court decision that found the town did not violate the Public Records Act by providing O’Boyle a redacted copy of a bill from one of its attorneys.
Starting in August 2013, O’Boyle and Place Au Soleil resident Chris O’Hare flooded Gulf Stream with requests for public records. In the following six months, the town received more than 700 requests, court documents show.
In July 2013, before the current war began, Gulf Stream paid O’Boyle $180,000 to settle 16 lawsuits and about 400 requests for public records he filed after he was denied variances for work at his home on Hidden Harbour Drive.
The town and O’Hare agreed in June to dismiss 36 lawsuits and appeals between them and withdraw all pending requests for records. Neither side paid the other’s legal bills.

Stephen Schilling of Briny Breezes is a concert pianist who earned a degree in chemistry at age 30. ‘I realized, OK, I know a lot about music, but nothing about math or science,’ he says. Schilling says he’s ‘very proud of creating my own music.’ Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Brian Biggane

One doesn’t simply grow up to be a composer and concert pianist; it’s typically a long and arduous road. For Stephen Schilling, the road has taken more turns that most.
Schilling, 63, who also teaches piano and whose next concert performance will be Feb. 24 at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach, was strongly affected by a childhood mostly spent at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
“When you were on post there was always a sense of being in a different place,” said Schilling, the son of a career military man. “Armed guards at the gates, MPs on patrol. My parents didn’t have to worry about any kind of crime.”
Schilling’s father, Col. Charles H. Schilling, had served in World War II, taking part in D-Day and liberating people in the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. Growing up on the base resulted in some life lessons much earlier than for most boys his age.
“When I was 6 or 7, I was at the swimming hole with my mother and this guy gets up and takes his leg off,” said Schilling, a Briny Breezes resident. “I’m a kid so I’m freaking out. The guy comes over and explains how he lost his leg in Korea and now he’s got a prosthetic. That struck me at an early age about the sacrifices that are made.”
There were perks. Schilling got to meet Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy when they visited and became friends with Gen. William Westmoreland’s son Rip. Another pal was Brian Haig, the son of then-Col. Alexander Haig.
The legendary Bob Knight was the Army basketball coach at the time, and as a teenager Schilling attended a camp Knight ran at the nearby Pocono Mountain Camp. Knight recognized him and instructed him to do as many pushups as he could.
“I did them until I couldn’t anymore,” Schilling said. “Then he said, ‘Stand up, count to five, and give me 20 more.’ And I did them. His point was you can push beyond what you think you can do.”
Schilling took up piano in the fourth grade with a neighbor, Dorothy Davis, and soon afterward began studying music theory with her husband, Dr. John A. Davis. Recognizing his potential, the couple pointed him to the most prominent teacher in the area, Robert Guralnik.
Soon Schilling was supporting himself by playing in a rock band touring military bases far from home.
“We went to Iceland, Newfoundland, Spain, Puerto Rico, bases all over,” he said. “We were also a house band at Greenwood Lake. We were playing Chick Corea, Yes, Jethro Tull, Steely Dan — what I considered to be more musically intelligent progressive rock. We took turns working out arrangements.”
While Schilling was also working at the time on a crew at local entertainment venues, his thirst for knowledge took him in a completely different direction at that point.
“I realized, OK, I know a lot about music, but nothing about math or science. So to round myself out I started going to the community college at Poughkeepsie.” After studying there and at nearby Rockland Community College, he moved on to the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he earned a bachelor of science in chemistry at age 30 and spent the next 15 years doing analytical research.
His father died in 1996 and three years later his mother was in ill health, so he moved to Clarksville, Tenn., to care for her.
“I got involved with Sgt. Bill Ryan and his judo club, and a lot of guys who came through were special forces and 101st Airborne guys,” he said. “I got a really good martial arts education, and stayed there until my mother passed in 2003.”
His next move was to Palm Beach County, where he’s been ever since. He spent a short time working with a pharmaceutical business in Davie, but hated commuting on Interstate 95, so he returned to his musical roots, playing in clubs and restaurants and living “between Atlantic Avenue and Boynton Inlet ever since.”

Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How has that has influenced you?
A: The post school at West Point through eighth grade; then the Defense Department school in Germany; Mount Hermon, a private school in Massachusetts; and Highland Falls, a public school near West Point. I played saxophone in the band and studied music theory, music history and music appreciation. Later on, getting the chemistry degree interested me in the sense that two plus two equals four and there’s no arguing that point.

Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: My first job was at the football stadium at West Point, where I learned how to get a job. The vendors would come out, and if you presented yourself right they would pick you. Then if you did well they would pick you the next week. I worked at the PX, played in bands, worked at gas stations, and then the years in the research lab and all the years composing and playing music.
I’m very proud of creating my own music.

Q: How did you choose to make your home in Briny Breezes?
A: I’ve lived in the area for 12 years or so, and Briny came up partially because it’s one of the places I hadn’t lived yet. I like to stay on this side of the Intracoastal. I thought Briny was cool and started renting a place.

Q: What is your favorite part about living in Briny Breezes?
A: I know everybody. I know Gemma and Vin at the gas station and used to help them out from time to time. The guys at Nomad Surf Shop, I know them and can get my clothes there because they have everything. Publix is right across the bridge. I don’t like to have to do a lot of running around. But also I have a pool on one side and the ocean on the other.
And you can’t beat the Briny Bells, the bells always going off on the carillon. They mark the hour but also have the bit on Sundays before church and during season about 6 p.m. they do about a 20-minute concert.

Q: What book are you reading now?
A: Albert Einstein’s Relativity: The Special and the General Theory. Also one by Bertrand Russell called ABC of Relativity. 

Q: What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
A: I don’t really listen to anybody anymore. If I’m going to create original music I don’t need anybody else’s stuff floating around in my brain.

Q: Do you have a favorite quote that inspires you?
A: “You have a deep and abiding respect for what must be done, and you are honest and relentless in doing so.” I don’t know who said it, but that’s pretty much everybody’s problem.

Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: My mother and my father. Mr. Guralnik. Dr. and Mrs. Davis. And even West Point itself.

Q: If your life story were made into a movie, whom would you want to play you?
A: Bugs Bunny — or at least somebody with that irreverent “poke the blowhard in his hot-air balloon” attitude. I don’t mean irreverent as in disrespectful. There’s a line in the Cadet Prayer that reads, “Guard us against flippancy in the sacred things of life,” meaning there are some things you just don’t make fun of people about. Bugs had respect, but not for the big blowhards of the world.
Q: Who and what makes you laugh?
A: Jackie Gleason, Rodney Dangerfield, Don Rickles. Seinfeld is all right. I like irony, and sarcasm as long as it’s not too sharp.

Stephen Schilling will present a 90-minute performance of original piano compositions at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach at 8 p.m. Feb. 24. Tickets are $30; go to oldschoolsquare.org.

The wider, curving promenade in Delray Beach allows more room for bicyclists and pedestrians to share space. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

A small crowd gathered on a windy day in late January to celebrate the end of beach promenade work.
“I never thought it would happen,” said Bob Victorin, Beach Property Owners Association president. He likes the swirling sidewalks, which are wider and have a “natural look that fits the beachfront.”
The association started to talk about the project about 10 years ago, said Andy Katz, a trustee.
Rob Barron, the city’s dune management consultant, said, “I like that it’s done.” The tricolored sidewalk, he said, “flows with the existing dune.”
The street-side wave is tan concrete; the middle wave has a chocolate brown color. In some places, a third wave near the beach and under the shower fixtures has shells embedded in tan concrete to prevent slipping.
The $3.1 million promenade project includes sidewalks up to 12 feet wide. The promenade features coordinating beach amenities, including shower poles, benches and both surfboard and bike racks. The coordinating water fountains have refillable water spouts and there are dog-waste stations and trash/recycling containers. Shade trees and coconut palms were planted near the dunes.
Mobi-Mats, purchased by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, were rolled out on the east side of the Atlantic Avenue pavilion. The mats sit on top of the sand, allowing wheelchair users to roll themselves down to the ocean.
EDSA Inc. of Fort Lauderdale did the design work and supervised the contractor, MBR Construction of Fort Lauderdale. EDSA supplied doughnut holes and cookies, while MBR provided coffee and drinks during the morning opening.
Mayor Cary Glickstein thanked his fellow commissioners, the city manager and Public Works staff for overseeing the project and city residents who participated in the charrettes to help design the promenade.
“It was a labor of love,” he said, particularly for the BPOA members who were patient and persistent. They also helped to raise money for the two gazebos, he said.
The group partnered with the city’s Green Implementation Advancement Board to give away refillable water bottles at the event.
Glickstein said the city’s goal was to keep the renovation understated.
“When residents returned for the winter, they would look at the promenade, notice a change but not be able to say what it was,” he said. “This is about preserving our crown jewel.”
The city already has EDSA designing the second phase, which includes lighting along A1A and better intersections at Atlantic Avenue and Casuarina Road. “At the beach, you are never done,” Glickstein said.

