Laura and Jay Laffoon, self-described ‘marriage edu-tainers,’
will perform Feb. 17 in Boca Raton. Photo provided

Some people think a sense of humor is one of the most important characteristics in a mate, and Jay and Laura Laffoon have put that to the test during 30 years of marriage.

Laughing together helps couples connect; connecting makes couples happy. This happy couple, who call themselves “marriage edu-tainers,” will share stories from their journey together, and you just might learn something while you’re laughing.

Their show starts at 6 p.m. Feb. 17 at Advent Lutheran Church in Boca Raton.

Tickets are $20; go to jayandlaura.com.

While you’re there, say congratulations to Advent School for 50 years of Christian education.

In November, Advent Lutheran Church celebrated its school with 200 guests, including alumni, past administrators and former teachers. The Rev. Dr. Ron Dingle, the school’s former director, shared his memories.

Advent’s school was founded in 1968 with a kindergarten class. Now the school serves children of all faiths from 6 weeks old to pre-K to eighth grade.

Advent School is a ministry of Advent Church at 300 E. Yamato Road, in Boca Raton. Call 395-3631 or visit adventschoolboca.org.

Constructive conversations
What do you do if someone tells you a sexist or ethnically or religiously offensive joke?

Sometimes it’s probably better to ignore it and to avoid that person in the future. But sometimes you can’t avoid it. You have to say something. But what? And how?

Allan Barsky (left) can help. He’s the guest speaker at the meeting of the Interfaith Café at 7 p.m. Feb. 21 at South County Civic Center, 16700 Jog Road, Delray Beach.

He’ll offer suggestions on how to engage others in respectful, meaningful and constructive conversations.

Barsky is a specialist in mediation and conflict resolution and a professor of social work at Florida Atlantic University. He has a doctorate and a law degree from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He’s the author of several books on ethics and conflict resolution. His topic is “courageous conversations.”

Favorite Jewish composers
Temple Beth El of Boca Raton celebrates the work of Cantor Lori Shapiro’s favorite Jewish composers: Carole King, Carly Simon, Paul Simon and Burt Bacharach.

“Feelin’ Groovy” begins at 3 p.m. Feb. 10 at Temple Beth El, 333 SW Fourth Ave. Shapiro will perform with an assist from Dennis Lambert and Misha Lambert.

Tickets are $100 for reserved seating, $36 preferred, $18 general, $10 students. Call 391-8900 or go to tbeboca.org.

Stopping child exploitation
Mark your calendar for the Child Rescue Coalition’s fourth annual Eat, Drink & Be Giving Gala at 6 p.m. Feb. 22 at the Delray Beach Marriott, 10 N. Ocean Blvd.

Founded by sisters Carly Asher Yoost and Desiree Asher, the Child Rescue Coalition is a partnership of child exploitation investigators, police officers, digital forensic experts, prosecutors, child welfare agencies, and corporate and private donors.

They work together to apprehend and convict abusers of children, rescue children in danger, and prevent abuse before it happens. They do it with state-of-the-art technology that targets abusers, pornographers and traffickers.

Tickets are $275 and are available online at childrescuecoalition.org.

— Janis Fontaine

By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley

When you think of a tree, chances are you envision a trunk with some foliage at the top that might shade your yard, become a home to birds and other wildlife, or provide your family with such sweet treats as mangoes or starfruit.

But when Mark Cassini and Matt Shipley see that same tree, they view not only the environmental benefits it can provide — such as cleaner air, shade and habitat — but the sense of community that it helps create.

About two years ago, the two founded Community Greening, a nonprofit in Delray Beach that works to improve low- to moderate-income communities through tree planting.

Since then they, with the help of community volunteers, have planted nearly 2,500 native and fruit trees in parks, school grounds, vacant lots and yards from Deerfield Beach to West Palm Beach, with their emphasis on low- to moderate-income areas in Delray Beach.

“At our plantings, all sorts of people are working together to improve a neighborhood — whether the volunteers live locally or visit a neighborhood, perhaps for the first time, to help plant at a park or a school. But after working together, all the volunteers — no matter where they live — think of that area and those trees as theirs,” says Cassini.

Consider, for example, a recent planting event at the K-12 Village Academy magnet school in an area of Delray called the Set. About 100 volunteers planted more than 150 trees 8 feet tall in only two hours, including slash pines, silver buttonwoods and dahoon hollies.

When the work was done, a food truck from Caesar’s Famous Ribs & BBQ arrived. “After the planting, we ate and the day turned into even more of a community event when playing basketball, skateboarding and dancing started. For me, it was the definition of a community party,” Shipley says.

Growing a community can happen in a variety of ways when it comes to planting trees. Consider what has come to be called the Grove in Catherine Strong Park, which is walking distance from Village Academy.

“We had visited the park in May 2017, soon after it was planted with about 75 fledgling fruit trees. But we recently returned to see how this Community Greening project is faring.

“Instead of an inactive vacant lot where people were dumping garbage, it’s now a place that’s giving back to people and nature,” Cassini notes. Today it’s a thriving grove with 10-foot-high fruit trees, many of which are already bearing fruit.

In fact, residents are welcome to visit the garden and pick whatever is ripe — including avocados, starfruit, guavas and sugar apples, as well as a variety of mangoes. There are even a couple of Madam Francis mango trees favored by Haitian residents.

The area is nicely maintained by Community Greening staffer Dre Dildy, who lives in the neighborhood and was hired as a tree steward after attending many of the Community Greening events as a volunteer.

The city maintenance crew that cuts the grass and helps with irrigation also has gotten involved.

“We’ve made more work for the city staff but they’ve become friends by volunteering at our plantings, looking out for the trees and giving us updates,” Shipley says.

The residents also feel attached to the park and its foliage, especially those who have adopted a tree in honor of a sick or deceased family member.

One woman who works near the Grove planted a mango tree in honor of her grandmother. She regularly drives by to check on its progress and returned with her parents a year after the planting to take pictures with the tree.

“We won’t start seeing many of the ecological benefits of the trees we plant until they grow a little more, but our planting projects that bring people together instantly create community,” says Cassini.

More about Community Greening
The tree-planting event at the K-12 Village Academy (400 SW 12th Ave.) in Delray Beach was made possible by a grant from the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation as well as 75 Enterprise employees who volunteered.

The Grove in Catherine Strong Park, also funded by grants, is at the southwest corner of Southwest Sixth Street and
Southwest 17th Avenue in Delray Beach.

To learn more, find an events calendar or donate, visit communitygreening.org. Or contact co-founder Matt Shipley at 789-2005, mshipley@communitygreening.org; or founder and CEO Mark Cassini at 305-632-6211, mcassini@communitygreening.org.

Gardening tip
“After Hurricane Irma, we drove around and noticed that most of the native trees we’d planted didn’t have much damage. Some of them had been laid over, but we just brought them back up and staked them. Now they are doing fine. But we did notice a lot of damage on nonnative trees in the neighborhood. Some had fallen right next to the trees we’d planted. Luckily those falling trees didn’t take down any of ours.”

— Matt Shipley

You can contact Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley at debhartz@att.net.

February is Pet Dental Health Month, a good time to recommit to keeping your pets' teeth and gums healthy. Illustration provided

By Arden Moore

Many of us are spot-on when it comes to bathing our dogs and brushing our cats. And some of us have perfected the art of escaping injury by performing regular nail trimming, even on our feline friends. But how many of us regularly open our pet’s mouth, inspect the gums and yes, do a sniff test?
I’m betting not many. In fact, up to 80 percent of dogs and 70 percent of cats sport some degree of dental problems by age 3, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
In honor of Pet Dental Health Month in February, I am advocating that you practice at-home pet dental care.
For starters, getting into this dental hygiene habit could keep your wallet fatter. If you pay regular attention to your pet’s teeth and gums, you can spot early warning signs of disease. By treating the dental issue promptly, you can save money on veterinary bills and keep your pet healthy and happy.
There is a direct connection between oral health and overall health in both pets and people. Periodontal disease causes chronic inflammation and makes the body’s immune system work overtime to respond to plaque and other issues in the mouth.
So, in order to identify uh-oh dental issues, you need to look, sniff and watch. Open your pet’s mouth and look for any evidence of bloody gums, tartar buildup (especially on the back molars), broken, loose or missing teeth and signs of swelling.
Second, take a sniff. Your pet’s breath should not be knock-you-back foul smelling. That could indicate not only a dental problem but possibly an issue with one of your pet’s organs.
And third, pay attention to your pet’s eating habits. If your chow hound is now turning down treats or spilling kibble from the food bowl, that could indicate he may be experiencing oral pain.
In the pet first-aid/CPR classes I teach around the country, I give my students an added reason to practice at-home dental care: You condition your pets that good things happen (translation: yummy treats and praise) when you handle their mouths. Successful teeth brushing sessions can improve your chances of administering needed pills or liquid medicine easily because your pet is less resistant to having his mouth handled.
In class, I sometimes put on a finger brush soaked in juice from canned tuna or dabbed in a soft cheese and treat Pet Safety Cat Casey and Pet Safety Dog Kona to a quick brushing. Both are happily trained to know that finger brushes equate to tasty treats. I also alert pet parents to choose a closed bathroom to minimize distractions in the house and prevent pet escapes.
Now, if you are like me and learn best by seeing and doing, an easy, step-by-step video from the AVMA on how to brush your pet’s teeth and condition him to welcome these hygiene sessions is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB3GIAgrTPE.
If you don’t feel comfortable brushing your pet’s teeth, you do have plenty of other options.
Among the toothbrush-free options are finger brushes, dental toys, oral gels and rinses, and treats that carry the VOHC seal of approval.
The Veterinary Oral Health Council consists of board-certified veterinary dentists who regularly evaluate dental products for quality. To find dental items that have VOHC approval, check out vohc.org/accepted_products.htm.
One word of caution: Please play it safe by using toothpaste, mouth rinses and other dental products that are made specifically for dogs and cats.
Never use human toothpaste on your pet for two reasons: Dogs and cats do not know how to rinse and spit, and fluoride in human toothpaste is not safe for dogs or cats. Human toothpaste also contains detergents and baking soda that can harm a pet’s teeth.
One of the best ways to show your pet how much you love him is by being his best health ally. And that includes regular at-home dental care. Your reward? Kisses of gratitude from your pet that are free of foul odor.
Please consider booking a dental exam this month for your pet. And check with your veterinary clinic. Some places in Palm Beach County are offering discounts on dental procedures in recognition of Pet Dental Health Month.

