The Yamato Scrub habitat is dominated by white sandy soil, saw palmetto (foreground), scrub oak (top left) and sand pine (top right). Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley

An armadillo lumbers across the path ahead of us. Low growing plants cling to the sandy soil. And a prickly pear cactus seems to reach with its spiny pads.
We could be in a desert far out West.
Instead, we are just off Interstate 95 in Boca Raton, visiting the Yamato Scrub Natural Area. On more than 200 acres the area showcases a variety of ecosystems, including pine flatwoods and restored marshland. But more than 60 percent of it is this desert-like scrubland.
“The scrub that you see here is unique to our state, found nowhere else on the planet,” says Lee Lietzke, the senior environmental analyst who oversees this natural area.
“It is the oldest ecosystem in Florida, dating back to prehistoric times,” adds Lietzke, who works for the Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resources Management.
If you wonder how this dry ecosystem ended up here, so close to the ocean, Lietzke can explain. Florida scrub owes its formation to eons of rising and falling sea levels that formed a dune ridge along the state’s eastern coast. When water levels rose, only the tops of the high and dry dunes were exposed.
These islands were then colonized by plants to form the scrub habitat that has more endemic species than any other, says Lietzke.
To see the Yamato Scrub for yourself, take a trail map available in the natural area’s parking lot. From there, follow the concrete path that is the Cicada Trail. Then continue on to the southern portion of the sandy Skyblue Lupine Trail.
As you walk, you will recognize the scrub by its sand live oaks as well as the sand pines, which have much shorter needles and smaller cones than the more familiar slash pines. You’ll feel plenty of sun on your face as you pass such low-growing scrub indicators as rusty lyonia with white bell-like flowers, flag paw paw with showy white flowers and aromatic scrub mint.
And if you are lucky, you may see a gopher tortoise or its burrow. Those underground tunnels are not only home to their makers but also can house over 350 other species, including the endangered Florida mouse and the indigo snake.
The concern for Lietzke and other land managers is that the lower plants in the scrub require plenty of sun and will cease to exist if the nearby oaks and pines are allowed to grow into a canopy. That too could endanger the grass-eating tortoises and other animals that need the plants to survive.
Before man, Mother Nature maintained the scrub with periodic wildfires that leveled almost everything in their paths. But to protect themselves, some trees adapted to fire.
For example, sand pines readily burn. But their closed cones open in the heat of a fire to expose a great many seeds that, after the fire dies out, sprout thick as “dog hair” to renew the population, explains Lietzke.
As man entered the picture, he too took advantage of those dry dune ridges to lay out roads, railroads, homes and businesses. Over the years, scrub was replaced by urban landscape and two-thirds of Florida’s original scrub disappeared.
Ideally, land managers such as Lietzke could use prescribed burns to maintain what scrub remains. But with so many businesses and homes nearby, smoke is a major concern.
In place of fire, repeated mowing or chopping does a good job of maintaining the scrub. The scrub is cut using a heavy piece of equipment and left to regenerate itself naturally so it’s there for you to enjoy.
“To a large extent, our natural areas are really the last places where you can come out and see actual habitat. Our goal is to maintain that habitat as close to its natural state as possible,” says Lietzke.

If You Go
What: Yamato Scrub Natural Area. No restrooms or drinking water are available at this site.
Where: 701 Clint Moore Road, Boca Raton
When: Open sunrise to sunset daily. Daytime and evening guided tours and other programs are available to help you enjoy and learn about scrub and other ecosystems in the area.
More info: Call 393-7810; go to discover.pbcgov.org/erm/NaturalAreas/Yamato- Scrub.aspx; or visit its Facebook page.

Gardening tip
Native muhly grass is great for people who want a plant that doesn’t need a lot of water. We just put it in and let it grow. The rain keeps it alive to produce really pretty purple seed heads. I have some in my front yard. The grass naturally covers an area about 2 feet in diameter, but doesn’t seem to spread and become unmanageable.
— Lee Lietzke, senior environmental analyst, Palm Beach County Dept. of Environmental Resources Management

Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley can be reached at debhartz@att.net.

South Florida Science Center's animatronic dinosaurs move, roar and appear to interact with visitors. Photo provided.

By Janis Fontaine

They’re back! There are more of them. And they look hungry!
Twenty animatronic dinosaurs have returned to the South Florida Science Center for a bigger, badder exhibition of prehistoric creatures in “Dinosaur Invasion,” on display through April 21.
Imagine Earth 65 million years ago, when these monsters roamed the planet. The exhibit isn’t speculation. These are scientifically accurate re-creations of triceratops, raptors, Tyrannosaurus rex and the giant Spinosaurus, for example.
Some are too big to fit inside the museum — the Spinosaurus and T. rex could grow to 45 feet long — so you’ll find them lurking outside.
These aren’t skeletal remains or hollow plastic shells. These dinosaurs have new technology and new skills. They’ll be scanning you as if you were prey. Get close, you’ll hear them roar.
Melinda Grenz, the director of marketing at SFSC, says the public’s passion for these mysterious creatures hasn’t waned. If anything, she says, people are more interested.
“Dinosaurs are probably the most popular of all exhibits. They always break attendance records,” she said. “All ages and types of people come to see them.”
Even people who have seen the previous dinosaur exhibits come back again to see what’s new.
Visitors will be impressed, Grenz said, because the dinosaurs “are more realistic than ever.”
Dinosaur expert Robert DePalma, a native of Boca Raton, can trace his love of science and dinosaurs back to a visit to the SFSC, then the Science Museum, to see Suzie the woolly mammoth when he was a kid.
Today, DePalma is the curator of paleontology at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History and he’s sort of the dinosaur “quality control” guy. He makes sure the exhibit’s dinosaurs are represented in accordance with science.
“There’s still so much we still don’t know,” Grenz said. “Paleontology is a growing science.”
Grenz said the animatronic dinosaurs can be a little scary — she admits to getting a few goosebumps when she walks past them on her way to her car after work — but kids warm up to them quickly.
The exhibit sheds light on some of the newest findings, including recently discovered dinosaurs. And dinosaurs, rather than being slow and stupid, were actually smart creatures, experts have found.
Lately experts have been arguing about whether T. rex was more like a bird or a reptile. They think he might have been born covered with feathers.
There’s a lot still to be learned from dinosaurs about what Earth was like all those millions of years ago, how the tectonic plates shifted, tearing the continents apart.
The museum has several programs planned in association with the exhibit. They include:
Night at the Museum: Jaws, paws and claws from 6 to 9 p.m. Feb 22 will touch on the dinosaurs’ deadly strength.
DinoFest: Meet DePalma from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 9 at his meet-and-greet during DinoFest.
The South Florida Science Center and Aquarium is at 4801 Dreher Trail N., West Palm Beach. Admission is $17.95 for adults, $15.95 for age 60+, $13.95 for ages 3-12 and free for kids younger than 3 and for members.
For more information, call 832-1988 or visit fsciencecenter.org.

High school poetry awards
A future poet laureate might be attending high school here, and you might find this gifted wordsmith at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival coming to Old School Square in Delray Beach this month.
The best place to look? At the awards ceremony for the winners of the high school poetry contest, at 5 p.m. Jan. 21 in Crest Theatre at Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach.
Winners were selected from submissions by students of Palm Beach County high schools. The winner will receive $200 and four runners-up will receive $100.
For more info, visit palmbeachpoetryfestival. org.

St. Joseph’s eighth-grade students contributed food and prepared a Christmas dinner for about two dozen homeless and needy people at Holy Redeemer Episcopal Church in Lake Worth. ‘This is a wonderful opportunity to help the students understand that the true spirit of Christmas is about giving,’ said the Rev. Lynne E. Jones, chaplain and sacred studies teacher.

ABOVE: Noah Haddad, Liam Lee, Bryce McLean-Povedano and Victoria Wilson open canned goods as they prepare the meal.

Daniel Bednar, Morgan Gallagher and Johnnie Rowley sort donated shoes, which were given away during the event.