Sand builds up on both sides of the north jetty of the Boynton Inlet after the sand pumping station was temporarily shut down. Seawater usually reaches the wall of the building and boulders are visible under the sign. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

No one would have blamed Ocean Ridge residents for thinking something subversive was going on when the sand transfer plant at Boynton Beach Inlet stopped pumping in January.
No one would have blamed them for suspecting that an ongoing dispute between Manalapan and Palm Beach County had something to do with interrupting the flow of sand south to Ocean Ridge’s beaches.
For months, Manalapan officials have voiced their opposition to a county plan to install groins in South Palm Beach. Manalapan fears the groins would steal its sand and damage its beaches.
The town has become so committed to fighting the groins idea that Mayor Keith Waters has hinted Manalapan might not cooperate with the county’s use of the transfer plant to move sand south around the jetty.
Waters’ reasoning is that if the county’s groins take sand meant for Manalapan, then the town can’t afford to give up the sand it has to feed its neighbors’ beaches.
It turned out that the county shut down the plant in January to do some repairs and maintenance, and it was back online in relatively short order. No one blames Ocean Ridge for worrying, however.
In September, a 21-year-old contract — requiring the state, the county, Manalapan and Ocean Ridge to cooperate with the plant’s operation — expired. Manalapan has suggested it might not be willing to sign a new contract, using it as a bargaining chip to persuade the county to scrap its groin plan.
Manalapan Town Manager Linda Stumpf said there have been no talks with the county about renewing the contract, which ended years of legal bickering among the parties. Ocean Ridge Town Attorney Brian Shutt says that, though the contract has lapsed, the agreement’s essence remains.
“I do not see any change in the way the sand station will be operated,” Shutt said, “as there was language in the agreement that provided that upon expiration the county would still continue to operate the station in the same manner.”
Still, Ocean Ridge is taking the plant issue seriously. Town Manager Jamie Titcomb says he expects the Town Commission to choose one of its members at the Feb. 12 meeting to be the “point person” for monitoring the groin project and its potential impact on the transfer plant.

Ocean Ridge candidate forum
Feb. 21: Three candidates for two seats on the Town Commission will take part ­— incumbent Gail Aaskov and political newcomers Kristine de Haseth and Phil Besler.
Where: Town Hall
Time: 6-8 p.m.
Sponsor: League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County

OCEAN RIDGE — John Francis Cox, 90, died Jan. 1 at the Veterans Affairs hospice unit, West Palm Beach.
Born June 2, 1927, in Denver, he was the son of the late Earle E. Cox and Louise A. (Lallement) Cox. Mr. Cox attended his early school years in Wakefield, N.H., finished high school in Chicago, then served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
After college at Wayne State University, he joined Business Interiors in Chicago as a designer. He also invested in emerging properties in Chicago.
He moved to Florida in 1976. Mr. Cox was a lover of good times, and his personality made others laugh with him.
He loved to travel throughout Europe and Asia and take local and trans-Atlantic cruises.
He is survived by his longtime friend and partner, Paul Johnson, his sister, Mary McMahon, nephews Jim McMahon, William Cox and wife Sue, niece Jennifer LaFrance and husband David, nieces Sara and Barbara Cox, and many great-nieces and great-nephews.
Mr. Cox was preceded in death by his brothers Gilbert and Russell Cox.
At his request, no formal service was scheduled. Although he loved his plants and flowers, he requested donations be made to local animal shelters and rescue centers of your choice.
— Obituary submitted by the family