Arden Moore, founder of FourLeggedLife.com, is an animal behavior consultant, editor, author, speaker and master certified pet first-aid instructor. She hosts Oh Behave! on PetLifeRadio.com. Learn more by visiting ardenmoore.com.

Boca Raton High junior Casey Hill, who plays in the marching band, came up with a piston training device (below) to help trumpet players improve their fingering techniques. Photos provided

By Janis Fontaine

Boca Raton High School junior Casey Hill says her trumpet is like an extension of her arm. She feels more natural holding it and feels a little anxious when she doesn’t have it.

Musicians are like that.

Since Casey got started playing six years ago, her trumpet has been there for her. Now she plays about 20 other instruments, but the trumpet is her true love.

She plays trumpet in the marching band, where the intricate routines are designed to look beautiful as a whole. It can be tough to tell if you’re in the wrong place, so marching is demanding and strenuous.

But Casey says, “Marching band is a blast. It’s the most fun thing. You leave your blood, sweat and tears out on the field, literally.

But you learn discipline, and how to work well with all kinds of people, and you make connections that are strong and genuine.” Marching band is a huge time commitment. Rehearsals are twice a week to prepare for game day on Friday, and then competitions are held on Saturday. Casey says it’s worth every minute.

About two years ago, the 16-year-old experienced a happy accident that solved a problem for her and some other trumpet players. With help from the Young Entrepreneurs Academy sponsored by the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce, Casey turned her idea into an invention — the Piston Trainer — and the invention into reality.

In music, technique is king and bad habits are hard to break. When Casey started playing trumpet, no one corrected her fingering technique, so that became ingrained in her muscle memory. It didn’t prevent her from playing well, from being a respected musician and an important member of the marching band, but Casey knew she could do better. One day at rehearsal, she forgot her “dot book,” a small spiral book on a lanyard that holds a dot chart, the schematic used in marching band to show you where to go.

Because she forgot her book, Casey had to fold the chart and hold it in between the valves of her trumpet. She noticed the papers made her keep her hands, especially her wrists, in prime technical position. When she started to slip back into her old ways, the dot chart reminded her not to do it.

When she got home, Casey kept thinking about how those sheets of paper had helped her. She did research in her spare time over the next 18 months, examining the 20 most common brands of trumpets, measuring them down to the millimeter and calculating the perfect dimensions for the Piston Trainer.

With support and guidance from the Boca Chamber’s academy, Casey created a business plan and learned to pitch her product to investors — to answer tough financial questions and explain the marketing plan needed to get her product in the hands of band leaders, teachers and trumpet players.

When she made her official pitch at the end of the Young Entrepreneurs class, the investors pledged $1,580 to fund her company.
In the old days — like the year Casey was born — making the Piston Trainer would require a prototype and a mold, pretty steep startup costs. But the costs of 3D printers that use plastic pellets are affordable now and Casey’s device was a perfect candidate for 3D replication.

In 2010, a 3D printing machine cost more than $20,000, but in 2013, the cost dropped to $1,000. So, she bought a 3D printer and had packaging made for the device, which she manufactures and packs at home.

Casey’s first goal was to get the PTs into the hands of young trumpet players, so she targeted Boca Middle and Western Pines Middle at the start of the school year, supplying kids who are just learning the instrument with the trainers. This, she said, is the time to correct and perfect technique, “before it gets ingrained.”

Casey plans to supply all of Palm Beach County middle schools with Piston Trainers over the next three years.

A search online for “help with trumpet fingering technique” returns finger weights for strength building and finger exercises to improve dexterity, but nothing like Casey Hill’s Piston Trainer, which is not patented.

Could it be that a high school student from Boca created the only significant piece of equipment for mastering trumpet valve fingering since the instrument was invented in 1500 BC?

Casey enjoys business, but she says she plans to study music therapy in college, a growing field with a lot of applications. “It’s using music to accomplish non-music goals,” Casey said.

For her, music is as important to her existence as breathing or eating, so to be able to share that gift and to help others is a great opportunity.

Casey sees playing music as a symbiotic energy exchange: “I give my instrument life and it gives my life meaning.”

Mayor: $15,000 payment saves untold legal fees

By Steve Plunkett

Gulf Stream and Martin O’Boyle have resolved the nine remaining lawsuits between them, with the town admitting that it violated the state’s Public Records Act in four cases and paying its litigious resident $15,000 to drop five others.
Both sides will go to mediation in hopes of deciding how much Gulf Stream will pay O’Boyle’s attorneys in the four cases settled in his favor. Each party will pay its own legal bills in the five dismissed suits.
“This is a business decision, and one that the [Town] Commission believes serves the best interests of the town by capping all legal fees,” Mayor Scott Morgan said as he announced the settlement Dec. 14.
The nine cases in the settlement were all that were left of 44 lawsuits that arose from more than 2,500 requests for public records by O’Boyle and resident Chris O’Hare, Morgan said.
The town and O’Hare signed a settlement in June 2017.
“In fiscal year ’17-18, we secured dismissals or victories in seven public records cases with one case decided adversely to the town,” the mayor said. “Previously, the town prevailed or secured dismissals in another 27 cases.”
O’Boyle and the town will continue to litigate the amount Gulf Stream must pay O’Boyle’s attorneys for the case he won. His lawyers have said they are owed more than $650,000; the town’s attorneys contend their rivals should get no more than $20,000.
Morgan credited Gulf Stream’s aggressive posture in the cases as essential to reaching the settlement and in changing state law on public records requests. Now judges in Florida can rule a request “improper” or “frivolous,” making the requestor liable for an agency’s attorney fees. Before, even if the agency won it still had to pay its own fees in all cases.
O’Boyle said what he considers biased news coverage of his lawsuits meant it took more time to settle the disputes.
“They would have been [resolved] a long time ago if The Coastal Star hadn’t written all those hit pieces which emboldened the town,” O’Boyle said.
Morgan said the settlement of any suit benefits both sides.
“This resolution hopefully brings an end to the public records abuse and the litigation abuse that this town has been subjected to. In that sense this is a win for the town,” Morgan said. “From Mr. O’Boyle’s standpoint, it brings an end to his emotional involvement, his expenses, and I think it’s a win for him in that sense as well.”
O’Boyle disputed the mayor’s characterization of his records requests as abuse.
“I don’t know how they can say it’s frivolous when they admitted that they wrongfully withheld documents in violation of the law,” O’Boyle said.
The town would have been better off paying someone $35,000 a year to handle such requests rather than spend hundreds of thousands on attorney fees, O’Boyle added. “I’m delighted that they have finally admitted wrongdoing,” he said.
As part of the settlement O’Boyle agreed to pay $250 upfront when he asks for public records in the future, with the money returned to him minus the town’s costs of responding to his request.
This “facilitation fee” was also in Gulf Stream’s settlement with O’Hare.
O’Boyle and O’Hare started flooding the town with requests for public records in 2013, eventually making more than 2,500 requests and filing dozens of lawsuits. The town raised property taxes 40 percent to pay for outside lawyers and additional staff and equipment to handle the requests.