Photos provided by Carol Cunningham

For one Saturday morning, dogs were allowed to play off leash on the beach at Oceanfront Park. The City of Boynton Beach and Boynton Beach Recreation and Parks Department sponsored the Dec. 15 Oceanfront Bark event. Duke, 3, and Moose, 2, greet one another before running off to play.

Photos by Rachel O’Hara/The Coastal Star

Django, 6, and Lady Bird, 2, enjoy their morning at the beach.

Cooper, 10, takes in the ocean breeze while watching some of his bigger dog friends.

Lewis James Brown, 3, is very friendly with people and dogs alike.

Duke, 3, enjoys running down the beach with a toy.

Gabriela Witis of Boynton Beach laughs and smiles with her 12-year-old dog Henry.

Henry is thrilled to be able to roll around in the sand.

Buddy, 4 months, hops around Henry.

Buddy is not sure about how adventurous he wants to be when it comes to going into the ocean.

Rondo, 8, frolics in the surf.

Buddy runs from the incoming waves.

Django, right, runs from the ocean victorious after fetching a toy before Duke, 3, could get hold of it.

Eighteen-month-old Abby loved being near the water.

Abby rides in a wave while looking for her tennis ball.

Abby and Django run around in the water with their toys.

Piggy, 2, takes in the scene before joining in the fun.

Mookie, 6 months, and Buddy, 4 months, enjoy some puppy rough housing.

Mookie takes a break in the sand.

Paw prints of all sizes could be seen alongside human footprints.

End arrives after 68 years for seaside vacation haven
Wright by the Sea has been sold for $25 million and will be leveled in January to make room for condos.

Photos by Rachel O’Hara/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

John Mills was only 5 years old in 1956, the first time his parents brought him to Wright by the Sea.
They drove down from their home outside Indianapolis, stayed in one of the motel’s biggest rooms, down toward the dunes, and John would fall asleep at night with the windows open, listening to the murmur of the waves on Delray Beach. They came every year until 1965.
And then 40 years went by.
“One day in 2005, I was thinking about that motel,” Mills remembered recently. “I figured it was probably condos by now, but when I went online, their website came up.”
A year later, Mills returned to Wright by the Sea, back to Room 125, down by the dunes. He and his wife, Camille, sat on the patio, drinking wine and listening to the murmur of the waves.
“The landscaping was more lush when we came back,” he said, “but the beachfront was exactly what I remembered, the pool and beach hadn’t changed at all. You drive in and it’s like it’s 1958 again.”
John and Camille Mills have been back every year since 2006, but they won’t be back next year, and neither will any of the motel’s other 8,000 annual guests. The old familiar faces who used to book a year in advance to make sure they’d get the same room again won’t be here next year, and neither will Wright by the Sea.
Sometime in early January, bulldozers from U.S. Construction Inc. will mow down that grand seaside landmark at 1901 S. Ocean Blvd., and take 2 more acres of Old Delray Beach with it.
To make way for condos.

The late Russell Wright’s daughter Gigi Vela and granddaughter Dodie Vela hosted a final Thanksgiving in Wright by the Sea‘s chickee hut.

“We were being taxed out of business,” says Dorothy Gay Wright Vela, whose nickname is GiGi. “The property taxes were a quarter of a million, and then there’s the 10 percent bed tax.”
And so, on Oct. 1, the Wright family sold the motel they’ve owned for 68 years to National Realty Investment Advisors for $25 million, or $862,069 for each of its 29 rooms.
GiGi Vela is 83 now, but she was only 11 in 1946 when her father, Russell M. Wright, bought those 2 acres on coastal Delray Beach.
GiGi’s daughter, Dorothea Vela, whom everybody calls Dodie, wasn’t born until her grandfather’s motel was already 16 years old.
“Logic says we had to sell, but nobody in the family wanted this,” Dodie Vela adds. “We’re grieving, too.”
On this glorious November afternoon, both mother and daughter are sitting in Room 127, overlooking the motel’s lush green lawn and the pool with those bright blue umbrellas and gleaming white lounge chairs — to reminisce.
What were the early days like here? How has the motel changed through its 68 years? Who’s worked here longest? Who were your most unforgettable guests?
But every time they start to reply, the talk veers back to their father and grandfather, until at last you understand.
For the Wright family, this old motel and the man who built it are inseparable, even now.

Dodie Vela’s favorite snapshot from when she was a child at Wright by the Sea.

Russell Melvin Wright was born in 1904 on a farm in Grove City, Pa., and grew up to become a successful osteopathic physician with a practice in Detroit and an apple farm at home in suburban Bloomfield Hills.
Dr. Wright began bringing his family to Fort Lauderdale in the 1930s, and some weeks he’d drive north to have Sunday dinner at The Colony Hotel on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach.
“He loved maps,” his daughter recalls, “and one day he realized that Delray was only three miles from the Gulf Stream.”
In 1946, two of those coastal acres became his.
“He bought a jungle!” GiGi Vela exclaims. “You couldn’t walk through it. He had to take a boat ride from Atlantic Avenue to see the beach.”
Four years later, in 1950, that jungle had brought forth the original motel of 14 rooms along South Ocean Boulevard.
In those days, Wright by the Sea was as much a winter vacation home as a motel. There were rooms to rent, but only during the winter months, and the guests were often family friends from Michigan.
“His Detroit friends would come down and stay three months rather than buying a place,” Dodie Vela says.
A second wing was added five years later, just in time for young John Mills to hear the ocean there, and Wright by the Sea was more or less complete.
Let the parties begin.
Wright had met his wife, Dorothy, on St. Patrick’s Day 1929, so every March 17, he’d roast a pig, set up a green champagne fountain, don a green leprechaun hat, and hire an accordion band.

Pelicans soar over the grounds, which have palm trees that the Wright family planted years ago.

In the mid-1960s, this man who had lived on farms in Pennsylvania and Michigan bought 11 acres west of Boynton Beach and gave each of his five grandchildren 500 potted Malayan coconut palms to raise there.
Wright’s grandchildren grew up in Fort Lauderdale, where he had first enjoyed winter vacations back in the ’30s. Now they came up to the Boynton Beach farm most weekends to tend the trees their grandfather sold — and to learn the value of a dollar.
“He loved nature so much,” his granddaughter says, “and he believed in education, but he wanted us to earn our tuition.”
Those towering coconut palms wagging in the breeze above the motel pool now were grown by the Wright family.
For its first two decades, Wright by the Sea saw its founder only during the winter months, but in 1972, Wright left Detroit, retired to Delray Beach, and the motel opened year-round. Soon, a team of Seminole Indians traveled from Miami and slept on the beach to build a chickee hut at the southeast corner of the property and give the family a story that still makes them smile.
The crew leader introduced himself as Johnny Walker.
“Johnny Walker,” Wright observed. “That’s not a very Indian name.”
“It was my father’s favorite booze,” Johnny Walker replied.
Now Wright by the Sea had 29 rooms, a kidney-shaped pool, a chickee hut, coconut palms and, not long after, a housekeeper who’s seen it all.

Robin Hickman worked 40 years at the motel, starting in 1975.

Some say Robin Hickman came to work at the motel 30 years ago in 1988. Some say 35 years ago in 1983. Robin Hickman thinks she started in 1978.
But the employment records in the motel office list her date of hire as 1975, when she was 23.
“I always used to drive by there, and it just looked so relaxing and calm, I said, ‘I’m going to work there someday,’” she says. “And then I saw the ad in the newspaper — and I did!”
For the next 40 years, until ill health forced her retirement in 2015, she cleaned rooms, supervised the other staff, got to meet the guests, and of course, knew Wright.
“Oh, Lord, yes! Yes, yes. He was very nice to me, and I’m going to tell you how nice.”
She was a divorced mother at the time, raising six small kids in Delray Beach and cleaning rooms.
“Dr. Wright made sure each one of my kids had lunch money,” she says.
One Halloween, a basket of fruit appeared on her doorstep while she was at work.
“Where did this come from?” she asked the kids. “That man from your job,” they told her.
Halloween brought fruit baskets, and come Thanksgiving, the doctor made sure they had a turkey.
“While I worked there, I paid for a car and a home,” she says, proudly, “so you know, life was good.”
The Wrights were always kind, and the guests were sometimes entertaining.
“I had a guest in 125,” Hickman remembers. “He was an undertaker. I saw an urn on the counter, and I used to see his wife talking to it.”
One day, she picked up the urn to wipe the counter.
“Don’t drop my daddy,” the undertaker’s wife warned her.
“Your daddy?” Hickman said. “Where’s your daddy?”
“In your hand.”
Hickman still hoots at the memory.
“I just put it down and ran outside.”
Robin Hickman still lives in Delray Beach, but she misses keeping busy, misses the motel, misses the Wrights.
“You can’t find anybody nicer than those people,” she says. “And getting that job was the beginning of a true blessing for me. I always knew I was in the Wright family.”

