By Jane Smith

The Delray Beach City Commission likely will vote to phase in a ban on plastic straws at its July 10 meeting, when it considers an ordinance requiring restaurants, bars and other beverage purveyors to supply plastic straws only upon customer request.
In May, the city’s Green Implementation Advisory Board passed a resolution asking for the ban, said Ana Puszkin-Chevlin, sustainability officer and liaison with the board.
“It came from the recent Earth Day that had an international theme of plastics in the ocean,” she said.
In April, Delray Beach screened the film A Plastic Ocean in the Crest Theatre. The documentary showed marine animals and water birds affected by the plastics they had eaten.
Delray Beach joins a few cities nationally that are moving to ban plastic straws, including Fort Myers, Miami Beach and Seattle. All are coastal cities that want to prevent plastics from getting into the ocean.
The effort was helped in 2015 by a video showing researchers removing a plastic straw stuck in a sea turtle’s nostril.
Delray Beach also recently moved its sustainability officer to report directly to the city manager. That elevation, recommended by the city’s Rising Waters Task Force, should help the city receive grant money for its environmental projects, said Mayor Shelly Petrolia.
Puszkin-Chevlin hopes in 18 months that consumers will get used to drinking cold beverages without plastic straws and no longer ask for them. Then, the city can move to ban plastic straws from being served in restaurants and bars.
“We’ll start with a public awareness campaign to get information to consumers,” said Hal Stern, new chairman of the green board. “We need to get the hospitality industry behind us.”
If the commission passes the first phase of a ban, an education event called Skip the Straw will be held at The OG, a relatively new bar in Delray Beach, from 5 to 8 p.m. Aug. 6.
About 130 bars and restaurants will receive four tickets each, said Brian Rosen, OG partner.
One tip that will be offered is to move the straws to a different area so that the server doesn’t automatically put a plastic straw in a drink, said Melissa Wilkinson, a college intern who is working with Puszkin-Chevlin on the project.
For the past six months, wording on the menu at Caffe Luna Rosa has said plastic straws are given only by request, said founder Fran Marincola.
On July 1, the beachside restaurant began offering recyclable straws to customers who request straws, Marincola said. The restaurant purchased “corn-plastic” straws that are compostable and made by Eco-Products of Boulder, Colo.
Regular plastic straws are made from petroleum and don’t break down, he said.
“The movement is not all about straws, but it starts with straws,” said Evan Orellana, education and animal care director at the Sandoway Discovery Center in Delray Beach.
“We’ve made plastic straws on the forefront of reducing single-use plastics in our lives. Instead of using a K-cup to brew coffee, maybe you’ll consider making coffee with a filter.”

Betty Bingham, a former Ocean Ridge town commissioner, has been active in many community initiatives, from protecting sea turtles to saving sand dunes. She enjoys time with her fox terrier, Mindy. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Brian Biggane

Whether you think of it as getting involved or, as she puts it, “sticking your nose in there,” Betty Bingham has always been a doer.
After finishing college and before embarking on her career, Bingham noticed a nearby hospital for crippled children and noticed that the youngest kids had no activities until they were ready to start kindergarten at age 5. Her response? She took the initiative to start a nursery school for kids aged 1-4.
At least a part-time resident of Ocean Ridge since her father bought property back in the 1950s, Bingham has been an active participant in every facet of the beach community’s life, serving as a commissioner of Ocean Ridge for 12 years, spending another five on the Planning and Zoning Board, and even today, at 89, serving on the Board of Adjustments.
She’s also been active in community initiatives, from protecting turtle nests to saving the sand dunes to improving the prospects of inland waterways for the cultivation of shrimp and oyster beds.
One of her favorite causes has been working to defeat polio.
Global data show very few new confirmed cases of polio this year. “Along with that I’m very sensitive to the need in many foreign countries for wheelchairs. Travel to India or Africa and you see people dragging themselves around on their knees. Giving them a wheelchair and seeing the smiles on their faces was worth everything you worked for. We worked hard to give out a lot of wheelchairs.”
Her charitable work goes on and on.
“I was working for every cause there was for a while,” said Bingham, who is divorced. “After a while, I’d come to my neighbor’s door and he’d say, ‘Which charity are you collecting for now?’ People need to keep giving.”
Most of her recent charitable work has been for the garden club and the Rotary Club.
The next cause she sees herself working on in the Rotary Club is trafficking, both human and sexual. “People don’t realize how bad it is,” she said.
She owns 200 acres along the North Toe River in North Carolina and is developing ecotourism on it.
“We have lots of turkeys and deer and coyotes, and we are re-establishing a goat that had been the original goat of North America and had become extinct in this part of the world. The goats were found on an island off the coast of Australia. It’s speculated that Captain Cook, when sailing in the South Pacific, would pick up and drop off livestock as he went around the world. He probably dropped the goats off there. A lady from Massachusetts found them 20 years ago and started breeding them. We have 18 and I believe there are about 70 in the U.S.”

Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A. I was born in Baltimore in 1929, so it could be said it was my arrival that brought on the Great Depression. When I was young our summers were spent at Gibson Island, where I learned how to swim, sail and catch Maryland blue crabs.
My family moved to Charleston, W.Va., in the 1930s, and I did a lot of my growing up there. One of the major events each year was seeing the Ringling Brothers Circus come to town, when we would watch the elephants working to set up the tents, as well as the paddlewheel steamboat coming down the Kanawha River with its minstrel shows.
I started school in a one-room schoolhouse for grades one through six, which was closed shortly after I enrolled. After my public school education took me through grade 10, I spent my last two years boarding a train to Massachusetts to attend Walnut Hill boarding school.
After my two years at Walnut Hill I moved on to Sweet Briar College outside Lynchburg, Va. I was awarded a bachelor of arts in math and science, though my father said it should have been for bridge and riding.

Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A. My first position was in banking; I was trained by the Shawmut Bank. I spent a few years there working my way up to a bank officer. I quit when I got married, but no matter where we were after that I could always get a job in banking. I worked at three different banks.
Much of what I’ve accomplished has involved my family. I married Bill Bingham in 1957 and we had three boys, so I was kept very busy as a den mother for Boy Scouts, running horse shows for the 4-H Club, setting up a baseball league and for four summers serving as a counselor at a day camp. All my children went to the camp where I was kept busy teaching swimming, riding and sailing.
When I moved to Florida I thought about being a banker but decided to become a travel agent instead. That’s when Lantana Travel came into my life. My father opened two banks and three travel agencies after he retired, so when I came down I took over Lantana Travel, where I worked about 14 years until my older son came down with ALS.

Q. What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A. Do what you really like and believe in. Work hard and listen. But then move on if you don’t like the way the operation is being run. Being a team player will get you a good recommendation for your future endeavors.

Q. How did you choose to make your home in Ocean Ridge?
A. I like small towns where everybody knows everyone and is working together. In the late ’50s my father bought a house at 1 E. Ocean Ave. Because my children had problems with tonsillitis, we started visiting in the month of February, when they could attend Gulf Stream School. They became very involved with the turtles, saving the sand dunes, dealing with the different animals and so on. I was attracted to Ocean Ridge because it was a small town where people spent a lot of time outside. I always liked to be outside and active.
I moved to Florida in 1971, and, due in large part to my love of the ocean and snorkeling, settled in Ocean Ridge with a strong desire to keep it a small, friendly town.

Q. What is your favorite part about living in Ocean Ridge?
A. Working to address the challenge of preserving the small, quiet nature of the town. We’ve had to ward off people who wanted to make one of the last natural wood hammocks in South Florida into a parking lot, or developers who would fill in the mangroves on Corrine Street for another high-rise.
What a quiet retreat this has been: manatees, owls, raccoons and all the rest. The dunes are both our pearls and our protection. Then you have the Briny Breezes project that was proposed, and the reef ball project, and transplanting oyster beds. So much goes into keeping nature working as it should.

Q. What book are you reading now?
A. I have dyslexia, which makes me a slow reader, so I read for information and not for enjoyment. I like historical novels and autobiographies. I picked up a biography of the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin the other day.

Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
A. I like a wide variety of music, from big bands to bagpipes to light opera to Tchaikovsky. I like to listen to marches when I want to feel energetic.

Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A. “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” — Edmund Burke. That’s true of any country.

Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A. My grandparents and my parents were great mentors. We used to have very animated conversations. I came from a family of debaters and I did debate at one time. I can defend my statements as a result of that, even if I know I’m wrong.

Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would play you?
A. Shirley Temple. She was a good person, had very high principles, was hardworking and carried through on what she believed was right and wrong.

Debris removal was a huge headache along the coast. 2017 Coastal Star file photo

By Jane Smith

Nearly a year after Hurricane Irma, South County coastal cities are honing lessons into actions to prepare their residents, businesses and workers for the next big storm.
Each of the 10 coastal cities and towns received the same list of questions from The Coastal Star, divided into five main categories: communications, curfews, power, shelters and debris removal.
Here are the highlights of their responses:
For communications, how did your city/town inform residents of the approaching storm and areas to be evacuated? The three big cities used their websites and social media to alert residents. Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and Delray Beach also have AM radio stations to use.
Smaller locales don’t use social media. In Gulf Stream, its officers alerted residents by going door-to-door, said Town Manager Greg Dunham. Manalapan sent emails about the approaching storm to its residents, said Linda Stumpf, town manager.
Lantana also used a PA system and personal contacts to alert its barrier island residents about evacuating, said Robert Hagerty, Lantana police commander.
Highland Beach found its CodeRED emergency platform most effective in alerting residents about Irma, said Police Chief Craig Hartmann. “For this hurricane season, we will be activating CodeRED notifications sooner and more frequently,” he said.
South Palm Beach, which is primarily condo buildings, sent faxes and emails to condo managers about the mandatory evacuation, said Mo Thornton, town manager. “Patrol officers drove throughout town with lights activated, encouraging residents to evacuate,” she said.
Ocean Ridge used its Twitter and NextDoor accounts, among other methods, to alert residents about the mandatory evacuation, Town Manager Jamie Titcomb said.
Briny Breezes Council President Sue Thaler said the town’s main goal after Irma wasn’t changing procedures but trying to improve communication with the corporation. The idea is to precisely define the roles of the government and corporation in dealing with storms.
How were post-storm communications handled? Most municipal representatives said this issue needs work.
Along with Highland Beach, Delray Beach is pushing residents to sign up for CodeRED now so the city has a way to communicate with its residents post-storm.
South Palm Beach will use Blackboard Connection, similar to CodeRED, to communicate with residents this year, Thornton said.
Out-of-state residents will be issued ID cards that can be used to enter the town at the checkpoints post-storm, Thornton said. As part-time residents, their government-issued IDs don’t have South Palm Beach addresses.
Most municipalities followed the countywide curfew that went into effect at 3 p.m. Sept. 9. Based on advice from its Police Department, Delray Beach asked residents to clear the streets even earlier that day — by 2 a.m. Boca Raton delayed its curfew by one day.
In Boca Raton, “curfews are a challenge to coordinate for us because we’re on the border of Broward County and have many residents that live in one county and work in another or vice versa,” Gibson said. “There needs to be better coordination on curfews.”
Florida Power & Light, the main electricity provider, said 95 percent of its customers had power restored within seven days following Irma, compared with 15 days after Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach were able to open their libraries just after the storm to give their powerless residents a place to charge their electronics.
Shelters in the public schools were adequate; residents have to bring their own food and bedding. New for 2018, the county will hire two mental health counselors per shelter to help with anxiety issues.
The county has a special needs and pet shelters, which require advance registration.
Debris removal proved to be the bane for most municipalities.
Even though the cities and towns had contracts with debris haulers, it became a free-for-all with most of Florida’s 67 counties impacted by Irma.
Gov. Rick Scott allowed the Florida Department of Transportation to hire haulers without going through a bidding process, Neal de Jesus, interim city manager during Irma, told Delray Beach city commissioners in September. Scott wanted to quicken the pace of cleanup in the Keys and Miami-Dade County, which were hardest hit.
As a result, contractors left Palm Beach County cities where they were making $7 per cubic yard to earn as much as $18 per cubic yard hauling debris farther south.
Delray Beach commissioners and Boca Raton council members agreed to pay AshBritt haulers more per cubic yard, until Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi started to investigate AshBritt and other haulers for price gouging. AshBritt no longer sought the price increases.
Then, the problem became not enough truck drivers.
Boca Raton purchased a few more trucks this year to help with post-storm cleanup, Gibson said.
Many municipal representatives think the governor needs to set a pre-storm, standard rate for debris removal.

Related story: Irma: What we learned

By Jane Smith

When Hurricane Irma swept through southern Palm Beach County last September, power poles snapped like twigs, wind-driven debris blocked streets and residents sat powerless for days amid temperatures in the 90s.
Irma’s damage cost area municipalities more than $26 million for unplanned overtime and for debris removal. Yet South County coastal residents felt relieved that the area avoided catastrophic hurricane winds.
In Florida, only an area of 15 miles surrounding Cudjoe Key felt catastrophic winds on Sept. 10, according to the National Hurricane Center’s May report on Irma.
Other areas in the Keys, such as Key West and Key Largo, felt Category 1 sustained winds between 74 and 95 mph.
“It’s a common misconception,” said John Cangialosi, lead author of the report. “Many residents hear Category 3 or 4 peak winds hit South Florida, but it was only within the core where the strongest winds were felt.”
During Irma, sustained winds along the Palm Beach County coastline were 2 or 3 mph below Category 1 strength, Cangialosi said. “But some 100- mph gusts were recorded along the coastline,” he said.
Coastal residents likely were anxious from watching Irma as it traveled west through the Atlantic Ocean for 13 days, hurricane researchers said. The storm held onto its Category 5 strength for 60 hours. Irma had seven landfalls, four at Category 5.
For this year’s hurricane season, with an expected peak between late August and mid-October, coastal municipalities are appealing to residents early to be prepared and to know their evacuation and flood zones.
Boca Raton gave its residents two more bulk and vegetation pickups as part of its Clean & Cut program in May, said Chrissy Gibson, city spokeswoman. The program was designed to help residents clean out garages and cut overgrown vegetation earlier, instead of waiting until a hurricane approaches.
“One of our biggest challenges last year was that once Irma was headed our way, people began cleaning out their garages, throwing out pool toys, breaking down swing sets and old fencing, and placing it all at the curb as the storm approached,” Gibson said. 
Residents became angry when city haulers could not finish all of the pickups before the storm.
Delray Beach utilities workers struggled to move 30 portable generators among its 129 lift stations when 70 percent of the city lost power from Hurricane Irma. Fire Chief Neal de Jesus, interim city manager at the time, called the lift station problem the “Achilles’ heel of the storm.”
Delray Beach has since purchased 20 extra portable generators and the parts needed to make them function, de Jesus said. Commissioners approved the $20 million-plus purchase earlier this year.
In addition, the city now will deploy its emergency management center in the conference room of the Fairfield Inn. The building carries a Category 5 wind rating, de Jesus said. The hotel is allowing the city free use of its conference room and offering city staff rooms at the government rate.
Boynton Beach is increasing its hurricane public communications and marketing efforts, said Eleanor Krusell, city spokeswoman.
“We secured the website domain name of PrepareBoyntonBeach.com to simplify messaging,” she said. In addition, the city relies on hurricane expos, utility inserts and Facebook Live videos on hurricane preparedness and tree trimming with a sign-language interpreter, Krusell said.
Smaller communities alert residents by sending police door-to-door and via the town website, said Greg Dunham, Gulf Stream town manager.
Barrier island residents were supposed to evacuate before Irma approached, but some residents apparently stayed because they did not want to leave their pets.
When Lee County was under a mandatory evacuation order for Irma, the county allowed residents to bring pets into its shelters, county Emergency Manager Lee Mayfield said at the Governor’s Hurricane Conference in May.
Mayfield said the county’s 14 shelters, which were in schools, accepted pets. The shelters housed 35,000 people and 3,000 pets, which included dogs, cats and a goat.
Palm Beach County’s only pet-friendly shelter is in suburban Boynton Beach. The other shelters are in public schools, run by a combination of school and county employees. The schools allow only service animals.
“No one was turned away from the pet-friendly shelter,” said Mary Blakeney, senior program manager in the county’s emergency management division. “We are looking for additional pet-friendly shelters in county facilities, but none will be ready for the 2018 season.”