Kristin Finn and daughter Ava give away cookies frosted with ‘41’ to honor the 41st President George H.W. Bush after he died. They live on George Bush Boulevard, the former Northeast Eighth Street renamed in 1989. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

Late in the afternoon of Wednesday, Dec. 5, Air Force One flew high above these United States, somewhere between Washington, D.C., and Houston, Texas.
On this day, however, the great plane was not called Air Force One. That name is used only when a sitting president is aboard, and so for this somber, four-hour flight, Air Force One had been renamed Special Mission 41, in honor of George Herbert Walker Bush, the nation’s 41st president, whose coffin it was carrying home.
At the same time, in the Del-Ida Park Historic District of Delray Beach, a young girl named Ava Finn approached a car pausing at an intersection to offer the driver a small bag of sugar cookies.
“Would you like a cookie to honor the president?” she called through the window. “They’re free.”
“You’re giving away cookies to honor Donald Trump?” the puzzled driver replied.
From the sidewalk, a woman named Fran Finch called, “You’re on George Bush Boulevard!” and shook her head. “People don’t get it,” she sighed.
Ava Finn, 11, her mother, Kristin, and Fran Finch and her daughter, Juliette, 15, live here on George Bush Boulevard, and so they thought the cookies would be a nice gesture to honor both the late president and their street.
On the night before the funeral at the National Cathedral, they baked 150 sugar cookies and decorated each with the number “41” in red or blue frosting. Now, as “41” was being flown to his final resting place, these two mothers and daughters stood at the intersection of George Bush Boulevard and Northeast Second Avenue, offering the cookies to passing drivers.
This was their own, small Special Mission 41.
“I was going to make a sign that said ‘Honk for George Bush,’ ” Kristin Finn said, “but I didn’t think it would be appropriate. Did you see the eulogy? I cried like a baby.”
Instead, they set up a small folding table to hold the many bags of cookies and decorated the nearby 30-mph speed limit sign and a crossing pole with red, white and blue bunting.
Most of the people they approached were happy to take free cookies.
“Thank you very much,” the driver of a Lee Wilder Plumbing truck told Ava Finn. “We watched part of the funeral.”
“I wish I could [accept cookies],” another said, “but I’m on a diet.”
Some assumed she was selling the cookies for a school project.
“I don’t have money.”
“No, it’s free,” they assured passers-by more than once.
And some had to be told they were on George Bush Boulevard.
Maybe they thought this was Northeast Eighth Street.
Maybe they thought it was both.
For some in Delray Beach, this two-lane stretch between North Swinton Avenue and North Ocean Boulevard has honored President George Herbert Walker Bush for 30 years.
For others, it will always be Northeast Eighth Street, right there in between Northeast Seventh and Northeast Ninth, no matter what the city says.

President-elect George H.W. Bush fishes in the Atlantic Ocean at Gulf Stream shortly after his 1988 election. Photo by John Zich

The seeds of controversy were planted at 9 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 10, 1988, when President-elect Bush and his wife, Barbara, arrived at Palm Beach International Airport. He had defeated Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis two days earlier and wanted to relax with his longtime friend, fellow oilman and fellow multimillionaire William Stamps Farish III, the grandson of a co-founder of Humble Oil.
For Farish, a notably private man who also owned a 1,800-acre horse farm in Kentucky and a 402-acre ranch in Texas, the 1.9-acre home at 1777 N. Ocean Blvd. in Gulf Stream was among his most humble homes.
The president-elect didn’t do much while visiting. On Friday he played nine holes of golf and scored in the mid-40s. On Saturday, he went surf-casting and hooked only the sleeve of his white golf shirt. On Sunday, he traveled up to Jupiter Island to attend church with his mother. On Monday, he met the press briefly, promised to tackle the deficit, and by 8:45 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 15, he was gone.
But not forgotten.

Four months later, in March 1989, the city of Delray Beach announced an auction. The renaming rights to 15 streets would be put up for bid, with the hoped-for $100,000 raised going toward a $6.2 million transformation of the city’s former elementary and high schools into the Old School Square cultural center.
Northeast Eighth Street was not among the streets to be auctioned. And those who bid on it were not among the citizens of Delray Beach.
Shortly before the May 20 auction, the Gulf Stream Republican Club offered $25,000 to transform Northeast Eighth Street into George Bush Boulevard in honor of his uneventful, four-day visit to their town the year before.
“We believe George Bush will be coming down again to visit his friend,” the club’s treasurer, Douglas Raborn, told The Palm Beach Post at the time. “It would be nice when the motorcade goes down George Bush Boulevard over to Mr. Farish’s house.”
Within a week, 363 Delray Beach business owners had signed a petition opposing the name change.
“We were not consulted,” real estate agent Gabe Banfi complained to The Palm Beach Post.
Their opposition was more practical than political. A year before, the local area code had been changed from 305 to 407, and the business owners who had just paid to have their stationery and business cards reprinted weren’t eager to do it all over again.

The auction raised $73,800.
Local car dealer Bill Wallace paid $25,000 to have a stretch of Germantown Road renamed Wallace Drive.
Chiropractor Carol Krol spent $2,400 to see a bit of Southwest Fourth Street become Chiropractic Way and Northwest Third Street reborn as Dr. Carol Krol Way.
Democratic activist Andre Fladell paid $4,400 to rename several streets, including Andre Fladell’s Way, the former Avenue F, and Martin Fladell’s Boulevard, formerly Southwest Second Street, to honor his father.
“The reason I did it is so the people who like me would enjoy it,” he recalled recently, “and the people who didn’t like me would be annoyed by it.”
Under the plan, the auctioned streets would use both their old and new names for three to five years, after which the earlier names would be dropped, subject to approval by the City Commission.
The commission approved of George Bush Boulevard, and the $25,000.

Sail Inn owner Rick Janke holds a T-shirt he had made after Northeast Eighth Street was renamed George Bush Boulevard. He still favors the Eighth Street name. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

“It’s Eighth Street,” Rick Janke insists. “It’s always been Eighth Street. It’s still Eighth Street.”
The Sail Inn opened in 1953, and for the first 36 of its 65 years, it served thirsty locals at 657 Eighth St.
Janke, a sous chef who worked at the Gulf Stream Golf Club during the season, started bartending off-season at his neighborhood pub in 1984, and bought it in 1989.
Almost three decades and a $100,000 remodeling later, Janke is still the owner, and he still has some of the T-shirts he and his girlfriend made back in 1989.
“Sail Inn,” they say, with “George Bush Blvd.” X’d out and “N.E. 8th Street” scrawled beneath it.
“I sold ’em, gave ’em away,” Janke says. “The local people got it. If they’d wanted to make it Obama Way, it would be the same thing.”
At the Sail Inn, regular customers have tweaked the new name into George “Busch” Boulevard, in honor of the popular beer.
And Janke has mellowed a bit in the past 30 years.
Checking a leak on the Sail Inn’s roof after Hurricane Frances passed through in September 2004, he found two green street signs that had blown over from the intersection across the way.
“George Bush Boulevard” and “NE 7th Avenue” now dangle peacefully over the bar.
“He wasn’t a bad guy,” Janke says, “even though he was head of the CIA. No doubt we’ve had worse.”
He paused.
“But all the locals still call it Eighth Street.”

As Special Mission 41 was preparing for its descent to Houston’s Ellington Field, the sun was starting to set on George Bush Boulevard and the Finns and Finches began to think about heading home.
“The kids in the lunchroom [at school] were wondering why there was no basketball on TV,” Juliette Finch said, “and when I told them, they thought he’d died a long time ago. To be honest, I don’t really know who he is, but I know of him.”
There have been changes in the 30 years since Northeast Eighth Street was renamed.
The Gulf Stream Republican Club has disbanded, its members dispersing to other area clubs.
In 1998, the area code changed again, from 407 to 561.
William Farish III no longer lives in Gulf Stream.
In March 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Farish to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. When he resigned in 2004, Christopher Meyer, who had served as the British ambassador to Washington at the time, said of Farish: “As ambassador, he proved as agreeable as he was invisible.”
Troy, Ill., has a George Bush Boulevard, too, and Texas has three George Bush Drives.
But George H.W. Bush, the 41st president, never came back to Gulf Stream to enjoy a ride along his boulevard.
Even before leaving town, he told the press a return visit to Gulf Stream was unlikely.
“I wouldn’t want to impose on my hosts,” he said then.
On Google Maps, Northeast Eighth Street in Delray Beach doesn’t exist anymore.
But the Sail Inn is still there, and the owner isn’t concerned.
“Half my billing addresses still say Eighth Street, and half say George Bush Boulevard,” Janke said with a shrug. “One or the other.”