Patti Carlson (right) hugs Linda Phillips, from Pennsylvania, as Phillips leaves after her final visit.

“It’s a glorious day at Wright by the Sea!” Patti Carlson almost sings into the phone. “How can I help you?”
Carlson has called herself the “front desk girl” for most of her 14 years here, and this is her standard greeting. Nowadays, though, the music fades from her voice as she chats.
“We’re closing Nov. 25 … townhouses … I know, I know. … Well, we’ll land somewhere.”
But somewhere won’t be nearly as lovely as this, or the memories as happy.
Carlson remembers the gentleman who took his girlfriend out to dinner, came back somewhat elevated — “drunk as a skunk”— and decided he could just drive the car right up and park outside his room.
“He wound up on the grass by the pool,” she laughs.
A few times, people have called to ask if they can pay to use the beach, she says, and Marcia Faure, the other desk clerk, has taken calls from people who want to rent by the hour.
“I tell them we’re not that kind of motel,” she says.
“Well,” Patti Carlson concedes, “we have had some people be quite … demonstrative in the pool.”
They were the exceptions. Over the years, their guests came from the U.S., Norway and Sweden, Germany, England and France, and they made no trouble. Some came to be married here, some to family and class reunions. And many came to be friends.
“When you come to work and see this every day, how can you have a bad day?” asks Tammy Tatum, the events manager who has booked those weddings — usually one every week between October and December — for 15 years. “Here, everybody’s on vacation, and the best part is watching the young ones grow from babies to adults every year.”
Since word of the sale was announced, she says, some guests have asked to keep their room keys, as souvenirs.

Joan Byrd (left) and her mother, Margaret Bowen, read in a cabana.

“We began calling on Oct. 3 to let people know we were closing,” GiGi Vela says. “We had to cancel weddings.”
After the calls went out, the letters started coming in.
“Our yearly visits to your hotel have become tradition within our family,” Lucas Freyre wrote from Miami. “There is no way to comprehend the love I have for this place.”
And from Jeff and Karen Hall in Dorset, England: “You are like a family to us with the warm and sincere welcome we always received.”
Their letters, and a dozen more, are posted in the office.
“Those thank-you notes aren’t for us,” Dodie Vela says. “They’re for the staff.”

John and Camille Mills’ thank-you note is one of many that hung in the office of Wright by the Sea before it closed Nov. 25.

GiGi Vela keeps the wish lists in a manila folder.
Patti Carlson would like the microwave and carpet from Room 105 and the mirror from 124.
Tammy Tatum wants a couch and chairs and some of the shuffleboard equipment because she’s the president of her community board.
Alejandra DeLopez, the housekeeper, wants a pineapple pole lamp, and Carlos Melendez, the maintenance man, would like the big and little ladders.
After all the family and staff have taken what they want, the rest will be donated to a local charity. But the most precious keepsakes they’ll all be taking are the memories.
GiGi Vela had her 70th and 80th birthday parties in the chickee hut, and Dodie her 40th.
Her brother, Luis, got engaged here in 1998, with candles on the beach that spelled out “Will you marry me?”
This year, for the last year, family and friends gathered for a final Thanksgiving feast in the hut. As always, Dodie created her table decorations from the banana trees out front and coconuts from the Malayan palms.
“I use coconuts instead of pumpkins to decorate the table,” she said, “because that’s our harvest.”

Zach Cohn of Denver takes his son, Maxwell, 3, into the ocean. The Cohn family came to the motel for 10 years.

Dr. Russell M. Wright died at Boca Raton Community Hospital on Oct. 18, 2002. He was 98 and spent his final days in Room 124, the large suite nearest the ocean, from which he could hear the waves crash, only three miles from the Gulf Stream, and see the Malayan palms he’d planted years ago.
“Look at those trees,” he would say. “They’re dancing in the wind.”
In addition to being the owner of a Delray Beach motel, he had been a team physician for the Detroit Tigers and the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team. A year before his death, the Russell M. Wright Fitness Center was dedicated at Slippery Rock University, his alma mater.
In another sense, though, he had always been a farmer, too. He grew carrots and tomatoes as a boy in Pennsylvania and apples in Michigan as a man. And then he came down to Florida and planted a seaside motel that grew friends and memories for almost 70 years.
Now that motel’s end is near, too, and when the bulldozers arrive in January to clear the lot, his 83-year-old daughter will be there to watch.
“All my friends are coming,” GiGi Vela says. “It’s going to be heartbreaking, but I had to be with my father when he died, so I have to be here, too. It’s seeing it through.”
Robin Hickman, the staff member who knew the doctor and his motel longer than anyone not named Wright, hopes to see it through, too.
“Oh, yes, I’ll be there,” she vows. “If it’s God’s will, I’m going to be there, dressed all in black.”

David Del Rio sits in court during a bail hearing related to charges he stole nearly $3 million from Betty Cabral of Highland Beach. The judge set bail at $463,000. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

As Palm Beach County sheriff’s detectives continued investigating the financial records of Elizabeth “Betty” Cabral — the 85-year-old Highland Beach widow who was found murdered in April — they discovered that nearly $2 million more than originally suspected had vanished from her life savings.

As a result, county prosecutors last month filed 44 additional grand theft and exploitation of the elderly charges against David Del Rio, a financial adviser now charged with siphoning close to $3 million from Cabral’s bank accounts.

During the November bond hearing for Del Rio, who has not been charged in connection with the homicide, prosecutors revealed that the killer cut Cabral’s throat while she slept. So far, no arrests have been made in the homicide and the investigation continues.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley set bail at $463,000 for what are now 72 counts against Del Rio. He will remain in county jail until defense attorneys can prove that any money he might use to post bail wasn’t obtained through unauthorized withdrawals from Cabral’s accounts.

During the hearing, prosecutors argued that Del Rio, 35, befriended Cabral and her husband, William, and took advantage of their trust to siphon money from their bank accounts.

“What he was doing was using his relationship with that couple to steal their life savings,” Assistant State Attorney Brian Fernandes told Kelley. “He spent hours and hours a day so he could exploit them.”

Del Rio has been in custody since his arrest in mid-September, when he was charged with multiple counts of grand theft, exploitation of the elderly, money laundering and fraudulent use of personal identification information.

The additional charges stem from new information investigators found in looking at financial records going back to 2013.

Investigators have said in court documents they think Del Rio fraudulently changed the will of Betty and William Cabral, making himself the sole beneficiary of the estate. William Cabral died in April 2017 at 88.

Fernandes and prosecutor Aleathea McRoberts focused their arguments during the Nov. 5 bail hearing on convincing Kelley that Del Rio was a danger to the community and should have bail set at $1 million. Del Rio’s attorneys asked the judge to set bail between $75,000 and $125,000, claiming Del Rio was neither a flight risk nor someone about whom the community should be concerned.

Defense attorney Michael Salnick presented several witnesses who said Del Rio was a good man and someone Betty Cabral thought of as a son.

“As a friend it’s hard for me to believe all this,” testified Nick Simpson, who knows Del Rio through their church. “The charges that are being thrown at him are so far outside what I know David to be.”

ABOVE: Relatives of Betty Cabral of Highland Beach listen during a bail hearing for David Del Rio, who is charged with stealing nearly $3 million from Cabral before she was slain. BELOW: Family members and friends of Del Rio react during the hearing.