By Jane Smith

Billy Himmelrich and his business partner are suing Delray Beach for $6.9 million over a 2015 decision that limited the height they can build on properties they own on Atlantic Avenue.
In February 2015, the City Commission placed a three-story height limit downtown after 18 months of meetings. Residents wanted to preserve the small-town look of East Atlantic Avenue between Swinton Avenue and the Intracoastal Waterway.
“This is a taking under the Bert Harris Act,” said Himmelrich, who owns the Old School Bakery, west of the interstate on Congress Avenue. “They can take it, but we want to be compensated for it.”
The state law protects individual property rights. It allows governments to change their land development rules and requires written notice of the change be mailed to the affected property owners. Himmelrich said he didn’t receive written notice. He and his attorney spoke against the height limit reduction at the Feb. 24, 2015, commission meeting.
The previous height limit was 48 feet, but the number of stories was not defined. The new height limit allows for three stories or 38 feet.
On June 29, Delray Beach filed its motion to dismiss. The Bert Harris Act has not been applied to the properties, the motion states. Himmelrich and his partner never submitted a development plan to the city, according to the motion.
Himmelrich said he spent two years meeting with the former mayor about what he and his business partner, part-time resident David Hosokawa, could do with their four parcels, which total .65 of an acre.
Former Mayor Cary Glickstein confirms he met with Himmelrich and his architect a few times after the February 2015 vote.
“Discussions regarding his property were conceptual because redevelopment was several years away due to tenant leases,” Glickstein said via email. “He had no definitive development plan and there was no legal action to discuss or settle.”
The partners’ land sits mostly on Northeast First Avenue, adjacent to the Old School Square complex. Two parcels have buildings with restaurants on the ground floor — Tramonti and Cabana El Rey. Since the tenants have long-term leases that expire in 2024 and the city recognizes development plans for only two years, Himmelrich said he felt compelled by the city to come up with development concepts for the parcels.
In doing so, he had appraisals done at the 48-foot height limit that show a hotel with 75 rooms and then one at the three-story limit that could hold only 50 rooms. Himmelrich said he created the hotel concept to show just how much money he would lose under the new height limit.
Himmelrich asked to meet with the current mayor, Shelly Petrolia, without the city attorney present before he filed the lawsuit.
She confirms the request and says she asked City Attorney Max Lohman whether it was a good idea. By the time he replied that it wasn’t a good idea, Himmelrich and his partner had filed their lawsuit.
“With long-standing businesses in the city,” Petrolia said, “there should be a way to reach a compromise.”

By Jane Smith

Free parking in downtown Delray Beach ended in late June.
The city has installed 32 smart parking kiosks on Atlantic Avenue between Swinton Avenue and the Intracoastal Waterway and one block north and south of Atlantic.
Meters are enforced from noon to 9 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, and noon to 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Drivers will each need to note their license plate number and go to the nearest kiosk to pay by credit card, cash or smartphone app. Change is not given.
The city also switched to just one zone downtown for parking time limits before enforcement started. The cost is $2 per hour with a three-hour time limit.
“With the time and zone changes, we needed extra time to program the meters and redo the signs,” said Susan Goebel-Canning, public works director.
For the first 30 days, until late July, downtown patrons will have a grace period and will not have to pay the tickets, which cost at least $35 per violation. The first 20 minutes are free for those who want to get takeout food or do short errands.
When city staff presented the parking information in early June, they pointed out the revenue the meters would bring to the city — nearly $1 million, after expenses.
Mayor Shelly Petrolia was the lone vote against installing the kiosks. She wanted to see a permit program for city residents to offset the costs to taxpayers paying for the meters and then to park.
The City Commission gave staff 90 days to develop a residents’ parking program, similar to the beach parking permit.
“City staff talked about the revenue, but the parking management program was supposed to increase turnover on Atlantic while stopping employees and others from parking in the spaces all day,” Petrolia said after the early June commission meeting.
Residents and visitors still can find free parking in the six public parking lots with time limits between two and nine hours.
Free parking until 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays also is available in the city’s two garages: Old School Square and Robert Federspiel. After 4 p.m. until midnight, drivers will pay a flat $5 fee. Sunday parking is free at both garages.
The city’s Downtown Development Authority will help educate the public about where to park. Its downtown safety ambassadors, on foot and bikes, also will have information about parking in the downtown.
East of the Intracoastal Waterway, the parking rate remains $1.50 per hour for up to four hours, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. every day. East Atlantic Avenue to A1A is metered, as is A1A between Casuarina Road and Beach Drive.
In addition, the city has seven beachside parking lots that are metered and enforced between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. every day at the $1.50 hourly rate.
Drivers with disabled placards or license plates can park for free for three hours west of the Intracoastal or four hours on the beachside.

By Steve Plunkett

Plumbers, carpenters and other construction crews may no longer show up early or stay late. Town commissioners in June tightened long-standing rules that limit work to between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays.
“Construction activity and work in the town shall not be permitted until after 8 o’clock, because the arrival of contractors and subcontractors is not permitted until 8 o’clock. So that’s the distinction. It’s not just work beginning at 8 o’clock, there can be no arrival of workmen before 8 o’clock, and they must all depart by 5 o’clock,” Mayor Scott Morgan said.
The mayor, Town Manager Greg Dunham, Police Chief Edward Allen and staff attorney Trey Nazzaro met in April to brainstorm solutions to recurring problems at work sites. The group looked at expanding the construction site management handbook’s rules to every project that gets a permit, not just new construction; issuing citations to the general contractor instead of offending subcontractors and stopping work when two citations are received; requiring a police escort for any vehicle over 9 tons; and levying an impact fee.
Commissioner Paul Lyons backed creating an impact fee to offset other costs to Gulf Stream.
“We have a lot of heavy equipment coming in here, and I just think we should maybe consider — and I don’t know what other towns do — an impact fee … because it’s an incremental damage to the roads over time,” Lyons said.
Morgan said the most visible and upsetting concern was early arrival of workers.
“Subs come at 7, 6:30 and they don’t start till 8 but they’re there, and it … just rocks the basic enjoyment of living in a neighborhood to have that construction appearance even if they’re not actually working right outside your driveway,” Morgan said.
Town commissioners passed an ordinance June 8 specifying 8 to 5 as the hours of arrival and departure for work crews. They also adopted a resolution making the general contractor responsible for its subcontractors’ obeying those times and requiring a police escort for large trucks.
Nazzaro and Town Attorney John “Skip” Randolph are still investigating creating an impact fee.

By Dan Moffett

South Palm Beach council members are going to take a second look at plans to renovate their aging Town Hall.
They unanimously agreed June 12 to hire North Palm Beach architect John Bellamy to review the structure and the renovation proposals the town received from another architect last year. The review will cost the town $5,000. Town Manager Mo Thornton recommended Bellamy to the council. He worked with Thornton to renovate the Atlantis Town Hall years ago when she served as town manager there.
“He will be able to tell if this is renovate-able and what it will take to do it,” Thornton said.
Bellamy, of Island Designs Inc., told the town he will review the work of Alexis Knight Architects of West Palm Beach from March 2017. The firm gave the town a $6 million plan to replace the Town Hall with a five-story structure, but council members quickly rejected it as too extravagant and too costly. Knight’s report and proposal cost the town about $49,000.
The existing Town Hall was constructed in 1976 as a public safety building and has evolved as a hodgepodge of additions, renovations and repairs that no longer satisfies the town’s needs, officials say.
Thornton said she expects Bellamy to have a report ready for the council’s meeting on July 24, a date that was rescheduled to accommodate officials’ summer vacations and absences.
The overriding decision waiting for the council is whether to try to improve the existing building or whether to tear it down and build a structure from the ground up.
“I don’t know which way we’re going to go,” said Vice Mayor Robert Gottlieb. “We’re going to have to decide.”
In other business:
• Council members are divided over how much to fine dog owners who violate the town’s new ordinance and take their pets onto the public beach.
Gottlieb and Councilman Bill LeRoy support $250 fines for violators with repeat offenses. Mayor Bonnie Fischer and Councilwoman Elvadianne Culbertson have balked at setting the fines that high. Councilwoman Stella Jordan was absent during the council’s June meeting, so a resolution to implement the $250 fines deadlocked 2-2.
In April the council passed an ordinance that allows police to cite and fine dog owners who bring their pets onto the beach. But without resolution of the fine debate, the ordinance has little impact. The council will take up the issue again July 24.
• Thornton says the town has received 21 responses to ads for the police chief position, vacated when Carl Webb retired in May. Council members have said they’re hopeful the new chief can be hired and on the job by the end of the summer.