This kapok tree in Boynton Beach is slated to be removed. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

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Lantana: Islanders lobby for canopy preservation | Gulf Stream: To save iconic tree canopy, water main might be moved

By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley

The first phase of the $250 million Boynton Beach Town Square redevelopment project is underway. And by 2021, residents should be enjoying a cultural center in the renovated historic Boynton Beach High School, as well as a new fire station, City Hall with library, residential and retail spaces, hotel, playground, amphitheater, parking garage and open spaces.
But progress never seems to come without some losses: in this case, the planned removal of an 80-year-old kapok tree.
“That tree has served our town as a meeting place for clubs and school groups,” says Janet DeVries Naughton, archivist and webmaster for the Boynton Beach Historical Society.
“It has sheltered those picnicking and playing games under its massive branches. And it has greeted new families to town as it’s welcomed those returning from war or winter residences up North,” she adds.
As the square’s master plan indicates, the kapok near the historic Boynton Beach High School will be showcased in its own space, where it will continue to provide shade and a place to relax.
The removal of the other, smaller tree, at the corner of Ocean Avenue and First Street, was approved by the city to make way for apartments and a restaurant.
As a memorial to that departing giant, we’ve decided to delve into what makes the kapok or ceiba tree so special, no matter where it’s planted.
Joe Meisel, vice president of the Wisconsin-based Ceiba Foundation, works mostly with people in South America to protect threatened habitat, including the rainforest where kapok or ceiba (SAY-ba) trees thrive.
Meisel, with a touch of whimsy, likens the look of these trees to Buck Rogers’ spaceship. The buttress roots look like fins projecting partway up the trunk, which widens in the middle like a cigar.
These roots, which help support this massive tree, develop after the tree is about 30 years old and can reach 40 feet up the trunk, according to horticulturist Gene Joyner of West Palm Beach.

This kapok at Chase Bank on South Federal, one of the largest in Boynton Beach, shows the characteristic fissured bark and canopy that offer protection and food to a variety of birds.

In thick forest areas such as the rainforest, the trees can grow up to 250 feet high, with their umbrella-shaped canopies at the top of the trunks towering above the rest of the foliage. The trunk itself can grow to 90 feet in diameter.
In their native habitat, these trees have reached 800 years in age, and are revered by those of Mayan ancestry. They believe that the ceiba tree stood at the center of the universe connecting those of us on Earth to the spirit world, says Meisel.
In this country, the trees tend to be planted from seeds or seedlings. Joyner knows because he has a ceiba at his Unbelievable Acres Botanic Garden that he planted from a 3-gallon pot in the early 1980s.
“Over the years, I’ve given away many seedlings that have sprouted under the mother tree,” he says.
Joyner remembers when ceiba trees were quite common in Palm Beach County, with many nurseries selling their seeds or trees in pots. But because these trees require so much area to spread their roots and limbs, many were lost to developers who needed the space for building. Boynton Beach is fortunate that quite a few remain in the city, including the one that will continue to stand in Town Square.

The kapok on the west side of the old high school will be preserved.

Easy to grow and maintain, ceibas are often planted as specimen or novelty trees that grow quickly — up to 13 feet per year, according to the Rainforest Alliance website.
A deciduous tree, the ceiba blooms in white to pink flowers after its leaves fall. This is nature’s way of aiding the flowers’ pollination, done by wind and bats that like to sup on the tree’s sugar-laden blossoms, which open only at night.
The bats, reaching into the blossoms for sugary nectar, are covered in pollen that they transfer to other blooms on the same tree.
With time, these flowers are replaced by up to 4,000 fruits per tree, which become seed pods. Meisel describes them as looking like small footballs. As each pod ripens, it hardens and cracks open, exposing kapok — silk cotton that resembles cotton fiber with 200 dark seeds embedded in it.
The kapok is very light so that when the wind blows, it helps disperse the seeds. If the seeds land in water, they float long distances; the kapok can support 30 times its weight in water and loses only 10 percent of its buoyancy in 30 days, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica website.
These sculptural trees are not only beloved by humans but are important to the flora and fauna that call them home.
Epiphytes such as bromeliads find their way onto its limbs, creating homes for frogs, snakes and insects. Then birds flock to eat those insects.
“There are always birds in my kapok that offers protection from hawks and other predators. It gets pretty noisy depending on the time of year,” says Joyner.
Besides being important to nature, these trees are important to man, who has found many uses for them over the years.
Indigenous groups have long coveted the light wood of these trees to make canoes large enough to carry 40 people. And in the early 1900s, kapok was prized for stuffing toys, seat cushions, mattresses, pillows, saddles and life preservers.
In fact, the life preservers on the Titanic were likely stuffed with kapok, says Meisel.
But the popularity of kapok waned when synthetics came to market. And although today you can still purchase kapok bed pillows, the trees are more often sought for their wood, used to make things such as pulpwood, plywood and coffins.
With that in mind, we return to Boynton’s new Town Square — soon to be minus one of its amazing specimens. In memoriam, historian DeVries Naughton says, “As with many of the town’s old-timers who are no longer with us, that kapok tree will be missed and fondly remembered.”

Nancy Zarcadoolas and her husband, Paul, will receive the Connie Berry Award this month, recognizing their support of the Caridad Center. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Nancy Zarcadoolas was driving along State Road A1A a short distance from her Ocean Ridge home when she reached out to a higher power for guidance.
A longtime financial supporter of the Caridad Center west of Boynton Beach — the largest free health-care clinic in Florida — Zarcadoolas was ready to step up her community involvement as her three school-aged daughters demanded slightly less of her time.
“I said to God, whatever you have for me, let me know,” she remembers.
The very next day, she received a call from Connie Berry, Caridad co-founder and board chairwoman, inviting her to be on the board.
It has been three years since Zarcadoolas joined the board, and Berry says she has been a godsend ever since.
“Her heart is with us completely,” Berry said. “Sitting at a board meeting, it’s important to have someone who really understands the people we serve — and she does. She understands what they’re going through.”
This month during the Caridad Center’s annual Call to Heart Ball, Zarcadoolas and her husband, Paul, will receive the Connie Berry Award in recognition of their outstanding financial and hands-on support.
Nancy, 40, and Paul, a business owner and entrepreneur, have been supporting Caridad since soon after they moved to South Florida 17 years ago from Costa Rica. They met while Paul ran a business there.
It was during a tour of the clinic that Nancy Zarcadoolas found herself drawn to the organization. “It was an amazing place full of love,” she said. “I just felt I belonged there.”
Her sense of belonging drove her to go beyond writing a check. You’ll find her at many of the events the center holds for clients — from Christmas parties to Mother’s Day celebrations — where she helps with whatever needs to be done and gets to know the families being served.
“What I care about is getting to be hands on and getting to know the people,” she said. “I sit there like one of them.”
Born in Costa Rica, Zarcadoolas can speak the language of many of the Caridad Center’s clients — literally and figuratively.
“Every time I go into a room and see the mothers, I know what they’re going through,” she said.
Zarcadoolas was 12 when her father’s business in Costa Rica failed. Hoping to raise enough money for a fresh start, he moved the family to New Jersey, where young Nancy knew no one.
“We had nothing when we came,” she said. They relied on the community for health care, just like the families at Caridad.
“I know what it’s like to have Caridad there to offer free dental and medical care,” she said.
After a few years, Zarcadoolas’ father brought the family back to Costa Rica, where Nancy earned a degree from Universidad Latina in 2001, the same year she and Paul got married and moved to Florida.
Zarcadoolas will listen to the clients she meets at events at Caridad, hearing their stories and sharing her own.
“I talk to them and want to be involved with them,” she said. “I want to help them understand that this is just a phase in their lives, that this will pass and that they’re going to grow.”
It’s that connection with the clients, Berry says, that makes Zarcadoolas’ volunteer contributions special. “She attends all the programs and when she’s there, she’s working.”
During the holidays, it’s not unusual to find Nancy’s three daughters — Dorothea, 14, Athena, 12, and Paulina, 7 — joining her at the party for the families served by the center.
If there was ever any doubt that Zarcadoolas was meant to be at Caridad, it may have disappeared a few years ago when she adopted a family for the holidays, which includes providing gifts for the children.
Her mother was visiting from Costa Rica at the time and when Zarcadoolas opened up one of the folders, she saw that one of the children in the family had the same name she had before she was married and was the same age when she first came to the United States.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
While Zarcadoolas gives a lot to Caridad, she will tell you that she gets much in return.
“I feel like Caridad came into my life for a purpose,” she said.

If You Go

What: Call to Heart Ball, celebrating the Caridad Center’s 30 years of service in Palm Beach County
When: 5:30 p.m. Jan. 26
Where: Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, 100 S. Ocean Blvd., Manalapan
Honorary chairs: Christine and Bob Stiller
Tickets: $500 per person
Info: 853-1638 or caridad.org.