Salnick argued that Del Rio has known since May that he was under investigation but did not try to flee, instead staying at home in Lehigh Acres in Lee County on Florida’s west coast with his wife and four children.

Prosecutors, however, argued that Del Rio would have good reason to flee because of the volume of charges against him.

“He’s facing the potential of life in prison for the crimes he committed,” Fernandes said.

In setting the requirements associated with bail that included house arrest for Del Rio and a prohibition against his contacting any members of the Cabral family, Kelley ordered that Del Rio remain in custody under a hold by prosecutors while attorneys sort out where Del Rio would get the money for bail.

Salnick said he is working toward meeting the state’s requirement that money for bond will not come from ill-gotten gains in order to facilitate Del Rio’s release.

Several friends and family members said they would lend money to Del Rio to help him make bail, but that amounted to less than $15,000.

Relatives of Betty and William Cabral were also called on to testify, with one great- niece saying Betty Cabral was concerned that her money was disappearing.

During her testimony, Maureen Forte said her aunt wept while calling her early this year because Del Rio told her she no longer had enough money to pay for home health care.

Forte reached out to Del Rio asking for a financial accounting of expenses but never heard back, which she said was unusual.

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Detective Robert Drake testified that investigators think Del Rio used money taken from the Cabrals to buy expensive cars and to make home improvements.

He said Del Rio purchased two Audi vehicles, a Porsche, a recreational vehicle, two motorcycles, a smart car and a Chevy Silverado for a friend all in one year.

In looking at financial records, detectives could not find evidence that Del Rio used any money from Cabral’s accounts to pay her bills.
“I never found one penny that was paid from Del Rio’s account to care for the Cabrals,” Drake said.

State Rep. Mike Caruso won the District 89 seat by a mere 32 votes. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Bonfiglio has no regrets about narrow defeat

By Steve Plunkett

Lawsuits. Machine recounts. Protests. Overheated ballot machines. Manual recounts.
November’s general election again had all the elements to push the state into the national spotlight. But while most people across the country focused on Florida’s U.S. Senate and governor’s contests, an even closer race was being decided in south Palm Beach County.
In the end, Republican Mike Caruso defeated Democrat Jim Bonfiglio by a slim 32 votes out of 78,474 cast, but not before the totals went to automatic machine recount, a state-required hand recount and a successful effort by Bonfiglio to have the Florida House District 89 results tallied before those of the governor’s race.
“I felt like I won twice,” Caruso said after leading Bonfiglio on election night by 37 votes only to see his lead shrink slightly in the following days.
“It was very stressful,” Caruso said. “I’ve never been charged with murder or anything like that, but it felt like I was waiting for a verdict from the jury. It was a tough process.”
Caruso’s 50.02 percent winning total was narrower than those for U.S. Sen.-elect Rick Scott (50.05) and new state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (50.04).
“A win’s a win,” said Caruso, a CPA from Delray Beach.
Bonfiglio, a lawyer who resigned as mayor of Ocean Ridge to run, said he has “no regrets” over how he conducted his campaign and that his 32-vote deficit was a strong showing for a Democrat in a typically Republican-leaning district, which stretches from Boca Raton to Singer Island.
“Obviously my message resonated well,” Bonfiglio said, citing his calls for raising teacher pay, expanding Medicaid and protecting women’s rights.
“The process worked,” Bonfiglio said. “The point is, every vote matters. That is the essence of representative democracy.”
Caruso said he was shocked that the results were so close.
“We knocked on 29,000 doors, we made 9,000 phone calls, we won the sign war 1,000 to one,” Caruso said. “I thought I had outworked my opponent by far.”
But he did not foresee the enthusiasm generated by Democrats for their gubernatorial candidate, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who narrowly lost to Ron DeSantis.
“I can’t control the Gillum wave of excitement,” Caruso said.

Mike Caruso (in tie) celebrates with (l-r) his campaign manager Auston Molina, strategist Blake MacDiarmid, attorney Robert Fernandez and staffer Nick Cannon after Susan Bucher, county supervisor of elections, declared him the winner in state House District 89. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

One of the first issues Caruso plans to tackle at the state Capitol is fixing problems he saw in his election.
“I understand why people stand out in front of these [elections] offices and protest,” Caruso said. “We’ll be trying to revamp the system so we don’t have this debacle every two years.”
Even though he won, Caruso said candidates and voters deserve a better process.
“When I see ballots being transferred by staff without supervision, making decisions on voter intent without the canvassing board reviewing them, in the back of the warehouse, it’s alarming,” Caruso said. “It breeds contempt by the public.”
Bonfiglio said he will “keep an eye on” the Legislature to make sure the issues that got him almost 40,000 total votes are addressed.
“Right now I’m sitting back enjoying my life and not having to run around campaigning,” he said.
Bonfiglio said voters might consider amending the state constitution to change the swearing-in date of legislators and give election offices more time to count ballots. “There’s no real need to swear in representatives on Nov. 20,” he said.
Andy Thomson, who won his seat on the Boca Raton City Council in August, also by a 32-vote margin, empathized with Caruso’s having to wait out a recount.
“It’s territory that I’m very familiar with,” Thomson said.
Thomson trailed rival Kathy Cottrell by about 200 votes most of that Election Night; the margin narrowed to 37 votes, then shortly after midnight he was three votes ahead. He said nobody remembers that after three days of “nerve-racking” recounts, he won by 32 votes.
“They all remember the three,” Thomson said. “I cannot tell you the number of people who said, ‘I saw that you won by three and I came, I dragged my college-age daughter out to vote, she wasn’t going to vote otherwise, so me, my husband and her gave you the three-vote margin.’”
Thomson said he’s never had the heart to tell people his true margin.
“You know what, they’re right. You take those three, and you add another three and you add another three, and all the people who combined to say that my household was the three-vote margin, they added up to 32 votes,” he said.
Thomson said close elections like his and Caruso’s convince people that their vote matters.
“A number of people have said that ‘You, Andy, and your election was like a civics lesson for my kids or my class or the young people who had disengaged,’” Thomson said. “Because to them, that election reflected the fact that every vote does matter, and that never, ever think that your vote won’t make a difference because it can, and in my case did.”

Chiara Clark, president of the Parents Auxiliary at Gulf Stream School, has three children at the school: Finley, 10, Fletcher, 5, and Francesca, 8. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rick Pollack

Chiara Clark had just moved to Florida from Manhattan after she and her financier husband, Tom, had found the home of their dreams in tiny Gulf Stream.
Knowing that her two daughters at the time would soon be going to Gulf Stream School, but not knowing where it was, Clark put the address into a GPS hoping to get an idea of how long it would take to get the kids from the kitchen to the classroom.
She was shocked when it came back “too close to calculate” and discovered that the school was just a stone’s throw away.
Before long, Clark as well as her children were making the short walk to campus often. The kids went to class and their mom became part of the school’s Parents Auxiliary — Gulf Stream’s version of a PTA.
In fact, Clark went to her first auxiliary meeting just three days after moving to the area — with purple streaks of color in her hair — and was pleasantly surprised by what she saw.
“It was my first sense that I was part of something that could benefit my children and my community as a whole,” said Clark, 41. “Everyone here reaches out. We don’t wait for you to come to us, we reach out for all kinds of things from play dates, dinners and volunteer opportunities — sometimes all three.”
Clark became deeply involved in the Parents Auxiliary, working her way up the ladder and currently serving a second year as auxiliary president.
While the school is her main focus, Clark is also active in the community as a whole, serving on several boards and taking the reins as chairwoman of several fundraising events, including the Laugh at the Library event in February. That event benefits the Delray Beach Public Library, where she is on the board.
She is on the board of the Delray Beach Historical Society and chaired the recent Fall Festival.
Clark was on the committee for the recent Women of Grace luncheon benefiting the Bethesda Hospital Foundation, is involved with Impact 100 Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach County Literacy Coalition and the Magnolia Society, which benefits Bethesda’s Center for Women and Children.
On Dec. 2, she planned to serve as a celebrity chef at Empty Bowls Delray Beach, benefiting the Palm Beach County Food Bank.
Clark has a background as an event planner, having worked in that arena and as a publicist before moving to Florida.
In whatever time she has left, she volunteers as a soccer coach for her children’s teams.
“I love to be busy with things that make me happy,” she said. “I make time to do all of this because it’s important to show my children the value of being community oriented.”
The mother of three kids at Gulf Stream School — 10-year-old Finley, 8-year-old Francesca and Fletcher, 5 — Clark is frequently on campus helping to organize fundraising events and other activities.
As auxiliary president she’s involved with more than 30 events throughout the year that support the school. She makes sure that all new parents are welcomed. The auxiliary also hosts Grandparents and Special Friends Day, as well as the Golf and Tennis Classic and the school’s annual auction, a major fundraiser.
“We’re the social backbone of the school,” she said. “We give this school a feeling of family.”
One of Clark’s most visible accomplishments at Gulf Stream School is a new playground for lower school kids. With input from Head of School Joe Zaluski as well as students, Clark led the team that raised $350,000 for the community-built playground.
“I will walk away most proud of that,” she said.
With three energetic children, a busy husband and a hectic volunteer schedule, you might think that Clark would look forward to taking a little break from community service once her term as auxiliary president is over at the end of the school year.
That, however, would be a wrong assumption.
“I can’t wait to do more,” she said.