By Mary Thurwachter

The Florida Commission on Ethics in June dismissed one of two complaints filed by Lantana resident Catherine Padilla against Mayor David Stewart.
The complaint, filed on March 27, accused Stewart of using sexual innuendo during a Kiwanis Club dinner at the Whistle Stop Lounge on Oct. 24. Town Manager Deborah Manzo was also in attendance.
Padilla claimed she heard Manzo say she wasn’t happy with her choice of entrees and that Stewart remarked, “You haven’t tried my meat yet.”
According to a news release from the Ethics Commission, the complaint was dismissed “due to a lack of legal sufficiency.”
The commission said that the only provision of the Code of Ethics that could have applied in this circumstance was misuse of public position. However, the commission maintained that Padilla’s allegation failed to show in a “factual, specific manner” that the alleged conduct was for the “purpose of securing a special private capacity benefit for the respondent or anyone else.”
For that reason, the complaint was dismissed without investigation.
“I’m surprised because there were witnesses,” Padilla said when she learned of the complaint’s dismissal. “I have a lot of support from residents and officials.”
Stewart declined comment. “It would be inappropriate for me to comment at this time until all the investigation is complete,” he said.
Padilla filed another complaint earlier in the year, on Jan. 2, and the Ethics Commission has not ruled on it.
That one accused Stewart of saying that if she had sex with him, he would make sure her neighborhood would get the speed bumps she had asked the town to install for safety reasons.
After the state notified the mayor of that first complaint, he went to her home to talk about the complaint, according to a statement Stewart gave to the Lantana Police Department. Padilla didn’t let him in and called the police. They reported the visit as a “suspicious incident.” Ú

By Mary Thurwachter

It’ll be a year in September since Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc in Lantana and so many other communities.
But this year, with the hurricane season already underway, the town is fortifying two of its buildings with the help of FEMA grants.
News of one of the FEMA grant approvals came late in June. The money is for the police station at 901 N. Eighth St., which functions as the town’s emergency operations center during a hurricane.
The $1.5 million project will consist of installing a new code-compliant roof and installing hurricane barriers on all openings such as windows, doors, skylights, vents, louvers and exhaust fans. The project includes a backup generator.
The federal government will cover 75 percent of the cost, with the town paying the remainder.
“Once the town receives an approved agreement from the state (which owns the building, part of the A.G. Holley property), the town will begin the design and bid documents needed to move forward with this project,” said Town Manager Deborah Manzo.
The first of the two grants, approved earlier this year, will add accordion shutters to the town library, a $70,000 project of which FEMA will cover 75 percent.
The project has already begun. Shutters will cover the 20-foot, floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding the building at 205 W. Ocean Ave.
“Last year it took town staff 80 [worker] hours to put up hurricane panels on the windows,” said Manzo.
“The accordion shutters will allow town staff to spend their time on other pre- and post-disaster efforts.”

In other action, the Town Council:
• Set its second budget workshop for 5:30 p.m. July 9. During the first workshop June 11, the council learned that the estimated taxable value has risen about 8 percent to $1 billion. A proposed tax rate will be chosen in July.
• Turned down a proposal from P3 Global Management to permit a bike-sharing program in Lantana like the one in West Palm Beach.

By Jane Smith

Two years, $575,000, 54 arrests, 20 convictions and several laws later, the county Sober Homes Task Force will continue. Since July 1, the start of the state’s financial year, the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office is absorbing the cost. The state money given to the Task Force initially was seed money to get the program going. That funding is no longer part of the state budget.
“Our Sober Homes Task Force has helped cause a dramatic drop in opioid overdose deaths locally, but there’s still more work to be done,” said Dave Aronberg, state attorney. “The opioid epidemic is the No. 1 public health and criminal justice issue facing Palm Beach County and all of Florida.”
For the first four months of 2018, the county medical examiner confirmed 80 fatal opioid overdoses, compared with 233 for the same period in 2017, falling about 65 percent. Three staffers, hired specifically for the task force, remain at the State Attorney’s Office: an assistant state attorney, an insurance fraud investigator and an analyst. Chief Assistant Al Johnson has added his role on the task force to his other duties.
The task force has retained its law enforcement team, and a single public advisory group remains composed of 21 industry leaders and local representatives.
Southeast county representatives are Richard Casey, Caron Renaissance and Caron Ocean Drive, Boca Raton; Ariana Ciancio, Delray Beach Police Department; Karen Dodge, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton; Jeffrey Lynne, lawyer, Boca Raton; and Terrill Pyburn, special counsel who helped craft the Delray Beach group homes ordinance.
The task force has concentrated on two areas: arresting bad operators and toughening industry regulations.
Members focused on cleaning up “the Florida model,” where addicts spend a week or so in detox, 21 days in rehab and then live in a sober home while attending treatment during the day at a nearby facility. More work remains to be done.
In 2016, few Florida sober homes were certified as recovery residences and lacked standard procedures.
The Florida Association of Recovery Residences, recognized by the state to oversee sober homes, now has certified 67 programs in the county and has another 146 in the application process, according to the organization.
As of July 1, treatment centers that receive state dollars must release patients only to certified recovery residences. Next July, they will be fined $1,000 per violation. Other legislative changes include tougher patient brokering laws that increase penalties when a treatment center operator pays a sober home manager to send clients to that center. In addition, marketers now have to be licensed and adhere to basic standards.
In 2018, Florida’s governor backed a bill limiting opioid prescriptions to a three-day supply after surgeries and up to seven days, if warranted. It became law July 1.
But the legislature did not act on a bill the task force proposed, so the group’s lobbying efforts felt less successful this time around. “We were assured that our bill would be brought up on the last day,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t.”
The bill would have required a criminal background check for anyone who has contact with a substance abuser at a sober home. The task force plans to revise that bill, try again to expand the needle-exchange program into Broward and Palm Beach counties, and work with insurance companies to change how they pay for substance abuse treatment.
The fee-for-service payment encourages relapses, Johnson said. “We want them to see addiction as a chronic disease, such as diabetes, that needs a continuum of care,” he said.

By Dan Moffett

For the first time in its 43-year history, the town of Briny Breezes has a lawyer who isn’t named Skrandel.
The Town Council on June 28 unanimously approved hiring Keith Davis of the West Palm Beach law firm of Davis & Ashton to replace John Skrandel as town attorney.
Skrandel held the position for five years, succeeding his father, Jerome, after his death in 2013. Jerome Skrandel was at the table during Briny’s founding, signing on as the town’s attorney in 1975 after previously representing the corporation.
Davis adds the town to a growing list of municipal clients his firm represents, including Briny’s neighbor to the north Manalapan and Atlantis, Tequesta, Mangonia Park, Palm Beach Shores and Royal Palm Beach.
“I’m very proud of our reputation,” Davis told the council during interviews at a June 14 special meeting. “Other attorneys reach out to us.”
Davis will earn $165 an hour ($185 an hour for litigation) as Briny’s attorney, a rate that is $20 less than Skrandel’s. Billing had become an issue for some residents in recent months, particularly among those on the corporate board. Critics complained that Skrandel’s fees were too high and that the council was assigning him too much work — duties that could be handled more economically by an administrator.
Since council members brought in Dale Sugerman as town manager in January, legal expenses have fallen sharply. Briny was the only municipal client for Skrandel, a solo practitioner who has represented several condominium groups.
“There are no hard feelings,” he told the council. “This is just something that lawyers go through. I’ve been through this before with HOAs.”
The council interviewed four finalists for the position. Council President Sue Thaler and members Chick Behringer and Christina Adams ranked Davis first. Alderwoman Kathy Gross favored Nason Yeager, a Palm Beach Gardens firm. Alderman Bill Birch was absent for the interviews but voted for hiring Davis at the council’s regular meeting. Skrandel finished third in the rankings.
Thaler thanked Skrandel for his service, which goes back decades to when he was assisting his father. He received a round of applause from residents at the meeting. Among Skrandel’s last duties was reviewing the council’s agreement with his successor.
“I know I’m only three votes from getting fired,” a smiling Davis said about his new job.
In other business, Sugerman had good news for the council during its June 26 budget workshop. The early numbers for fiscal year 2018-19 suggest that the town won’t have problems balancing its budget.
An expected increase in taxable property values of roughly 10 percent gives a boost to the revenue side. Sugerman says the town has cut expenses significantly — including an estimated 35 percent decline in legal services and a lower number for Town Hall operating expenses.
Briny must pay 4 percent more to Boynton Beach for fire-rescue services and roughly the same increase for Boynton police, as contracts require. The preliminary budget is premised on the town again setting the millage rate at the statutory maximum of $10 per $1,000 of taxable property value.