The landowner plans to build a home where his contractor knocked down trees, including a beloved old live oak, on heavily wooded parcels. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Related Stories

Boynton Beach: Planned removal of kapok stirs emotions | Gulf Stream: To save iconic tree canopy, water main might be moved

By Mary Thurwachter

To many Hypoluxo Island residents, large old trees are sacred and often played a big part in why they moved there in the first place. When they see an ancient oak tree being cut down to make way for construction, aggravation levels soar.
That’s what happened in early December when trees were bulldozed at 420 and 430 S. Atlantic Drive.
Michelle Donahue saw it happening as she walked her dog one morning.
“I am beyond frustrated,” Donahue, president of the Hypoluxo Island Property Owners Association, wrote on the island’s Facebook page and in an email to residents.
“The properties at 420 and 430 S. Atlantic were sold this year (2018) to Dr. Mujahed Ahmed, who lives at 509 N. Atlantic,” she wrote. Ahmed is building large homes on both properties. One had a small house on it, and the other had been vacant.
“He has cleared native and protected trees by special permit, but the worst of his actions is currently taking place as I write this. The town has granted him a permit to cut down large old trees that are the last reminders of a time when our island was a jungle-like maze of beautiful oak, pine, banyan and sable palms.”
The Coastal Star was unable to reach Ahmed for comment by press time.
Donahue said what she first thought was a cluster of three trees at 430 S. Atlantic, was actually one tree with triple trunks. “I obtained a copy of the tree survey from the town, which indicates it was one tree with a base diameter of 60 inches,” she said. “I estimate the tree was 200 years old, which predates even the pioneers’ arrival.”
Donahue rallied neighbors who appeared at the Dec. 10 Lantana Town Council meeting to ask what could be done to minimize tree loss. Council members were receptive and agreed to investigate measures that could fortify the town’s tree preservation ordinance.
Lantana’s law says that if protected trees must be removed for new construction — and cannot be moved to another location — developers and property owners are required to mitigate the loss by planting specimen trees that number one and a half times the total diameter of the trees being removed. The new plantings should be located on the property where the protected trees were removed.
If trees are removed without town approval, homeowners are fined — although some say the fines, which can amount to thousands of dollars, should be higher.
Media Beverly was one of the islanders who spoke at the council meeting.
“I’m extremely saddened and upset by the lack of interest the town seems to have in helping the residents of Hypoluxo Island preserve our town’s historic gem by allowing some of the oldest and most beautiful canopy trees to be destroyed without a second thought,” she said. “These trees provided shade, kept our streets cooler, filtered pollutants, cut carbon emissions and provided a habitat for many animals that delivered an ongoing and necessary ecological balance to the island.”
Beverly asked council members to read a 2017 story in The Coastal Star that summarizes Delray Beach’s comprehensive ordinance changes and includes trees.
“I’ve lived in Lantana for almost 30 years and on Hypoluxo Island for almost 27 of those,” Beverly said. “Back then, the Audubon Society visited regularly, but I haven’t seen them in years.
“What’s happening here in Lantana, formerly known as a Tree City, is shameful. We simply must find a balanced solution between construction and destruction.”
Town records show that Lantana is and has been a Tree City for 27 consecutive years, as designated by the Arbor Day Foundation.
Council member Lynn Moorhouse expressed his unhappiness with the lack of teeth in the landscape ordinance.
“Everybody knows if you want to get rid of a bunch of large trees, you cut them down on Saturday or Sunday when none of us are around,” he said. “Then you pay the fine, which is nothing. If you really want to clear land, it’s just a little slap on the hand.”
He wanted to know if the town could stop contractors who had repeatedly cut down protected trees by denying them future work in the town. “Can we pull their license for, let’s say, a year?” Moorhouse asked.
Town Attorney Max Lohman said pulling licenses probably wouldn’t work, but there may be other solutions to investigate.
“We can look at code amendments with regard to tree removal and fines can be up to $5,000 per tree,” Lohman said.
Council member Malcolm Balfour, former president of the Lantana Nature Preserve, said some large trees had been moved to make way for construction in the past and were doing pretty well.
“So, it can be done,” he said. “I’m on the tree hugger side of things. I miss the birders.”
Mayor Dave Stewart said the tree situation was a tough one. “You’re looking at two different issues,” he said. “One is about people that live there that are just over-trimming or taking out one or two trees. What has come out tonight is about clearing a lot to put a piece of real estate on the lot that will fit in a better manner. But don’t they have to go back with like or better material? They can’t just plant palm trees.”
David Thatcher, the town’s director of development services, said the mayor was right. “You can’t put in palms for an oak tree,” he said. “You do have to mitigate one and a half times the diameter total of all the trees (removed). One (tree) on one lot was 92 inches total. So, they’re putting in a lot of oak and gumbo limbo. Sometimes they have to choose from specimen trees that we protect. You’ve got to replant those kind of trees.”
Stewart said he didn’t think anyone in the room wanted to see specimen trees go away. “It’s disturbing to hear that a 100-year-old tree ended up being removed,” he said. “But also, I don’t want us to get into a problem with people’s personal property rights. Do we have the right to tell them they can’t remove the tree and can’t build the house they want to build?”
Lohman said the town couldn’t implement a tree protection ordinance that renders a lot unbuildable.
“They have a right to build and that’s why we have the mitigation,” Lohman explained.
Town Manager Deborah Manzo, after a quick read of the story about Delray Beach’s tree ordinance, said it seemed like Delray Beach doesn’t prohibit trees from being removed.
“They put a fee in for removing one of the protected trees. I’m looking for guidance: Is your preference to have a fee put into a town pot of money and then put trees elsewhere? Or should we go ahead similar to what our ordinance has and require them to mitigate on the lot that the tree came out of?”
Council members said they preferred mitigation on the property where the tree or trees were removed.
Donahue, an alternate on the town’s Planning and Zoning Board, said she was pleased with the discussion, but pointed out that, based on the large size of homes being built, there won’t always be enough room on the lot to put in the required number of mitigated trees.
She had another concern, as well.
“It’s not only the ordinances and codes that make a difference, but the passion of the people who execute these policies,” she said. “Bringing people together in a collaborative manner to discuss, educate, and enlighten one another on the impact of such decisions goes a long way.”
She is advocating that the plan review committee consist of citizens from all sectors of the town, as well as having Planning and Zoning Commission members weigh in and participate.
But with all the talk of trees coming down, Donahue offered news of the opposite. She said islanders and other town residents working toward Ocean Avenue beautification would plant 15 oak trees on the avenue on Dec. 17, and they did.
The $5,000 cost of the project was picked up by the presenting sponsor, the Old Key Lime House. Daily watering will be done by the town until roots are established and then an irrigation system will be installed, Donahue said.

Lantana residents and volunteers joined last month with Community Greening to plant live oaks along Ocean Avenue.

Sure, I use a digital calendar to track meetings and schedules and deadlines.
Call me old-fashioned, but I also hang a paper calendar on the wall in my kitchen. It has pretty photographs, and I can write notes in the empty squares, clip appointment cards to the edges and see at a glance when the moon will be full each month. I’d be lost without it.
With the start of the new year, I’ll take down the months of 2018 and put them aside. In the past I’ve kept these old calendars so I could look back and see when certain events occurred: the cat’s trip to the vet, our vacation to Ireland, the passing of a friend.
Now in my effort to reduce clutter, I discard them. It’s tough to say goodbye to the past year and all the hand-scribbled notes and memories — some happily forgotten, others recalled with fondness. But waiting on the counter is a shiny new calendar ready for its turn on the wall. It has photos of lovely faraway places to inspire dreams of travel, charted moon phases and scheduled holidays. It has blank spaces beckoning with both possibility and trepidation.
No one can know what the new year will bring, of course, but today the unspoiled pages of that 2019 calendar await. It’s time to hang it on the wall.
Happy New Year.

— Mary Kate Leming,
Editor

The Meet Your Neighbor profile in the December edition gave the incorrect age for Bob Ganger. He is 82 years old.

An incorrect monthly rental fee being asked for the former Little House restaurant space in Boynton Beach was published in the December edition. The correct rental fee is $7,500 per month.

By Mary Hladky

More than two years after Boca Raton City Council members started mulling a new downtown government campus that would replace the old and outdated City Hall, Police Department and community center, a consultant has created two renderings of what that campus could look like.
They are based on what residents, who were surveyed in 2017, wanted included and excluded in the campus. For example, a majority wanted existing ballfields and a tennis center moved out of the 30-acre, city-owned site.
Both plans locate a new City Hall on the western edge along Crawford Boulevard. The building would face east and would be fronted by a public plaza.
Both plans call for two 600-space parking garages. In the two versions, one would be on Northwest Second Street just north of where City Hall now stands.
The location of the second garage differs, as do the locations of the Police Department and community center.
The Downtown Library would remain where it is in both versions, as would the Boca Raton Children’s Museum.
Both have large open space areas north and south of the new City Hall. The GreenMarket, which recently moved from Royal Palm Plaza to the City Hall north parking lot, would stay in the campus.
Not included at this point is a performing arts center. About half of those surveyed wanted one in the campus and it is still possible that could happen.
But a cultural group has come forward with an ambitious plan to build a performing arts complex on city-owned land east of the Spanish River Library, and City Council members might support that if the Boca Raton Arts District Association demonstrates a financially sound plan to build it and keep it running without city subsidies.
Mayor Scott Singer voiced no preference when consultant Song + Associates outlined the options on Dec. 10, but the other four council members said they preferred the first one.
“I think it looks more like a campus,” said council member Monica Mayotte.
The advantages of the second option are that City Hall would be clearly visible from Palmetto Park Road and it has about one-third more green space, which would keep more land available for future development.
Singer voiced two concerns about the first option, including the new City Hall’s lack of clear visibility from Palmetto Park Road and its cost.
“Option A will be considerably more expensive and will take longer” to build, Singer said.
Jill Lanigan, director of business development for Song + Associates, did not present cost figures, which still must be calculated.
But the new buildings would be significantly larger than the existing ones, which the city outgrew long ago.
Song + Associates proposes that the City Hall would be 109,000 square feet, up from the current 74,000 square feet; the Police Department would be 66,000 square feet, up from 38,000 square feet; and the community center would jump to 55,000 square feet, up from 13,000 square feet.
Final decisions on the downtown government campus are well into the future.
The City Council and Song + Associates must settle on a final plan, which won’t be a simple task. Council members suggested at the meeting adding in structures not now included, such a playground, and talked of swapping building locations.
Project cost and a schedule for phased building construction must be decided before a final plan is ready for City Council consideration.