The coming holidays have me contemplating the meaning of a gift.
In searching for a definition, I turned to Merriam-Webster (of course).
The dictionary’s first description calls a gift “a notable capacity, talent, or endowment.”
I take this to mean something that is often already given; a type of privilege granted by birth, position or nurture.
For example, although my family didn’t have a lot when I was young, I consider my parents’ push for education to be a gift that has returned ongoing rewards. I learned to read, to write and to share this gift with others. This was my parents’ legacy. I learned that not all endowments are trust funds.
The dictionary’s second definition of gift is “something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation.” I suppose the presents under the tree fall into this category.
But so do acts of volunteering — of assistance or energy, skills or talents. These are not easy gifts to give: They take time and effort, and might be outside of our comfort zone.
But the rewards reaped prove over and over again that not all gifts arrive via Amazon Prime.
And finally, Webster defines a gift as “the act, right, or power of giving.”
This may be the most relevant to the season. It’s the act of giving that lifts us out of the self-absorption of day-to-day life and drives us to honor the wishes and dreams of others — friends, family and, yes, even strangers.
So, as December begins and we brace for the holiday rush, my hope is to embrace both the power of giving and the graceful acceptance of gifts from others.
I hope you’ll join me. What better way to celebrate the spirit of the season?
Happy Holidays.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

The Coastal Star racked up 10 awards — one first-place, four second-place and five third-place— at the 68th annual Excellence in Journalism Competition sponsored by the Florida Press Club.
The awards were handed out at the Press Club’s annual banquet Nov. 3 in Mount Dora.
The Coastal Star took home honors in the Class C and Class D divisions, which encompass daily, nondaily, community, tribal and college newspapers. Florida magazines and newspaper supplements are also included in the class.
The first-place award went to Ron Hayes, writing/environmental news.
Second-place awards went to Cheryl Blackerby, writing/environmental news; Ron Hayes, writing/minority reporting; Jerry Lower, photography/features; and Dan Moffett, writing/government news.
Third-place awards went to Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley, writing/environmental news; Mary Hladky, writing/business writing; Willie Howard, writing/sports column; Arden Moore, writing/public safety reporting; and Rich Pollack, writing/government news.

— Henry Fitzgerald

By Rich Pollack

Could Highland Beach have designated bike lanes and lighted crosswalks along State Road A1A in the not-too-distant future?
Would it be possible and financially feasible to have underground utility lines instead of unsightly power poles and wires along the roadway, as well as improved drainage facilities to minimize street flooding?
These questions and many more related to improvements along A1A are expected to be addressed in a $147,000 “Complete Streets” study the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council is conducting for the town.
Focused on providing design plans for a multitude of improvements along the roadway as well as cost estimates, the study is being fast-tracked to meet several deadlines.
Commissioners and representatives from the planning council are hoping to have enough information available in time to bring plans before voters in March during the municipal elections and in time to commit to improvements by a mid-March state deadline.
This month, residents will have a chance to hear more about the project — and have some say in how it is developed — during a public design workshop set for 6 p.m. Dec. 5 at the Highland Beach Public Library.
“This is an opportunity for the community to address many of the issues residents have expressed concerns about through public forums,” Town Manager Marshall Labadie said. “Those include crosswalks, flooding, sidewalk improvements and bike lanes.”
The workshop will include an opening presentation, a discussion of opportunities and challenges and “table sessions” with facilitators designed to generate ideas, according to a proposal Kim DeLaney, director of strategic development and policy for the planning council, presented to the town.
“We’re asking people to sit at a table and tell us how they want the corridor to look,” DeLaney said during one of several presentations she made to town commissioners.
The driving force behind the discussion of major improvements to A1A throughout the town is a Florida Department of Transportation “Three R” project that essentially includes repaving the roadway through the 3 miles of Highland Beach.
A five-year process, the project includes refurbishing, replacement and repair along A1A and is an opportunity for the town to ask for any improvements residents would like to see along the roadway.
Because the state has overall authority for the roadway and final say for any improvements, any plans presented by the town would require FDOT approval.
In the past, the state has been slow to grant the town permission to make changes, especially in the area of crosswalk improvements, but Labadie said he recently met with Gerry O’Reilly, who oversees the region for FDOT, and came away optimistic.
“They were not only very welcoming to us, but they were also welcoming to the ideas we were presenting,” Labadie said.
Labadie said the town hopes to implement some interim crosswalk improvements, including improved signage and possible pedestrian-activated signals.
“FDOT said they are willing to work with us,” he said.
How much of the funding for the overall improvements for the project will come from the state and how much will come from the town is still to be worked out, but should residents approve all or part of the project, chances are they will see an impact on their municipal taxes, Labadie said.
He said the town will probably need to borrow money to implement the improvements and that it is exploring financing options.
“At the end of the day, it will likely cost residents,” he said.
DeLaney said that through the study, her organization will present the town with costs of individual items and present the Town Commission with “a range of options.”
How the project will be presented to residents in the referendum is still up in the air, but Labadie said the commission appears to be willing to break the overall project into logical categories, which are likely to be the streetscape project, drainage improvements and underground utilities.
Although commissioners have shown support for developing plans, some want to be sure the town is following the wishes of its residents and is being fiscally responsible.
“This really depends on what the town wants,” Commissioner Peggy Gossett-Seidman said. “The worst-case scenario is that we can’t come to a consensus as a community and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.”
Commissioner Elyse Riesa said she is concerned that the overall project could be a drain on town finances.
“I’m not in favor of going into debt to where we don’t have funds to do anything but work on the road,” she said. “If we do, we might as well be known as Highland Road instead of Highland Beach.”