DDG and Kast Construction celebrated the topping out of the 3550 South Ocean condominium on the site of the old Palm Beach Oceanfront Inn on June 15. A topping out is traditionally held when the last beam is placed atop a structure during its construction. Two palm trees were placed on the roof as part of this tradition. Availability starts at $2.3 million for the oceanfront two-bedroom, three-bedroom and penthouse homes. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Emily J. Minor

HIGHLAND BEACH — Jack Lanthier, 87, a widower who retired to Highland Beach with the second love of his life and spent 23 happy years here exploring, volunteering and traveling, died June 21 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. 
Of some comfort to the family was that Mr. Lanthier died on the day his mother had died in 1977. “I think she thought he’d suffered enough and it was time for him to come home,” said Marge Lanthier, who married Mr. Lanthier 23 years ago after she took a new job in Florida and he followed. 
Born in Toronto on June 2, 1931, Mr. Lanthier was plucked by corporate giant Dow Chemical upon his graduation from the University of Guelph in Ontario. Within years, though, he began to recognize the adverse environmental impacts of traditional pesticides.
There were safer farming chemicals around, his wife, Marge, says now. But they were expensive to manufacture. 
“Jack and his buddy broke away and started (AgroSpray),” she said. “The company took off and today it’s still run by our grandson.”
Mr. Lanthier was married to Joan Lanthier for 38 years, and the couple raised their seven children in Ontario. After Joan’s death, Marge Lanthier happened to work with the Lanthiers’ daughter. “She told me she thought we would make a good pair,” Marge said of she and Jack. 
After being seated together at a fundraiser, the two clicked. Marge Lanthier said when she moved to Florida to take a job at St. Andrew’s School in 1994, Mr. Lanthier moved with her. 
At the time, Mr. Lanthier was in his 12th year of retirement and ready for a Florida lifestyle. “He loved the beach more than I did, I think,” she said. 
Marge and Jack Lanthier lived in Ocean Pines and Mr. Lanthier was a former board president there. He was also an active volunteer at the Highland Beach Library. And for many years he gave tours at the Boca Raton Resort and Club as a volunteer for the Boca Raton Historical Society. Mr. Lanthier also volunteered as a guide on the society’s boat tours. 
He also took up acrylic painting and spent many happy hours at the easel, Marge Lanthier said. 
Besides his first wife, Mr. Lanthier was preceded in death by a daughter, Jane Esseltine. She and her husband died in a plane crash and it is their son, Matthew, who now runs Mr. Lanthier’s company. 
Mr. Lanthier’s surviving children are: Michelle Quintyn, Peter Lanthier, Nancy Lanthier, Judy Jarvis, John Lanthier and Anne Lanthier. All still live in Canada. 
Marge Lanthier’s two daughters, Sue Thompson of Montana and Sandra Berreth Pratt of Virginia, also survive him. Mr. Lanthier leaves eight grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
An avid traveler who loved trains, Mr. Lanthier spent several weeks abroad in the spring of 2017 with his wife. The Japanese bullet train was a thrill for him, she said. 
His last train ride, however, was the Brightline to Miami. “He loved it,” Marge Lanthier said. “Of course, he would have liked it to have gone faster.”
Mr. Lanthier wanted only a party to remember his life, so the family held one a week after his death and is planning another in Canada for late summer.
Donations can be made to the charity of one’s choice, and the Highland Beach Library is planning to buy books Mr. Lanthier favored, his wife said. 

GULF STREAM — Jefferson Feigl Vander Wolk of Gulf Stream and Osterville, Mass., died peacefully on June 14 in Boynton Beach. He was 87.
He is survived by his devoted wife of 60 years, Betty Brown Vander Wolk; his daughter, Hope Morrison Vander Wolk of Santa Fe, N.M.; his sons Philip Jefferson Vander Wolk of Santa Fe and Peter Walton Vander Wolk of Richmond, Va.; as well as seven grandchildren.
Mr. Vander Wolk was born in Springfield, Mass., on June 16, 1930, and reared in nearby Longmeadow. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Babson College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business and later sat on the board of trustees.
Mr. Vander Wolk was stationed in Big Spring, Texas, as a flight trainer in the Air Force. While there, he began his real estate development company and eventually parlayed his business sense into owning and operating a variety of successful businesses, including the Inn of the Governors in Santa Fe and the Waterway Cafe in Palm Beach Gardens.
As the employer of thousands over his lifetime — many of whom remained with him for decades — he treated his workers as partners by listening to their advice and distributing to them a handsome share of profits generated by their efforts.
Inspired by the teachings of William Edwards Deming, an American statistician credited with much of the economic rebirth of Japan after World War II, Mr. Vander Wolk wrote and published The Workplace Where Everyone Wins later in his life, illustrating his own business journey and his unique style of management.
Mr. Vander Wolk was known for his distinctive looks, his unwillingness to live in a house he didn’t design, the convertibles he drove while negotiating a legal pad and a No. 2 pencil in hand, his propensity to be the last to leave a party, his larger-than-life personality and his ability to move well on his feet, whether in black tie on the dance floor or playing net on the tennis court. He enjoyed offshore sailing, golf, socializing, dining with his wife and flying.
In the 1970s he built his own helicopter, powered by an Evinrude 235-horsepower outboard engine. Throughout his adult life, he owned and piloted a variety of aircraft, most notably his next helicopter, which he owned for 30-plus years and in which he liked to buzz his friends’ houses.
A good friend to many, Mr. Vander Wolk enjoyed spending time with like-minded people of all stripes and could often be found at one of the clubs with which he had affiliations, including the Gulf Stream Bath and Tennis Club, the Gulf Stream Golf Club, the Wianno Club, the Beach Club of Centerville, Massachusetts, the Hyannis Yacht Club and the New York Yacht Club.
Undeterred by most obstacles, Mr. Vander Wolk, the Dancing Bear, made magic happen when most others said it wasn’t possible, and will be sorely missed by many people.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Edith Powell Vander Wolk; his father, Walter William Vander Wolk; both of his brothers, Walter William “Bill” Vander Wolk Jr. and Donald Powell Vander Wolk; as well as by many of his dear friends.
The family will celebrate his life with a gathering from 4-6 p.m. at the Wianno Club in Osterville on July 29. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Achievement Centers for Children and Families, 555 NW Fourth St., Delray Beach, FL 33444, or online at achievementcentersfl.org.

— Obituary submitted by the family

By Ron Hayes

BRINY BREEZES — Roy Miller was a child of the Great Depression who never forgot its lessons. You don’t throw broken things away, you fix them. You work hard and appreciate what you have.
“I remember once when I was cooking,” his son Roy Jr. recalls. “I put too much food on his plate. He ate it, and then complained for three days that I’d given him too much food. But he ate it. You didn’t waste anything.”
Mr. Miller’s friends and neighbors benefited from that lesson every Monday morning as he circled the town of Briny Breezes in a pickup truck, collecting recycling bins. In 2014, his volunteer service helped the town score the highest per-capita recycling rate among South County’s coastal communities.
Mr. Miller, who suffered a stroke in October, died on June 17 at Trustbridge Hospice in Lake Worth. He was 92 and had lived in Briny Breezes since 1985.
“He was very, very personable and loved to tell stories,” said his son, who lives in Lantana. “He was a leader. He didn’t want to be a leader, but he was a take-charge kind of guy.”
Roy Vernon Miller was born on July 28, 1925, in Brockton, Mass.
As a teen, he worked at Walsh’s Ice Cream stand in the city’s expansive D.W. Field Park. Also scooping ice cream that summer was a boy named Ralph “Buddy” Magnuson, who had a sister named Rose, known to all as Sunshine. Roy was 17. She was 10.
Roy and Sunshine Miller, who married in 1950, would have celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary June 25.
Leaving school in the 11th grade, Mr. Miller worked as an usher at Brockton’s Colonial Theatre before joining the U.S. Navy in 1943. He served as a gunner attached to merchant ships, and after being discharged in 1945 went to work for Plymouth Rubber Co. in Canton, Mass.
In 1968, he retired and the family moved to Athol, Mass., where he worked for a local contractor, doing industrial cleaning and painting.
In Briny Breezes, Mr. Miller was very active in Curtain Raisers, the town’s amateur theater company, writing and acting in several productions.
The family still laughs at the time Mr. Miller suggested the group might put on a burlesque show.
“We’re not going to strip!” the women exclaimed.
Mr. Miller had to explain that a burlesque show offered mildly risqué humor, but nudity was not required.
In 1995, his friend and neighbor, Don Hebert, got him a part-time job at the St. Andrews Club.
Joined by another neighbor, Gene Robey, the trio dubbed themselves “The Over the Hill Gang,” and for the next 22 years, Mr. Miller worked, often seven days a week, washing and rebagging golf balls he’d gathered from the practice range.
“At one point, Roy quit, and they told him he had to come back because everyone liked him so much,” Hebert recalled. “I just loved working with him, and I don’t know anybody at St. Andrews or in Briny Breezes who would have a bad word to say about him. He was a great and compassionate man.”
In addition to his work at the St. Andrews Club, Mr. Miller took on part-time jobs caring for residents’ homes when they went north for the winter.
“He did a lot of things,” his son said. “He loved music, that’s why he did the plays. But most of the time he worked hard all his life.”
In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Miller is survived by another son, Robert, and a grandson, Adam, of California.
A memorial service in Briny Breezes will be scheduled after winter residents return.