Highland Beach residents meet at a workshop to see proposed improvements along State Road A1A and to provide input. The ambitious plan would cost the town as much as $45 million. Voters must approve the expenditure. Photo provided

By Rich Pollack

Voters in Highland Beach will have a chance in March to allow town leaders to spend up to $45 million on a series of long-term renovations along State Road A1A, barring last-minute changes this month.
At a special meeting in December, commissioners agreed to ask voters if they were willing to spend as much as $45 million over 20 or 30 years to fund a wide-ranging project that could include drainage improvements along A1A, installation of underground utilities and significant roadway and walking path improvements.
“This is an opportunity for residents to approve a large public project that will transform the landscape of Highland Beach,” Town Manager Marshall Labadie said.
Commissioners agreed to bring the funding for the major renovations along A1A to voters after hearing presentations from a representative of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, which is coordinating the project with the town, and the owner of an engineering firm, Captec, that provided cost estimates for the project.
The firm estimated costs that include $16.55 million for the drainage portion of the project, $17.2 million for underground utilities and $11.25 million for improvements — including beautification, resurfacing and landscaping — to the town’s 3-mile walking path. The $11.25 million would also include improvements along A1A such as lighted crosswalks and designated bike lanes.
The plan presented to the commission last month included eight pocket parks along the walking path — now called Ocean Walk — and widening it from 6 feet to 10 feet. The proposal included using colored, water-permeable surfacing with embedded lighting. Other elements, including entry monuments and possibly gazebos, are also included.
While Labadie said there might be limited flexibility in the cost of the underground utilities and the drainage project, commissioners could decide to scale back — or make other changes — to the Ocean Walk project.
“The final project will be a partnership between residents and the commission,” he said.
On Jan. 9, residents will gather with commissioners and planners to again share thoughts on the scope of the project. The workshop will provide planners with public input about possible design alternatives to those already presented to the commission.
In early December, a few dozen residents shared their thoughts on what they saw as priorities for renovations to A1A. Those suggestions were incorporated into the plan presented to commissioners later in the month.
Some residents who participated in the workshop complained they were “blindsided” because they were told not to worry about costs during the course of their discussions.
Labadie said the project likely would be financed through either a 20- or 30-year bond issue and provided commissioners with estimates on what that would mean to taxpayers.
Were the town to finance the project for 30 years, the owner of property with a taxable value of $500,000 would pay approximately $576 a year or about $48 a month for improvements, according to town projections. Over 30 years, that taxpayer would pay about $17,280 for the project, assuming the taxable value and interest rate remained the same.
If the project were financed over 20 years, the owner of property with a taxable value of $500,000 would pay $713.04 a year or $59.42 a month, according to the town. Over 20 years, the property owner would pay $14,260, assuming the taxable value and interest rate remain the same.
Were the homeowner to sell the property, the new owner would be responsible for paying the remaining debt through annual taxes.
Labadie, however, cautioned that the $45 million figure — and the estimated cost to taxpayers — is the “not to exceed” number and does not include any funding for the project from grants or from other agencies, including the Florida Department of Transportation.
Because the road is owned by the state transportation department, most if not all elements of the project must receive FDOT approval.
FDOT is repaving A1A as part of a “Three R” project (replace, repair and refurbish), which is driving the town’s schedule since much of the work can be done in conjunction with the state project.
The Three R project is a five-year process and is done only once every 20 years.
As FDOT replaces, repairs and refurbishes the road, the town hopes it can piggyback onto the project and make improvements while A1A is already being upgraded.
The town is under a tight deadline to get things done.
To have a say in the work during the project, the town is required to make a financial commitment prior to the middle of March.
To make that financial commitment, however, the town needs voter approval. To get the question on the ballot for the March 12 election, town officials must submit ballot language to the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections by the middle of this month.
“One of the challenges of this whole project has been competing timelines,” Labadie said.
Members of the Town Commission voted 4-0, with then-Mayor Carl Feldman absent, to bring approval of the bond issue to the voters.
“We’re giving this to the public,” Commissioner Rhoda Zelniker said. “Let the people decide.”
Vice Mayor Alysen A. Nila agreed, saying she thinks there are many residents in town who favor the project.
“This is a once-in-20-year chance to get something done,” she said. “If you don’t want to spend $48 a month, then don’t vote for it. But I know a lot of people who do.”

By Mary Hladky

After the developer of the luxury Alina Residences Boca Raton condo and nearby residents reached a compromise in November, it appeared as if the developer’s request to build the project in two phases was on a glide path to approval.
But another snag developed on Dec. 10, when Boca Raton City Council members, sitting as Community Redevelopment Agency commissioners, were set to vote on developer El-Ad National Properties’ phasing plan.
CRA chair Andrea O’Rourke suggested delaying the vote because some of the parties to the compromise had not delivered information to city staffers in time for them to review it and make a recommendation to the CRA.
“I am not prepared to vote for or against something the staff has not reviewed,” she said.
El-Ad attorney Bonnie Miskel insisted she and downtown property owner Investments Limited met the deadline. Development Services Director Brandon Schaad disagreed.
Miskel pressed for a quick city decision because El-Ad has been waiting for 10 months.
After much back and forth, Schaad seemed willing to accept assurances that what Robert Eisen of Investments Limited submitted to the city already had been reviewed by staff and would not require a lengthy additional analysis.
By a 4-1 tally, with only Andy Thomson dissenting, council members postponed the vote. But they will take up the matter at their Jan. 7 meeting to avoid a long delay.
Miskel and Noam Ziv, El-Ad’s executive director of development, declined to comment immediately after the meeting.
El-Ad plans to build its three-tower, 384-unit project on nearly 9 acres along Southeast Mizner Boulevard, replacing the run-down Mizner on the Green townhouses.
Alina Residences, formerly known as Mizner 200, is one of the most contentious projects in the city’s history. Downtown residents complained that it was too massive and a symbol of downtown overdevelopment.
El-Ad made concessions on building design, landscaping and setbacks that eventually won over critics, and the project was approved in 2017.
But when El-Ad returned to the city in late 2018 asking to build the project in phases, residents of neighboring Townsend Place condominium cried foul. They said they had a deal with El-Ad and the developer was reneging.
In the compromise, Townsend Place residents dropped their initial objections to phasing but got a promise that El-Ad would enhance landscaping in the southern portion of a pedestrian promenade along Mizner Boulevard right away, rather than when construction begins on Phase 2, with further improvements made as Phase 2 is completed as was promised in 2017.
Additional enhanced landscaping would be planted between Alina Residences and Townsend Place.
Miskel said the new landscaping plan would cost the developer $500,000.
Investments Limited was assured that Alina Residences’ design cannot be changed when Phase 2 is built and will maintain spaces between the three condo towers that allow for eastward views to the ocean.
Investments Limited wants to redevelop its Royal Palm Place across the street from Alina Residences.
Townsend Place residents got their chance to sound off about Alina Residences at the meeting. Even though they dropped their opposition to phasing, they don’t like it.
They will face the noise and disruption of construction for far longer if the project is not built all at once. And they worry that Phase 2 will not be built if market conditions change or the condos don’t sell. If that happens, and the land is sold, they won’t know what a future owner will want to build.
“We will be left with an area that has dilapidated townhouses. We don’t know what will happen with them. We don’t know what will happen if there is a sale,” said Norman Waxman, a Townsend Place condo board member.