By Steve Plunkett

Gulf Stream resident Martin O’Boyle might get to inspect more text messages from Mayor Scott Morgan’s personal cellphone after winning part of an appeal of a state Sunshine Law and public records case against the town.
In a written opinion, the 4th District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach sided with O’Boyle’s argument that the town may not have turned over all Morgan texts that relate to his work as mayor and ordered the trial judge, David French, to examine those messages in his chambers.
Both the Florida Constitution and the state’s Public Records Act “ensure that citizens may review (and criticize) government actions,” the appellate court wrote in its eight-page opinion. “That purpose would be defeated if a public official could shield the disclosure of public records by conducting business on a private device.”
The decision reverberated at government meetings across South Florida. Jacob Horowitz, an attorney for the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Parks District, gave district commissioners a “cautionary reminder” at their Nov. 19 meeting. “If you engage in text messages by public or private phone doing public business, they’re public records,” said Horowitz, whose firm also represents Delray Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency and other government bodies.
The appellate court said O’Boyle met all the steps required to have the trial judge review Morgan’s text messages, especially when he “complained that a later response by the town revealed several additional texts that were not released upon the first request, leading to the belief that there may be more available.” The court used the italics for emphasis.
In an interview, Morgan said he rarely sent text messages in the time covered by the underlying lawsuit, March through October 2014, and that town staff “properly handled’ the public records request.
The 4th DCA “affirmed the significant part of the decision,” Morgan said, adding that Gulf Stream will challenge O’Boyle’s remaining claim. “I’m confident that the town will prevail.”
Gulf Stream also may have to pay O’Boyle’s attorney fees for his efforts to see what the town’s lawyers charged to defend it against his and resident Chris O’Hare’s numerous public records complaints, the 4th DCA ruled.
Citing work product privilege, the town first gave O’Boyle redacted copies of the lawyers’ bills; O’Boyle asked for an in-camera review and a week later the town provided unredacted copies. It then argued that that part of the appeal was moot and should be dismissed.
But the appellate judges said it was not moot, because French had not determined “whether the town’s initial redactions of the bills were proper, and whether any reasonable attorney’s fees, costs, and expenses, should be awarded.”
In a victory for Gulf Stream and its outside attorneys Joanne O’Connor and Robert Sweetapple, the 4th DCA upheld French’s dismissal of Sunshine Law claims and allegations of public meeting violations. “I thought it was a totally bogus claim. I didn’t think there was any merit in the case in the beginning,” Sweetapple said.
O’Boyle’s side quickly asked the judges to explain their decision in writing or send it on to the state Supreme Court. Sweetapple’s attorney filed a response opposing the motion.
“It is of great public import for the citizens of Florida and public boards alike to have a final and conclusive answer to the question presented in this case,” O’Boyle’s lawyer and son, Jonathan O’Boyle, wrote in a motion filed Nov. 7.
At issue, the O’Boyles say, is what they call a “secret meeting” by Morgan, Commissioner Joan Orthwein, then-Town Manager William Thrasher and perhaps then-Vice Mayor Robert Ganger at which Morgan was authorized to take action against the O’Boyles.
Jonathan O’Boyle says the minutes of the Town Commission’s meeting on Dec. 12, 2014, make several references to a previous meeting. “I have scoured the record to try to find any such meeting, none was on an agenda and none was discussed at Town Hall,” he said.

Attorney sues for legal fees
Meanwhile, Robert Rivas, the attorney who originally filed the 4th DCA appeal, has severed his professional relationship and is suing Martin O’Boyle over $120,019 in unpaid legal fees.
Rivas, who separately has represented The Coastal Star on First Amendment and other issues, said O’Boyle provoked him into terminating their attorney-client arrangement.
“In late 2017 and early 2018, O’Boyle continually attempted to persuade the law firm to use its good offices to represent him in a course of conduct that would have been dishonest, repugnant, and imprudent,” Rivas said in his lawsuit.
In an email, O’Boyle said he has “great fondness” for Rivas: “He is always invited to our home, and if I were in town, I would invite Rob over for Thanksgiving dinner.”
A previous lawyer, Daniel DeSouza, sued O’Boyle for unpaid bills of more than $150,000. They agreed to settle their dispute for $90,000 in April, but O’Boyle did not immediately pay and in May DeSouza asked the Broward County judge to intervene. Five days later DeSouza dismissed the lawsuit.
O’Boyle’s Citizen Awareness Foundation Inc. was a shell company that he used “fraudulently or for an improper purpose,” DeSouza said in his suit, “namely, O’Boyle used CAFI to inundate the town of Gulf Stream . . . with hundreds if not thousands of public records requests designed specifically to cripple the small community and to trigger public records lawsuits upon the municipality’s inability to keep up.”
O’Boyle and O’Hare started flooding Gulf Stream with requests for public records in August 2013. They made more than 2,000 requests and filed dozens of lawsuits. The town raised property taxes 40 percent to pay for lawyers and additional staff and equipment to handle the requests.

Regarding the Florida Ethics Commission investigation of Lantana Mayor David Stewart:  

He has represented Lantana fairly and honestly for about 20 years.  

Under his tutelage as mayor, the town has grown and prospered without any hint of scandal or ethics violations.

Mayor Dave occasionally says earthy, witty or old-fashioned comments but he would absolutely never suggest sexual favors in exchange for a vote. 

He has been known to turn down offers for lunch or even a cup of coffee if this could be misconstrued as trying to sway a vote.

I hope the Florida Ethics Commission does a really thorough investigation of this accusation.

Lyn Tate
Lantana

LETTERS: The Coastal Star welcomes letters to the editor about issues of interest in the community. These are subject to editing and must include your name, address and phone number. Preferred length is 200-500 words. Send email to editor@thecoastalstar.com.

By Dan Moffett

The Manalapan Town Commission and the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa are teaming to lawyer up against a planned beach stabilization project that would install seven concrete groins along the oceanfront in South Palm Beach.

Mayor Keith Waters and the commissioners have repeatedly expressed their opposition to the project, saying it would disrupt the natural flow of sand southward and damage Manalapan’s beaches. Now they’re preparing to make their case in court, if necessary.
Representatives of the Eau have complained about the potential environmental damage and the negative impact on guests during tourist season, when construction would have to be done to avoid turtle-nesting season.

Working together, the commission and the resort can share legal expenses, the mayor said.

“At the end of the day, we need to fight to protect the asset we have and we need to do it collectively,” Waters said during the Nov. 13 town meeting. “We need to fight the fight we need to fight.”

Waters and the commissioners say they would prefer not to litigate, but think the project’s sponsors, Palm Beach County and South Palm Beach, have shown no signs of reversing course.

“If they’re looking for a fight,” said Commissioner Jack Doyle, “they’ve found one.”

Some 13 years in the making, the stabilization plan calls for installing seven groins on the beaches from South Palm’s northern line to Lantana Municipal Beach.

The county has committed to paying 30 percent of the $6 million project with tourism tax revenue, and South Palm is to cover 20 percent. The state has pledged to pay the other 50 percent.

County environmental managers, who are overseeing the project, say it is in the final stages of review to obtain a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

A target date for starting construction in November 2019 remains possible, though unlikely.

Manalapan and the Eau intend to hire the West Palm Beach law firm of Foley & Lardner to argue their objections. Town Manager Linda Stumpf said legal fees could run between $525 and $740 an hour. Waters said he wants to solicit support from the town’s southern neighbors, Ocean Ridge and Gulf Stream, which also have expressed concerns about the project.

“Let’s make sure we have our team in place all the way down the coast,” he said.

In other business:

• Commissioners gave unanimous final approval to a six-month moratorium on construction projects in the town’s southern end.

The moratorium affects about 30 property owners with land on both sides of State Road A1A.

The commission wants to use the timeout to allow the Planning and Zoning Board to review building rules — particularly those that restrict the size and use of beach houses and cabanas along the ocean.

Commissioners requested the review after approving a new cabana request in September on property owned by Jeffrey Lee. That property already has a beach house at 3070 S. Ocean Blvd.

• Efforts to expand the town’s Police Department have gotten a boost from the commission’s approval of a defined benefits retirement fund for employees. Chief Carmen Mattox said the town is receiving more applications for openings from candidates who are better qualified because the pension plan is more desirable.

“We used to have to chase people,” Waters said. “Now they chase us.”