This new 10,000-square-foot home on Enfield Street in Boca Raton takes advantage of the view of the Intracoastal and is a finalist in HGTV’s online Ultimate House Hunt 2018. Photo provided

By Christine Davis

A new Boca Raton house at 899 Enfield St., exclusively listed for sale by Kathryn Gillespie, an agent with Illustrated Properties, has been selected as a finalist in HGTV’s international Ultimate House Hunt 2018. The $11.5 million home, developed by Mary Widmer of JMW Florida Properties, is one of 12 worldwide properties to be chosen for the “Waterfront Homes” category.
The six-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 10,000-square-foot home, designed by Ron Rickert of lntelae LLC and built by Ed Clement of Sabre Custom Homes, features 202 feet of Intracoastal Waterway frontage, a media room, club room, office, two 50-foot docks, an infinity edge pool with a spa and a four-car garage with a lift. The contest is a promotion held at HGTV.com through July 17, and winners are decided by online votes. To vote, visit hgtv.com/design/ultimate-house-hunt/2018-hgtv-ultimate-house-hunt/waterfront-homes.

At $19.88 million, the estate at 6161 N. Ocean Blvd. set a sales record for Ocean Ridge. Photo provided

Freedom Mortgage Corp. founder and CEO Stanley Middleman and his wife, Roslyn, bought a new estate home at 6161 N. Ocean Blvd., Ocean Ridge, for $19.88 million. The sale was recorded June 14. Represented by Nick Malinosky and Randy Ely of Douglas Elliman’s Sports & Entertainment Division, the seller was Ocean Ridge 6161 N. Ocean LLC, managed by Donna M. Sotillo in West Palm Beach. The property previously sold for $6.15 million in 2013.
The new five-bedroom, 13,542-square-foot home was built on the 1.55-acre site last year. Features include white-oak wood and limestone tile flooring, designer wall-coverings, impact glass windows and doors, generator, two garages, security system and smart-house technology.
The selling price set a record for Ocean Ridge. The previous record was $13.635 million for a property at 6125 N. Ocean Blvd. in February 2016, also an Ely and Malinosky listing.

A five-bedroom, 7,486-square-foot home at 3501 N. Ocean Blvd. in Gulf Stream sold May 31 for $13.88 million, according to public records. A Florida limited liability company managed by RKivest LLC and signed by architect Rustem Kupi, Delray Beach, was the seller, represented by Corcoran Group agents Candace Friis and Phil Friis. The buyer, 3501 North Ocean Blvd. LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, was represented by Corcoran agents Dana Koch and Paulette Koch.
Kupi’s company acquired the site for $9.25 million in March 2015 and completed the new home in 2017.

Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, LP announced in June the $23.68 million sale of 900 Broken Sound Parkway, a 115,986-square-foot, Class A office building in Boca Raton. The Holliday team represented the seller, a partnership between Mainstreet Capital Partners and an investment fund managed by the Davis Cos., a Boston-based commercial real estate development and investment firm. Holliday also represented the buyer, a partnership between local investors and a national investment fund that has selected NAI/Merin Hunter Codman to provide management and leasing services.
Built in 1989, the five-story building was most recently renovated in 2015 and is 79.4 percent leased to tenants that include CSL Plasma and Geosyntec. The Holliday investment advisory team representing the seller included Hermen Rodriguez, Ike Ojala and Tracey Goo.

Sofa Partners and Manuel Vergara secured a $20.6 million construction loan for 111 First Delray, a 70-unit, five-story condo project on Southeast First Avenue. Trez Forman Capital Group, a joint venture between Forman Capital and Vancouver-based Trez Capital Group, is the lender.  The development team, consisting of two families, which include Felipe and Manuel Vergara and Rafael and Daniel Rincon, paid $9 million for the property in 2015. A year later, Sofa Partners launched sales with Nestler Poletto of Sotheby’s International Realty. Ranging from one-bedroom to three-bedroom units priced from the $500,000s to about $1 million, 60 percent are sold. Construction is underway and it’s set to open in April.

The Keyes Co.’s Illustrated Properties acquired Palm Beach County Realty Group of Boynton Beach on June 13. The deal adds 23 agents to Keyes’ Manalapan office at 230 S. Ocean Blvd. The Boynton Beach firm, led by Robert Sauer Jr. and Mary Prince, was founded in 2011. It closed more than $20 million in sales last year.
“After meeting with Keyes CEO Mike Pappas and Senior Vice President Steven Reibel, it became clear to us that Illustrated would give our agents the support, dedication and vision they need to grow their business,” Sauer said.
Pappas said: “The addition of Palm Beach County Realty Group and the firm’s talented agents to our family is another example of the tremendous impact we have enjoyed from our 2016 alliance with Illustrated Properties.”

Based on a report from the Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale, the sales of single-family homes ranging from $400,000 to $599,999 showed a 14 percent year-over-year increase in May, while home sales of more than $1 million decreased by 0.8 percent. Overall, closed sales decreased 2.7 percent, with cash transactions down 12.1 percent and the median sales price up by 5.7 percent to $354,000.  The median time to contract increased 2.1 percent to 49 days. Active listings decreased 2 percent and the supply of inventory remained the same at 4.9 months. “The numbers for May reflect what could be a trend toward a leveling out of the market,” said Jeffrey Levine, president elect of the Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale. 

Jose Antonio Fernandez, a tennis player and coach originally from Chile, has joined the sales team of Silver International Realty as a real estate agent. His grandfather and mother also were tennis pros, and his uncle Patricio Cornejo was a top professional and played on Chile’s Davis Cup runner-up in 1976.
Fernandez played on the ATP Tour for 12 years, reaching a career-high ranking of 202 in 1991. He was a member of the Chilean Davis Cup team from 1986 to 1992. He became a coach after retiring, and Steffi Graf was one of his students.
“Due to his international background, he is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, German, English and he has some knowledge of French and Italian,” Realtor Christel Silver said. “Because of the fact that he is currently living in the Sunshine State, he decided to help his friends in their search for investment properties in the region.”
Silver International Realty is at 55 SE Second Ave., Delray Beach.

John Campanola, an agent from New York Life’s office in Delray Beach, was one of the sponsors of a TED Center event, “An Evening With Shining Stars Annual Gala,” which was held at the Delray Beach Marriott.
The Center for Technology, Enterprise and Development in Delray “is a nonprofit charitable and educational Community Development Corporation organization [that] understands the challenge of achieving economic sufficiency for new and existing businesses,” he said. “The center has an ambitious outreach program to develop entrepreneurial skills and inspire others to do the same.”

Boca Raton residents Roy Metzger and Gissel Ellington recently opened Pool Scouts, a pool maintenance and services company. The two aim to provide top-notch services to the neighborhoods of Highland Beach. Prior to opening Pool Scouts, Ellington began her own business, Stressless Movers. Metzger worked as a vice president of sales for global financial services.

Get ready and get hungry for the Boca Chamber’s second annual Boca Restaurant Month in September. Three-course meals will be offered at reduced prices, with lunches priced at $21 to $25 and dinners priced at $36 to $40. For a list of participating restaurants and to view menus, visit www.bocarestaurantmonth.com. The Boca Chamber’s partners for this event include the city of Boca Raton, Open Table, Boca Center, Town Center at Boca Raton, Discover the Palm Beaches, General Growth Properties and Boca magazine.

The Festival Management Group announced that the South Florida Garlic Fest will be featured on the Cooking Channel’s Carnival Eats Season 6 premiere, Garlic Angels, at 9 p.m. July 15. Wellington’s Bacon & Bourbon Fest will be featured in the program’s 2018 fall season.