By Sallie James

The beloved community hospital once known as “The Miracle on Meadows Road” is another step closer to a merger with Baptist Health South Florida.
Boca Raton Regional Hospital and Baptist Health South Florida agreed in December on a letter of intent regarding a strategic partnership between the two health care organizations.
“This is an important first step. There is lot to be done yet,” said Thomas Chakurda, vice president of marketing for Boca Regional. “The partnership will provide substantial and positive changes in terms of clinical depth, facilities and other beneficial advances for the hospital and those it serves.”
A letter of intent clarifies key points in the relationship and is considered an announcement that the sides are moving toward a definitive agreement. That agreement should be hammered out early this year and officials expect to finalize the affiliation by summer.
Boca Regional, at 800 Meadows Road, began discussions with Baptist more than a year ago with the hope of elevating the hospital’s position as an academic referral center in South Florida. Baptist is headquartered in Coral Gables.
Baptist is the largest not-for-profit health care organization in the region, with 10 hospitals and more than 100 physician and outpatient locations from Palm Beach County to the Florida Keys.
“We are most pleased to have achieved this milestone in our discussions with such a prestigious and high-quality health care organization,” said Jerry Fedele, president and CEO of Boca Raton Regional Hospital. “It is an exciting development for our hospital and our community and reflects the hard work and thoughtful interactions of our ad hoc partnership steering committee, our board and Baptist Health leadership.”
The pending merger is a huge marker of change for a community-minded hospital born out of tragedy in 1967.
The horrific poisoning deaths of two young children and the absence of a local medical center became the impetus for its construction. The town had about 10,000 residents and a group of volunteers with a mission.
Volunteer Joan Wargo, 88, who has been volunteering at Boca Regional since 1962, was delighted to hear of the forward progress.
“I think it’s great for our community with all the changes in the health care field. I think we have to go forward, and I think that Baptist South is a very good choice,” said Wargo, a member of the Boca Raton Regional Hospital Foundation. “[Baptist] is well organized and forward thinking, as we are. I think it will be great for the people in this community. We are well-established and highly ranked, and they are too.”
Today, this hospital has grown into a regional treatment complex with about 2,800 employees, 1,200 volunteers and approximately 800 doctors on staff. The Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League has provided more than $31 million to the hospital since the league’s formation in 1962.
“Both organizations are not-for-profit with a culture of compassion and putting the patient first,” Chakurda said. “Our cultures and missions are aligned, as are our philosophies of care and excellence. Baptist has great respect for our history, its commitment to our community that was at the heart of our founding, and our extraordinary volunteerism and philanthropic support.”
Pat Thomas, a member of the Boca Regional Hospital Board, a volunteer for 35 years for the Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League, a member of the Boca Raton Regional Hospital Foundation and a member of the ad hoc committee, said the merger is necessary to position the hospital for success in the future.
“I think it is not only a good thing but it’s a necessary thing,” Thomas said. “We are in a very good position right now, we are finally stable, and we have a good credit rating. We figured before something happened with Medicare/Medicaid we better position ourselves to be strong like we are now.”
She said Baptist agreed not to change the structure Boca Regional has with its doctors — some are private practice, some on staff — and will allow any money raised by the Boca Raton Regional Hospital Foundation to remain with Boca Regional, even though it will be part of the larger Baptist network.
“The community has received the news very well,” Thomas said. “They understand we are doing this because we need to be part of a strong organization for bargaining power and insurance rates. There is strength in numbers.”
The proposed merger would place the 400-bed Boca Raton Regional Hospital in partnership with the neighboring 400-bed Bethesda Hospital East in Boynton Beach — once a rival of sorts. Bethesda Hospital, with medical centers in east and west Boynton Beach, merged with Baptist over a 24-month period after officials signed an agreement in 2015.
Fedele, who planned to retire in 2018, has agreed to stay on through August 2019 to assist with the transition. Fedele has served as CEO of Boca Regional for 10 years.
“Our goal was to use our success in recent years to attract other providers and establish a partnership that would enhance our capabilities and mitigate the challenges of a stand-alone hospital in a complex and evolving health care industry,” Fedele said.
The merger, when complete, is not expected to affect jobs, Chakurda noted.
“It is not expected to have any immediate changes. In fact, with the partnership’s intent to accelerate and elevate our position as the preeminent academic referral center in the region with a resultant increase in utilization, employment opportunities could increase,” Chakurda said.
Boca Regional narrowed its list of potential suitors to five in spring 2018 and then selected Baptist Health South Florida for further discussions.
“We have now advanced closer to a most important evolution for our hospital, one that will accelerate and elevate our position as a preeminent academic regional medical referral center,” said Christine E. Lynn, chairman of the hospital board. “It will serve to both secure our goals and objectives and those of Baptist Health South Florida.”
Added Chakurda, “By any metric, Boca Regional has evolved into one of the outstanding health care providers in the state of Florida. Yet there is another level to which we aspire, and this partnership will most certainly facilitate our ability to reach our full potential. It certainly is an exciting opportunity for us and importantly, the  patients that turn to us for care.”
A 2018 report to Baptist’s bondholders showed that the nonprofit health care system earned $405.6 million for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, up from $244.3 million in the prior fiscal year. The 2018 total included a non-operating gain of $254 million from its merger with Bethesda Health.

By Steve Plunkett

The city is spending upwards of $465,000 to improve pedestrian safety downtown.
Projects include installing a low pedestrian fence to keep people from cutting across Palmetto Park Road to get to Mizner Boulevard, putting in-road lights on Palmetto Park west of Southeast Third Avenue, adding a hybrid walk signal that flashes double red lights on Palmetto Park at Southeast Fourth Avenue, installing dedicated lighting to crosswalks, taking away the right-turn lane onto Mizner Boulevard from northbound Federal Highway, and adding a sidewalk and lights to Northwest Second Street between Northwest Second Avenue and Mizner.
“Many of these are already in the works, so unless the direction is to not do some of these, we’re proceeding to do them,” City Manager Leif Ahnell told the Community Redevelopment Agency Dec. 10.
Consultant Jim Sumislaski of Kimley-Horn and Associates told CRA members that 10 crashes involving pedestrians downtown were reported between 2015 and 2017.
“No particular location was repeated. We had one nighttime crash; we had two that actually occurred at dawn,” Sumislaski said. Most of the crashes happened during clear weather.
“There were injuries but thankfully no fatalities,” he said.
The No. 1 concern of residents’ reports to city officials concerning walking downtown was not having enough lighting, followed by speeding vehicles, difficulty using mid-block crossings, jaywalking and the desire for a walkable downtown, Sumislaski said. But the county Transportation Planning Agency considers Boca Raton’s mid-block crossings a good example for others to follow, he added. “They’re safe, they’re well-defined, they provide median refuge, and generally they’re very well-located.”
Sumislaski recommended more public outreach to pedestrians, restricting unsafe movements, minor improvements balanced with traffic calming, and improved lighting and wayfinding.
“I’m excited about moving forward and seeing things happen,” said City Council member Andrea O’Rourke, who chairs the CRA.

By Steve Plunkett

The Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District started the new year with an interim executive director and was set to advertise for a replacement.
District commissioners reassigned Executive Director Art Koski to be construction manager of the district’s soon-to-be-built Boca National public golf course; Assistant Director Briann Harms was elevated to interim director.
Commissioner Erin Wright, who pushed for a formal job description of the executive director, motioned to change the job duties and conduct a nationwide search for the new director at the district’s Dec. 17 meeting while commissioners discussed Boca National.
“It’s a bombshell,” a surprised Commission Chairman Robert Rollins said as Wright coupled her motion with one appointing Koski as the architects’ go-to person at the district.
Commissioner Craig Ehrnst quickly seconded the idea.
“I’m not interested in adding another role,” he said. “The executive director role has a lot of things going on just on all the regular stuff.”
The job shuffle came as golf course architects asked commissioners to pick a person to coordinate with them as plans for Boca National develop.
Wayne Branthwaite of the Nick Price/Tom Fazio design team said he will have course plans by the end of February and hopes to begin construction by August. The course would open to golfers in October 2020.
Koski and Branthwaite were still computing the new course’s price. The course, which will include a championship 18-hole layout, a nine-hole short course, a giant putting green and a full-length driving range, will cost about $10.5 million. A cart tunnel under Northwest Second Avenue may cost $1 million.
The district bought a third of the land for $5 million cash and borrowed $19 million via bonds from the city for the rest. A 15,000-square-foot clubhouse/community center will be built after the course opens.
City Council members have not committed to paying for any of the project, saying they want to know what the final cost will be. The city expects to close its $65 million sale of the municipal course west of Boca Raton in May.
Koski in July shed his role as the district’s legal adviser, a position he had held since 1978, to focus more on the golf course project. He had received $150,000 a year for his legal work.
He was being paid $120,000 a year as executive director. His salary as construction manager was to be negotiated.

Mayor served town he loved

By Rich Pollack

For Highland Beach Mayor Carl Feldman, serving as the leader of the commission was the culmination of a love for the town that started when he moved here in 2000.

He died Dec. 24, following an illness, while holding the title that meant so much to him. He was 79.

A dedicated elected official, Mr. Feldman was in his second year of a three-year term as mayor. He had previously served for four years as a town commissioner and had worked on campaigns for other elected officials, including former Mayor Bernard Featherman.

“Carl was an outstanding man who was very intelligent and very fair-minded,” Featherman said. “He was involved because he cared very much about the citizens of Highland Beach.”

Mr. Feldman also was the vice president of the Beach Condominium Association of Boca Raton and Highland Beach, and he served on the board of the Villa Costa Condominium, where Mr. Feldman was president for several years and Featherman was secretary.

He was dedicated to the residents of Highland Beach and to working in local government.

“It became his passion,” said his wife, Lois, to whom he’d been married for almost 53 years. “He had a passion for making things better and doing it in a kind way, the right way, so everyone would benefit.”