By Sallie James

GULF STREAM — Joyce K. Slominski, a retired educator and philanthropist whose influence helped get mammography screenings covered by health insurance, died on Nov. 14 after a long battle with Benson’s syndrome. She was 73.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., on Aug. 20, 1945, she married Edward Slominski on July 2, 1978. The two had met two years earlier on July 2 and had moved in together two days later on July 4. It was a love story that lasted 42 years.
“I was a lucky guy,” said Edward Slominski, who recalled meeting Joyce at a New York party and being smitten as soon as she walked in. She cut a striking figure at 6 feet tall with blond hair and a megawatt smile.
She turned heads everywhere she went, he said. “She looked like a model. She would captivate a room.”
But Mrs. Slominski never traded on her good looks. She was smart, compassionate and genuinely interested. She loved talking to people and had a special passion for children, her husband said.
Joyce Slominski attended the State University of Buffalo, where she earned a bachelor of arts in English, a master of arts in English education and became a doctoral candidate in French and English literature. The only reason she didn’t earn her Ph.D. is that they moved.
She taught in the inner-city schools of Buffalo in the early years of her career and earned a reputation for being dedicated, passionate and caring.
She was dubbed “Wonder Woman” after preventing a small girl from being injured by a heavy oak door that fell after some mischievous students removed the hinge pins.
“She put up her hand and stopped the door from crushing the girl,” Edward Slominski said. “The kids really loved her. She really related to kids.”
She was recognized for her teaching skills by schools in Texas, New York and Massachusetts. She also taught at Simmons College in Boston and Richland College in Dallas. Her range of skills included teaching English literature, French and Spanish and running a GED program for single mothers.
Mrs. Slominski was also a civic activist. In Florida, she served on the boards of directors for the Lupus Foundation and the Sandoway Discovery Center in Delray Beach.
“Sandoway was dear to her because it was a nature center for children and an educational center. That spoke to her,” Edward Slominski said. “She liked the fact that they bused in inner-city kids and she liked the women she worked with.”
Her struggle with Benson’s syndrome — a rare malady with fewer than 4,000 documented cases — was valiant and courageous, her husband said. The disease affected the part of her brain that controlled motor skills, affecting her vision and eventually her ability to walk.
She never gave up, participating in a book club until she could no longer read, then turning to books on tape so she could enjoy her love of reading in another way.
Mrs. Slominski’s friends marveled at a person who had only good thoughts for her family and those she worked with or just the casual everyday acquaintances, as she believed each person was a special gift.
Longtime friend Mary Lou Schillinger said Mrs. Slominski never complained about her illness and did whatever she could to remain involved. She was an avid cyclist and when she could no longer ride alone, her husband bought a bicycle-built-for-two so she could continue the cycling she loved.
When she could no longer drive, she walked wherever she could, Schillinger said.
“She had pep and vigor and a good sense of humor,” she recalled. She also never forgot a birthday and always sent cards. And when she lost her vision, she enlisted help from others to make sure birthday cards always got mailed, Schillinger said.
Mrs. Slominski’s influence on women’s health care is little known but significant, her husband said. Back in the late 1980s, their company, Anadyne, built what became one of the first mobile mammography clinics in the country, Mr. Slominski said.
They took the clinic to an inner-city neighborhood and conducted cancer screenings, detecting an early case of cancer in a woman who went on to serve in the Texas Senate.
Mrs. Slominski asked the senator to pass a bill that would require insurance companies to pay for mammography screenings as part of routine health care. The senator did and the bill was copied by states across the nation, so insurers were required to cover mammography, Edward Slominski said.
“She saved millions of women,” her husband said proudly.
Mrs. Slominski is survived by her husband, a son, Aaron, and daughter-in-law, Danielle, of Coral Springs; sisters Nancy Nelson of Jacksonville, Ginny Clarcq of Phoenix, and brother Walter Parcheta of Lake Worth.
A funeral Mass was scheduled for 10 a.m. Dec. 1 at St. Vincent Ferrer in Delray Beach, with a celebration of her life afterward at her home.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Sandoway Discovery Center of Delray Beach.

Piles of scrap steel and aluminum lie in the parking lot that used to serve the Boynton Beach City Hall and police station. Open since 1958, the City Hall was the last public building to be razed to make way for the Town Square redevelopment project. On the first day of its demolition, the city held a watch party Nov. 15 at the historic Schoolhouse Children’s Museum. Town Square, a public-private partnership, will create a downtown for Boynton Beach with new civic buildings: combination library and City Hall in a 4-story building, Fire Station No. 1, amphitheater and parking garages. The estimated completion dates are in late 2019. The historic high school, which sits next to the Children’s Museum, is undergoing renovation that will enable it to host events on the top floor that can seat up to 500 and recreation classes on the bottom floor. The city’s share of Town Square will cost about $118 million. Demolition began in September when the Civic Center was bulldozed. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

For the fourth time in as many years, South Palm Beach is beginning a search to find a town manager.

But another search just ended before it started. The Town Council thinks it has found the police chief it’s been looking for. And it turns out he’s been wearing a uniform in the town for the last 17 years.

After some emotional debate in a room packed with residents and uniformed officers on Nov. 13, council members voted 3-2 to give the open chief’s job to Sgt. Mark Garrison, the department’s longest-serving member. He held the top position on an interim basis since Carl Webb stepped down in January.

“We’ve had Mark for 10 months and he’s done a great job,” Councilman Bill LeRoy said in pushing for Garrison’s promotion.

“We’ve had no problems with Mark. … I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have the job.”

LeRoy, with the vocal support of the sergeant’s backers, succeeded in persuading Mayor Bonnie Fischer and Vice Mayor Robert Gottlieb to vote for Garrison’s approval.

Councilwomen Stella Gaddy Jordan and Elvadianne Culbertson voted no.

The applause and congratulations for Garrison had barely subsided when the council accepted the resignation of Town Manager Mo Thornton, who is retiring in December after 11 months in the position.

“It came out of the blue,” said Fischer, who found out about Thornton’s decision only days before the meeting.

The last two managers, Jim Pascale and Bob Vitas, were forced out of the job after disputes with the council. Pascale lasted six months and Vitas just under two years.

Council members said they were pleased with Thornton’s work, but she said the direction of her life changed and it was time to go.

“Things came together in my life that allowed me an opportunity that I felt I just had to take,” she said. “I want to leave the town in a better place than when I found it. We’ll leave everything in as good shape as we can.”

The council directed Town Attorney Glen Torcivia to develop a list of candidates to replace Thornton temporarily and bring it for discussion to the Dec. 11 meeting. Torcivia said it’s likely that finding and hiring a permanent replacement would take at least several months.

To help fill the administrative void at Town Hall, the council unanimously approved promoting Town Clerk Yude Alvarez to assistant to the town manager and raised her annual salary about $4,000 to $56,425.

Hiring process criticized

Garrison had ample support in the room during the council’s deliberation. Representatives from the police union and Lantana Police Department spoke on his behalf, as did a half-dozen residents.

Seven members of the South Palm force were there to congratulate him. Also there was Robert Rizzotto, who was a commander in the department under Webb until moving out of state two years ago. Rizzotto also had applied for the chief’s job.

Jordan and Culbertson praised Garrison’s performance but each cited reservations. Jordan said Garrison needed more experience and more training. Culbertson was troubled by the process, or lack of it. The town received dozens of applications for chief but the council reviewed none of them and held no interviews.

“What we’re failing to understand is the process going from 31 candidates to one candidate and that had no involvement with the council,” Culbertson said. “By law, the screening of applicants in the decision-making process needs to be done in public. This did not happen.”

At first, Gottlieb proposed postponing a decision but then changed his position after hearing comments from the public. Some council members said they should wait until the new town manager is in place to weigh in on the chief’s hiring.
Fischer said early on she was “concerned that Mark is not quite ready” for the job, but wound up casting the deciding vote for his approval.

Thornton was an enthusiastic supporter of Garrison. “I wanted to give Mark the opportunity to succeed and he has been succeeding,” she said. “He’s stepped up and done everything that’s been asked of him.”

Garrison said he’s learned a lot about running a department since taking over. “I’ve had a lot of experience in the last year,” he said. “I’ve grown a lot.”