The Delray Beach Marketing Cooperative’s new app at VisitDelrayBeach.org, designed in partnership with Visit Widget, offers an interactive way to explore Delray Beach events, restaurants, attractions, hotels and points of interest. Users can plan trips on their computers, then download the app and go
mobile with the plan. “See a beach activity you don’t want to miss? Click ‘Join’ and the event will be added to your plan,” said Stephanie Immelman, executive director. “Want to invite some friends? Share your plan with them directly or via social media, email or SMS.”
Find the app by going to VisitDelrayBeach.org and clicking “Plan Your Visit.”

Time for a staycation? The Delray Beach Marketing Cooperative encourages you to check out hotel summer deals in Delray Beach.
Colony Hotel & Cabana Club is offering a $119 nightly
rate through October 2018. Crane’s Beach House Boutique Hotel and Luxury Villas offers a 20 percent discount. 
Delray Beach Marriott offers 20 percent off for Florida residents or 10 percent off all suites. Delray Sands is offering up to 20 percent off, plus breakfast for two. Fairfield Inn & Suites is giving a free $20 gas card earned per night, plus a Florida resident rate.
Hyatt Place is offering 15 percent off. Parliament Inn is giving the seventh night free. Residence Inn is giving Florida residents 20 percent off. All deluxe room bookings at The Seagate Hotel & Spa include a hot stone massage and Wright by the Sea is giving 15 percent off all oceanview apartments. 
For more information on hotel summer specials, go to VisitDelrayBeach.org/summer. To see restaurant summer specials, go to VisitDelrayBeach.org/eats.

Crane’s Beach House Boutique Hotel and Luxury Villas was named to the TripAdvisor Hall of Fame, an accolade granted to businesses that have won the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for five years in a row.
Based on guest reviews, it also won the #Lovedbyguests Award from Hotels.com and it made the Expedia Insiders Select List as judged by Expedia travelers’ experiences.
Crane’s is a repeat recipient of the Florida Superior Small Lodging Association’s Donald A. Dermody White Glove Award for housekeeping excellence and exceptional service.

After a well-received pilot program last year, the Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority has revived the Downtown Safety Ambassador Program, with two ambassadors providing security and hospitality services from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
They are patrolling downtown, the Pineapple Grove Arts District and south of Atlantic one block.
Partner organizations include the Police Department Clean and Safe Unit, Fire Department, Community Improvement and Downtown Clean and Safe Unit, and the Homeless Task Force. 
The DDA is managing and overseeing the program.

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

Commission wants to close
loopholes in building code

A proposed nine-bedroom, 11½-bath home helped trigger a review of Ocean Ridge’s building code. Rendering provided

By Dan Moffett

Ocean Ridge commissioners have taken the extraordinary step of halting new construction until they can close loopholes in the town’s building code that could allow the approval of large, potentially commercial residential projects — sober homes, for example.
On May 7, the commission unanimously approved the first reading of an ordinance that calls for a temporary moratorium on permitting and development orders.
Mayor James Bonfiglio says the shutdown “is not a property-specific action” but rather a “work in progress” intended to address building issues that the commission has confronted for months.
“We’re not trying to ban any home,” Bonfiglio said.
While Ocean Ridge hits the pause button on builders with new projects, the hope is the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission can come up with recommendations that will tighten building rules and allay fears of sober homes for the long term. But the early returns on that aren’t particularly encouraging.
During a meeting in late May, P&Z board members expressed frustration over their lack of expertise for tackling such a complicated and legally perilous undertaking — one that comes with a maze of unintended consequences. Even the smallest change can set off a chain reaction of collateral problems.
“You do one thing and it bites you on the other hand,” said Chairman Gerald Goray.
“Everything that comes up, there’s 10 things more that come up with it,” said board member Penny Kosinski. “At what point are we spinning our wheels?”
“You can’t cherry-pick,” said Mark Marsh, an architect on the panel. “One thing has a ramification on another thing.”
Town Engineer Lisa Tropepe agreed: “Unintended consequences. Those two words are huge.”
P&Z members decided to request help from the Town Commission. They want commissioners to hire a certified planning consultant to guide them through their deliberations.
Town Manager Jamie Titcomb said Ocean Ridge already has a contract for other work with Kilday & Associates, a West Palm Beach urban planning firm, and the Town Commission could consider bringing Kilday on board at the June 4 commission meeting.
A pivotal event could come two weeks later, however, when the commission and the P&Z board hold a joint workshop on potential code and ordinance changes — perhaps with a planning expert at the table — beginning at 8:30 a.m. on June 18. Titcomb warned the participants to keep a long block of time open for that one.

Proposal for huge home sparked response
The flashpoint that lit the fire under commissioners to approve the moratorium was the submission of a concept review application for a nine-bedroom, 11½-bath home at 92-94 Island Drive South.
John Lauring, the Massachusetts businessman who owns the property, told commissioners during a special meeting April 30 that he and his family have been spending winters in Ocean Ridge for 22 years.
Lauring said he opposes the moratorium because it is unfair to large families. He said 63 people are in his immediate family, and he needs the nine bedrooms to accommodate them.
Lauring said the idea that the family home would become a sober house “is far from the truth.”
Bonfiglio told Lauring the town isn’t using the moratorium to target specific projects but rather concerns over “shortcomings in our code that we need to address.”
In recent years, numerous South Florida municipalities — among them Boynton Beach, Delray Beach and Boca Raton — have experienced the legal complications of trying to regulate the spread of sober homes. Some municipalities have learned a costly lesson in the courts about infringements on individual property and privacy rights.
Bonfiglio and the commissioners said the P&Z board should review four issues related to large homes: onsite parking requirements, drainage impact, septic tank limits and whether the structure’s entrances and exits are adequate for evacuations during fires or other emergencies.
Vice Mayor Don MaGruder said the town should take into account the impact of sea level rise when considering how to change its rules for the long term.
“We need to look down the road and see where we’re going to be in four or five years,” he said.
Part of the town’s move toward a longer view on development rules includes the hiring of a full-time, in-house certified building official. Commissioners unanimously approved Wayne Cameron for the position during the meeting on May 7.
Cameron, a building official in Palm Springs, has 30 years’ experience in construction inspection in South Florida. He holds a bachelor’s degree in public safety administration from St. Petersburg College and will start in Ocean Ridge at an annual salary of $74,500.

Longtime residents fill in gaps, share stories of Delray Beach history

Wise Elder Circle members Wanda Machek, 79, and Roy Simon, 87, pore over vintage photos in an effort to identify people in the images. The Delray Beach Historical Society started the group this year. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

Lonnie Cook Jr. was born here in 1932, and except for a few years in Cleveland back in the 1950s, he lived all his 80 years in Delray Beach.
He owned Hand’s Office Supply store for nearly 50 of those years, and he was a founding member of the Delray Beach Historical Society.
When Lonnie Cook died on May 2, 2012, he took a lot of Delray Beach memories with him.
But he left a lot behind, too — enough to fill two big boxes with photographs and yellowed newspaper clippings.
In November, Mary Ellen Cook delivered those boxes to Kate Teves, archivist at the historical society her late husband had helped to establish.
“Go through them,” she told Teves, “and take what you want.”
The archivist began exploring the artifacts.
“I know most of the main families and the oldest photos,” Teves recalled, “but some I couldn’t identify.”
We should go through all this with people who grew up here, Teves thought. People, say, 79 and older.
And so, on the first Monday in January, Mary Ellen Cook and a few old friends gathered around a table in the society’s Ethel Sterling Williams Learning Center and got to work.
The photographs brought back memories, the memories brought back stories, and the stories brought back Delray Beach of decades past.
The group met again in February; by March it had grown to a dozen or more, and the Wise Elder Circle was born.
“These people know Delray Beach backwards and forwards,” Teves said. “It’s important work, and we just love eavesdropping as they tell their stories.”
Let’s eavesdrop.
On this Monday morning in March, a plate of raisin bread and cheese has been set out, along with a pitcher of tea and boxes of black and white photographs.
Squinting into a magnifying glass, Roy Simon, 87, is scrutinizing a Delray High School reunion from the 1960s, pad and pencil by his side. Of 23 men and women in the photo, he’s identified five so far.
“I think that’s me,” says Wanda Machek, 79, who was born on Southwest Seventh Avenue. “But it’s the ugliest dress.”
She takes up another photo.
“Know who that is? That’s Vera-Ellen. She was a very popular movie star back then. She probably came for the Gladioli Festival.”
Simon abandons the high school reunion to admire Vera-Ellen.
“That would be … ’48 … ’49. Maybe the 1950s,” he decides, and they both pause a moment to remember the lovely Vera-Ellen.
She starred with Bing Crosby in White Christmas and danced with Gene Kelly in On The Town. But how many remember Vera-Ellen today?
Time flies, and fame is fleeting.
“Hey, Jerry, what kind of fish are these?”
Another photo is tossed across the table to Jerry Kern, 81, who was teased for being a Yankee when he arrived here as a teenager in 1948.
The photo, taken on Dec. 9, 1956, has caught Capt. Bill Keane on the Boynton Inlet Dock, posing before a massive catch.
“That’s kingfish and mackerel and dolphin,” Kern says, and pencils this information on the back.