Born in Boston, Mr. Feldman was a successful businessman who held a degree in manufacturing engineering from Northeastern University. He formed three companies, including one focused on importing and distributing Spanish cutting tools. He was an Eagle Scout and a Mason.

Prior to running for a three-year commission seat in 2013, Mr. Feldman served as a member of the town’s planning board and volunteered at community events.

“He went out of his way to help others,” Featherman said. “He wasn’t the type of man who wanted credit for things. He wanted to give that credit to other people.”

During a private celebration of Mr. Feldman’s life on Dec. 30, he was remembered by those who served with him in various organizations as someone who was honorable, trusting, and always a gentleman.

“He was modest, practical, down to earth and cherished the things that were important to him,” said former Vice Mayor Bill Weitz, who spoke at the gathering. “He was also tough in a warm and loving way.”

Mr. Feldman was also described as a generous man, willing to jump in and lend a hand to whoever needed it.

“Carl was always willing to help you out,” said Emily Gentile, president of the Beach Condominium Association of Boca Raton and Highland Beach.

Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman, who served with Mr. Feldman since March, remembered him as a public official who took the time to meet with residents and listen to their concerns.

“Mayor Feldman was a gentle man who devoted many years of service to Highland Beach,” Gossett-Seidman said. “He tried earnestly to do the right thing for the town and viewed issues with a conservative and fair approach.”

In addition to his wife, Mr. Feldman is survived by two daughters, Jill Smith and her husband, Frank; and Michelle Rieck and her husband, Tom; his brother, Dr. Howard Feldman, and sister-in-law, Roberta Feldman, and four grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations in his honor can be made to the National Arthritis Research Foundation, curearthritis.org/donation.

The Boca Raton Inlet bridge was briefly closed six times in late November because of electrical problems. The closures caused traffic delays for thousands of drivers.

By Henry Fitzgerald

They’re often called arteries — the streets and roads that carry drivers and their vehicles back and forth. And as with human arteries, any blockage can cause a problem.
As recent issues with the Boca Raton Inlet bridge have shown, when one bridge is closed, traffic becomes a headache for thousands of drivers. When a second one is closed, traffic becomes a nightmare.
But South County drivers shouldn’t look at the recent traffic jams as something that will happen constantly due to problems with the area’s bridges.
“These bridges don’t have structural problems,” said Barry Meve, Palm Beach County bridge superintendent. “They’re well maintained and there aren’t any major problems. These bridges are designed to operate over a 75-year life.”
South Palm Beach County residents largely use six bridges to move to and from and about the barrier island on the east side of the Intracoastal Waterway: the Linton Boulevard bridge, the Spanish River Boulevard bridge, the Palmetto Park Road bridge, the Boca Inlet bridge on State Road A1A, the Camino Real bridge and the Hillsboro Boulevard bridge in Broward County.
Three of the bridges are younger than 50: the Linton Boulevard bridge, built in 1981 (37), the Spanish River Boulevard bridge in 1971 (47), and the Palmetto Park Road bridge in 1987 (31). The Boca Inlet bridge was built in 1963 (55), the Camino Real bridge in 1939 (79), and the Hillsboro Boulevard bridge in 1957 (61).
The Camino Real bridge, which closed in April for a yearlong rehabilitation project, is now expected to remain closed until July, according to engineers.

The Camino Real bridge closed in April for rehab work. When the Boca Inlet bridge had problems, traffic backed up because this bridge was already closed.

People who used that bridge could travel north to the Palmetto Park Road bridge, then take the Boca Inlet bridge if they need to head south. Or they could head south to the Hillsboro Boulevard bridge to get across the Intracoastal.
Things got complicated when the Boca Inlet bridge shut down six times in the last two weeks of November because of an electrical problem.
“These bridges are separate as far as their operations go, but there is coordination each time one of them opens,” Meve said. “All of that is interlocked, so if one thing happens to a second bridge, the entire operation stops. We try to coordinate so two bridges aren’t closed at once. Only when there is a problem does anyone notice.”
Florida Power & Light officials installed a “line monitor” to track power surges at the Boca Inlet bridge, said Guillermo Canedo, a Florida Department of Transportation spokesman. FDOT is responsible for maintaining the Boca Inlet, Spanish River Boulevard and Hillsboro Boulevard bridges.
Palm Beach County is responsible for the Camino Real, Linton Boulevard and Palmetto Park Road bridges.
“Over the last few weeks we haven’t had any power surges that affected the [Boca Inlet] bridge,” Canedo said. “We’re continuing to work with FPL to isolate and resolve the problem.”
Meve said the 306 fixed bridges the county is responsible for are inspected every 24 months, while its eight drawbridges are inspected every 12 months.
“We have a mechanical engineer and an electrical engineer on the inspection team,” he said. “We also go underwater to inspect the pilings.”
Meve said the Linton bridge is not structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The Palmetto Park Road bridge is not structurally deficient, but it is functionally obsolete because of narrow lanes, absence of bike lanes and the existence of sight hazards.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not safe,” Meve said. “Nor is the designation an indication that there is something wrong with the structure of the bridge.”
However, there are no immediate plans to rehab the bridge, he said.
The Camino Real bridge was deemed structurally deficient, forcing the county to plan the $8.9 million rehab project.
Kiewit Infrastructure South, of Broward County, will widen the bridge, renovate and replace the fender system, install new mechanical equipment, reconstruct the approaches and sidewalks, make minor drainage improvements and move the bridge tender’s house from the southeast corner to the northeast corner.
“It’s going to be functionally improved from what it was originally,” said Kristine Frazell-Smith, manager of the county’s Local Roads Section.
FDOT says none of its three bridges is considered structurally deficient nor functionally obsolete.

The Spanish River Boulevard bridge is one of six that drivers in South Palm Beach County use to get across the Intracoastal Waterway. Work on the bridge is tentatively scheduled for 2019.

Our bridges

Linton Boulevard
(Palm Beach County)
Year built: 1981
Average daily traffic: 19,276
Structurally deficient: No
Functionally obsolete: No
Next project: No projects scheduled.

Spanish River Blvd.
(FDOT)
Year built: 1971
Average daily traffic: 8,950 (as of 2017)
Structurally deficient: No
Functionally obsolete: No
Next project (tentative): 2019; substructure, painting, span locks

Palmetto Park Road (PBC)
Year built: 1987
Average daily traffic: 14,315
Structurally deficient: No
Functionally obsolete: Yes (narrow lanes, no bike lanes, sight hazards)
Next project: No projects scheduled.

Boca Inlet on A1A
(FDOT)
Year built: 1963
Average daily traffic: 11,100
Structurally deficient: No
Functionally obsolete: No
Next project: 2020; bridge painting

Camino Real
(PBC)
Year built: 1939
Average daily traffic: 8,351 (measured February 2018)
Project in progress: Major repairs and overhaul began in April 2018, and bridge is expected to reopen in July.

Hillsboro Boulevard
(FDOT)
Year built: 1957
Average daily traffic: 20,500
Structurally deficient: No
Functionally obsolete: No
Next project: No projects scheduled.

Sources: FDOT; Palm Beach County Engineering and Public Works, Bridge Section

Jan Mosley of Boca Raton buys orchids from Estela’s at the Boca Raton GreenMarket last month at its new spot north of City Hall. Alfonso Funkhouser, owner Maria Estela’s grandson, gives help. Mosley says she’s a 20-year customer of Estela’s. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Boca Raton resident Esteud Salas and her grandson, Mario Garcia, select greens from Miss Greg’s produce (right).

By Steve Plunkett

The Boca Raton GreenMarket has ended its 22-year run at Royal Palm Place and taken up new digs in the parking lot north of City Hall.
Growing resentment over scarce parking downtown led to the move away from the shopping strip on Southeast Mizner Boulevard.
“Some of the businesses there suggested that while it’s a great event, it really does kind of mess up their parking on Saturdays,” Assistant City Manager Mike Woika said.
The City Hall lot has “plenty of room, plenty of parking,” Woika said. “We can use the Community Center for facilities.”
Shoppers can park in the lots west of City Hall and the Community Center. Overflow parking is available across Northwest Second Avenue at the Building Administration building and the Downtown Library.
Downtown residents who used to walk to Royal Palm Place can catch a ride to City Hall on the free Round the Town electric shuttles.
Mayor Scott Singer said the green market’s new location could change parking patterns in Boca Raton.
“It actually might get people in the habit of parking over at City Hall and then frequenting other downtown businesses,” Singer said.
The green market relocated the first weekend in December, catching some customers by surprise. But the reaction from shoppers and vendors since then has been enthusiastic, market founder and manager Emily Lilly said.
“It’s like we just picked up from one place and plopped it down in another place,” Lilly said. “It’s the parking that makes the difference.”
The market’s more than 40 vendors offer locally grown foods, plants, specialty items, prepared foods, seafood, bakery products, orchids, fresh flowers, coffee and teas, soaps and lotions, fresh juices, shells and live music. It’s open Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. through May 11. City Hall is at 201 W. Palmetto Park Road.