By Mary Thurwachter

Mayor David Stewart says he will continue to fight the ethics complaint filed against him in January by Lantana resident Catherine Padilla.
In October, the Florida Commission on Ethics found probable cause that Stewart misused his position to attempt to obtain a sexual benefit for himself. Probable cause also was found to believe he solicited sex from a constituent based on an understanding his vote, official action or judgment would be influenced.
While not a determination that Stewart violated ethics law, the probable cause determination finds that there is enough evidence of a violation to allow the investigation to proceed to a full evidentiary hearing.
Stewart says he will have an evidentiary hearing (before the Division of Administrative Hearings), likely sometime in the next three months.
While he declined further comment, Stewart has consistently maintained that Padilla’s accusations were totally false and that he has never asked for, or accepted, anything in exchange for a vote.
Another option for Stewart, who has been mayor for 19 years, would have been agreeing to a settlement, the terms of which would be decided by the commission’s advocate and Stewart and his legal representative.
Padilla, 54, filed the ethics complaint in January. She claims she and Stewart, 65, had become friends when both attended meetings of the Hypoluxo-Lantana Kiwanis Club.
According to Padilla, their relationship took an objectionable turn in 2015, when, after a morning Kiwanis meeting, the two had lunch, after which he drove her to a motel and propositioned her for sex. Padilla said she “wasn’t interested” and that Stewart drove her back to her car.
She said Stewart called her a week or two later and said he would guarantee her street would get speed tables, a safety measure for which she had lobbied, if she would have sex with him at the motel.
In August 2015, the Town Council voted in favor of the traffic-calming speed humps for Padilla’s street. Another unanimous vote to approve the speed humps came this year on Sept. 24.
Padilla filed an amendment to her first complaint on Jan. 11, when the mayor came to her house to talk to her about the complaint and she called police.
Stewart, according to the police report, told officers he had learned of the ethics complaint filed with the state and had gone to Padilla’s house to talk with her about it.
Padilla, according to the police report, said that when she opened the door and saw Stewart, she shut it, locked it and took a photo of Stewart in his car before he left. The two never spoke during the incident, both told police.

By Dan Moffett

In a busy night of changes and decision-making, Ocean Ridge commissioners saw a mayor step down, elected his replacement, removed a construction moratorium, enacted a bundle of new building rules and advanced four proposed charter amendments to the March 12 municipal election.

The three-hour meeting on Nov. 5 began with Mayor James Bonfiglio resigning to run for the state House District 89 seat in compliance with Florida’s resign-to-run statute.

Bonfiglio said he decided to step down as mayor early in the meeting and finish the night as a commissioner to ensure a seamless transition to his successor.

The commission chose Steve Coz as that successor on a 3-2 vote. Bonfiglio and Commissioner Phil Besler threw their support behind Coz, who voted for himself. Vice Mayor Don MaGruder and Commissioner Kristine de Heseth voted for MaGruder, who retains his vice mayor’s seat.

Commissioners, at their next meeting on Dec. 3, are expected to consider appointing someone to fill the remainder of Bonfiglio’s unexpired term until the March election.

Bonfiglio lost the state House race to Mike Caruso.

With their passage of multiple ordinances governing building rules, commissioners removed a moratorium on new construction that had been in place since June. The most significant and extensively debated change was a town-wide requirement that developers set aside 35 percent of their lots for pervious, drainable materials such as landscaping.

MaGruder said that with rising seas and increasing development, “35 percent is absolutely mandatory” for Ocean Ridge. The town’s engineer, Planning and Zoning Commission and outside planning consultant recommended the higher standard, up from the current 25 percent, to reduce drainage problems.

The commission also approved tighter new-construction requirements that call for more parking spaces for bigger homes and more green space to promote better drainage. Bonfiglio said the new rules were necessary to close loopholes in the building code. Last spring, the town received plans for a nine-bedroom, 111/2-bath home on Island Drive South, and the commission enacted the moratorium.

Commissioners also gave final approval to four charter amendment questions that will go on the March 12 ballot. Voters then will decide the amendments’ fate, with more than 50 percent approval needed to pass each one.

The most contentiously debated proposal failed to advance, however.

The commission rejected by a 3-2 vote a provision to require a four-vote supermajority to change the town’s density or height requirements for new construction projects. The measure was offered by the charter review committee as a way to protect the town from excessive development and discourage ambitious developers.

Bonfiglio, who weeks ago expressed support for the supermajority idea, changed his vote to no, joining Coz and Besler in opposition. MaGruder and de Haseth voted the other way, believing residents should get to have a voice in March.
Bonfiglio said he worried requiring the four-vote majority would create legal problems and come with unintended consequences. He said the charter isn’t the place for building restrictions.

“Generally speaking, a supermajority is a bad idea in any legislative proceeding,” Bonfiglio said. “I am against placing any of the zoning issues in the charter.”

Coz argued that requiring four votes gives too much power to minority positions because two commissioners could obstruct the majority.

“The supermajority actually puts the minority in control,” Coz said. “It’s counterintuitive.”

Besler was concerned the proposal would tie the hands of future commissions.

“I don’t think any commissioner here wants skyscrapers or anything like that,” Besler said. “But we don’t know what the future holds. It sets us up for something in the future that we’re not anticipating now.”

Also on a 3-2 vote, the commission approved an amendment proposal for term limits that would restrict commissioners to three consecutive three-year terms, after which a one-year absence from office would be required before a person could run again.

Coz, MaGruder and de Heseth thought term limits would encourage more people to participate in government and bring fresh ideas to the commission. They supported putting it before the voters.

Bonfiglio and Besler said the proposal might force effective officials to leave government when they still could contribute.

Three other amendment proposals won unanimous approval: a measure that would give the town manager hiring and firing authority over all employees except for the police chief position, which commissioners would oversee; a provision that requires more notice for special meetings and sets a three-vote minimum for commission approvals; and a collection of mostly language clarifications to the town’s election rules.

By Jane Smith

A July medical emergency in the County Pocket has led to an updated mutual aid agreement and could lead to faster response times for life-threatening emergencies in that 16.5-acre enclave just south of Briny Breezes.

Boynton Beach and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue chiefs updated their mutual aid agreements, according to a letter signed Aug. 10. The agreements say Boynton Beach Fire Rescue — because of its proximity — should be the first responder in life-threatening situations.

The County Pocket sits in an unincorporated section and receives county fire and police services. Emergency service is provided through mutual aid agreements with both Delray Beach and Boynton Beach.

The new agreements list 15 types of emergencies when Boynton Beach Fire Rescue should be the first to respond, including cardiac arrest, choking and when a person is unresponsive. The list also has a general life-threatening category.

It is similar to the agreement put in place after County Pocket resident Bill Dunn choked to death in 2009 while eating. It took county fire rescue paramedics more than 12 minutes to respond from their station at Woolbright Road and Military Trail.

This time, the chiefs agreed to meet with dispatch center staffs to make sure they follow the protocols of when Boynton Beach Fire Rescue would be called.

“We did meet with dispatch center staff to review the protocols for emergency calls that we will respond to in the County Pocket,” said Glenn Joseph, Boynton Beach fire chief.

County fire rescue administration staffers met with their alarm office staff on Aug. 23 to discuss the latest mutual aid agreements, according to Derek Wiley, captain with county fire rescue.

On July 4, a 48-year-old man fell off the back of a golf cart and hit his head near Mike Smollon’s house in the County Pocket.
A retired Boynton Beach fire battalion chief, Smollon held the unconscious man’s head until Delray Beach Fire-Rescue paramedics arrived about 10 minutes after the incident, which one of the man’s friends called in.

Delray Beach paramedics transported the man to Delray Medical Center, a trauma center in the western part of the city. The man recovered and was able to leave the next day, Smollon said.

Delray Beach Fire-Rescue usually responds to emergencies in the County Pocket that are not life-threatening, such as a fall.

The city has an automatic aid agreement to provide services to county pockets, either in the city or outside, said Kevin Saxton, Delray Beach Fire-Rescue spokesman. “The county reciprocates when our services are depleted,” Saxton said.

After Smollen questioned the response time and agency responding, the chiefs eventually agreed to re-examine the mutual aid agreements and how first responders are dispatched.

“The problem is how the caller describes the emergency,” said Joseph. “In the July 4 incident, the initial call was described as a fall with injury.”

Joseph said his paramedics can’t run on every call for a fall outside their service area. “That would result in a lot of calls that the county would not reimburse us for handling,” he said.

Smollon agreed that how the caller describes the emergency is important. At a Nov. 13 meeting with Briny Breezes and County Pocket residents, he reminded listeners to “make sure you describe the nature of the emergency accurately when you call 911.”

Mutual aid emergency types
Cardiac
Cardiac arrest
Choking
Trouble breathing
Seizure
Unresponsive
Allergic reaction
Electrocution
Vehicle accident: rollover/extrication
Shooting
Stabbing
Drowning
Open water incident
Structure fire
Aircraft incident
And any other type that seems to be life-threatening

SOURCE: Palm Beach County and Boynton Beach Fire Rescue