ABOVE: Betty Diggans uses a flashlight to take a close look at an old image during a meeting of the Wise Elder Circle at the Delray Beach Historical Society. The group’s main task is to identify the people in the photos. BELOW: An invitation to the circle’s next meeting.

Apparently, photos from the Delray Beach Gladioli Festival are plentiful. Mary Ellen Cook has found a smiling Gladioli Queen from 1952.
“Shirley Craig was around that year,” she recalls, “but it might be Dorothy Steiner.”
Yes, that’s Dorothy Steiner. Cook herself was in the pageant. “Oh, but I was just a contender,” she says, modestly. “We waved from the float. But we had fun.”
Roy Simon is making progress in his quest to name all 23 attendees at that long-ago high school reunion.
“Dorothy Steiner was Miss Florida in 1956,” he says, “and third runner-up in the Miss America contest that year.”
He frowns. “Or it might have been ’57.”
He’s close. It was 1957, but Dorothy Steiner was the fourth runner-up.
The morning’s work is going nicely now, names are being matched with faces as archivist Teves moves around the table, eavesdropping and taking notes.
“This is about communicating with the community and the people who grew up here,” she says. “The town has changed so much and so quickly, but history is never finished.”
And then Zicky Simon, Roy’s cousin, arrives.
Zicky is 94, and in January he finally retired after 61 years from the local Chevrolet dealership where he started work on Jan. 4, 1957. He’s the oldest elder here this morning and may have the sharpest memory.
Scanning the table, he spots Jerry Kern.
“I sold Jerry a new 1963 Chevy Corvette with the $90 Sebring silver option,” he announces.
“I still have it,” Kern calls across the table. “I crank it up every few weeks and it still runs good. The odometer shows 90,000.”
“It cost $5,050,” Zicky remembers.
“Well, I went to the West Palm Beach auto auction out at the fairground five years ago and saw one for $115,000,” Kern adds.
“I made $35 off the sale,” Zicky laughs.
And like a subtle shift in the wind, the memories become stories.
Barbara Kern, 81, born on South Federal Highway in 1937, has found a photo of Jimmy Smith, whose parents owned the jewelry store by the Arcade Tap Room on Atlantic Avenue.
“I had my tonsils taken out over the Arcade Tap Room,” says Kern, Jerry’s wife.
“Dr. Kenneth Davis,” Roy Simon interjects. “Or was Kenneth his son? I only knew him as Dr. Davis.”
One time when he was a boy, Simon recalls, his father was riding a horse on some land out by Hidden Valley Road where they kept about 200 head of cattle and a snake shocked the horse and the reins pulled his father’s finger off.
“Dr. Davis wanted to amputate, but Dad wouldn’t let him, so he sewed it back on in our living room,” Simon said. “That must have been … the 1940s. It was during the war. After a while he got his feeling back in that finger.”
Mention of the war reminds Roy’s cousin Zicky of the time he was sure he saw a German submarine off South Ocean Boulevard.
“I was riding my bike and it was so close, a half-block close to shore,” he exclaims. “They were on the deck having a ball.”
And so the morning slipped toward afternoon. Photographs. Memories. Stories. When the group started to disperse, most of the raisin bread and cheese was still on the plate, but Roy Simon had identified 19 of the 23 young men and women at that Delray High School reunion so long ago.
“This is a good idea,” Zicky Simon said. “The memories come back, you know?”
Betty Diggans, 90, who came in 1947 to take a job at The Colony hotel, agreed.
“It’s just great fun to share memories with old friends,” she said, “and every once in a while we have surprises.”
Suddenly she remembered the time that horse died out on Lone Pine Road.
“Well, they decided to bury it in the lot next door,” Diggans began. “This was in the early 1970s. They drug the horse over and dug a hole, but they miscalculated the depth of the hole, so the horse’s four hooves were sticking up out of the ground. And rigor mortis had set in!”
A sly smile spread across her face and her voice grew softer.
“Well, they had a remedy for that,” she said, “but I won’t tell you how they did it.”
For information about the Wise Elder Council, call the Delray Beach Historical Society at 274-9578 or email Kate Teves at archive@delraybeachhistory.org.

By Jane Smith

Free parking in downtown Delray Beach is coming to an end.
In late May, the city started installing 32 smart parking kiosks on Atlantic Avenue from Fifth Avenue west to Swinton Avenue. One block north and south of Atlantic also will have metered parking.
The changes were in anticipation of the City Commission’s second vote set for June 5 on paid parking along Atlantic Avenue. The times and rates were still to be determined.
Paid parking in downtown Delray Beach has been discussed for more than a decade.
On May 28, Dede Tanzer, 66, wondered why the change was being made. “They overbuilt this small town by allowing a movie theater, hotels and large restaurants to come in,” said Tanzer, a retired choreographer and theater critic.
“Why can’t the city be content with the extra property tax dollars from those projects?” she asked.
Tanzer sat outside Starbucks at 205 E. Atlantic Ave. with her companion, Steve, who would not give his last name. “It’s a way to get more money for the town,” said Steve, 68, a retired architect.
Both have lived in Delray Beach for five years.
Steve suggested the city use Lanier Parking employees to monitor the parking spots to keep the vehicles from staying more than two hours and not install the paid parking system.
At the May 15 commission meeting, new Public Works Director Susan Goebel-Canning suggested a parking fee of $2 an hour between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. The maximum parking time would be two hours.
Warnings would be given for the first 30 days of the program, Goebel-Canning said. She also estimated revenue from paid parking would be $1.36 million in 2019.
Mark Denkler, a past chairman of the city’s Downtown Development Authority and a shoe store retailer on Atlantic, said he would like to see the meters operating between noon and midnight at an initial rate of $1 per hour. He also wants to see a grace period for people who want to run into a store for a quick purchase. The city’s former chief financial officer is in favor of paid parking as a way to diversify the city’s revenue from property taxes.
“It will not deter visitors,” Jack Warner said. “Once passed, I support the city manager having the authority to raise the rates to $3 an hour and change the hours without returning to the commission.”
Delray Beach has two public parking garages. Under the proposed parking plan, they would be free on Sundays and a flat rate of $5 would be charged 4 p.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday.
Overnight parking will not be allowed in the garages and city-owned parking lots.
But commercial real estate broker Christina Morrison said parking overnight should be allowed for those who “imbibe too much and want to take a taxi or Uber home.”
She also recommended cameras be installed in the garages to improve safety.
“You need at least three hours to have dinner on Atlantic Avenue,” said Vice Mayor Adam Frankel.
At Gary Rack’s Farmhouse Kitchen Restaurant in late May, Angelita Nicolas, 37, was enjoying a late breakfast. Nicolas agreed with Frankel about extra time needed to eat at the city’s downtown restaurants. “You need at least four hours to include wait times for The Office, City Oyster and Max’s Harvest,” she said. She owns a medical supply business and used to have a boutique in Pineapple Grove.
Frankel also wants the city to meter its surface lots and have parking in the garages be free, as Boca Raton does in its Mizner Park shopping district.
The city parking lots are scattered throughout downtown with a variety of time limits, from two hours at the East Railroad and Village lots to nine hours at the West Railroad lot.
Commissioner Bill Bathurst said signs directing people to the city-owned parking garages and lots will be important. He also wants to see the city charge the same rate on both sides of the Intracoastal Waterway. On the barrier island, the hourly parking rate is $1.75.
“We’ve been working on this forever,” said Mayor Shelly Petrolia.
She also wants to see passes available for city homeowners to park anywhere because they already pay property taxes, along with monthly employee passes for parking in garages.
Petrolia said she was worried the paid parking plan may push visitors’ parking into the neighborhoods north and south of the downtown, creating problems there.