Crime-scene tape still seals the door to Betty Cabral’s condominium (middle right) at the Penthouse Highlands, 3100 S. Ocean Blvd., where the 85-year-old woman was found slain in April. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

It is a whodunit that could be the plot of an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
An elderly widow is discovered dead inside her fifth-floor condo in a quiet beachside community. Her financial adviser is charged with siphoning away almost $900,000 from her savings.
Yet, as of now, the late April slaying of 85-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Cabral remains unsolved.
“This truly is a bizarre set of circumstances,” says Robert Cabral, nephew of William Cabral, Betty’s husband of more than 50 years who died in April 2017.
Though five months have passed since Betty Cabral’s car was found abandoned in Pompano Beach and Highland Beach police discovered the woman’s body in her Penthouse Highlands condo, crime scene tape still covers part of the front door and fingerprint dust is visible on the windows.
Meanwhile, 35-year-old David Del Rio of Lehigh Acres on the state’s west coast, who until his arrest on fraud charges last month had been working for a car dealer in Naples, remains in jail.
While sheriff’s detectives, who have been meticulously working the homicide case, even scouring Del Rio’s home and his vehicles for evidence, have remained close-mouthed, Del Rio’s attorney has strongly denied any link between his client and Betty Cabral’s knife-related death.
“He’s unequivocally not involved in the homicide,” says Michael Salnick, a well-known Palm Beach County defense attorney.
In court documents, Palm Beach County sheriff’s detectives have laid out what they think is strong evidence that Del Rio, a credentialed investment adviser, took money from the Cabrals’ accounts without their knowledge.
Investigators also claim that Del Rio had a hand in being named the sole beneficiary of the Cabrals’ will, signed in 2015 after William Cabral was diagnosed with dementia. In the months prior to the creation of the will, William Cabral was unable to pick out his own clothes, identify his own address or perform daily tasks, according to statements in court documents from Betty Cabral’s niece Gabrielle Cyrus, who lived with the family for a short time in 2014.
Now back in New England, Cyrus declined to comment for this story, saying she was advised not to discuss the case. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Detective Robert Drake, who has taken the lead on the case, said in an affidavit that investigators checked bank records and found evidence that $893,673 was withdrawn from a SunTrust account belonging to the Cabrals between Sept. 16, 2016, and March 12, 2018. The withdrawals were made via 16 checks that were deposited into a bank account that only Del Rio had access to, the affidavit states.
In one court filing, prosecutors wrote: “The investigation reveals no evidence that these withdrawals benefitted William or Elizabeth Cabral but in fact benefitted Del Rio. Del Rio further utilized the transfer of monies between multiple accounts owned and operated by him in an attempt to conceal the exploitation and theft from the Cabrals.”
Detectives said in court documents they think Del Rio used some of the money from the Cabrals’ accounts to purchase a car as well as firearms, firearms equipment, home improvements and a cruise.
Armed with what they thought was sufficient evidence to charge him on more than two dozen financial fraud counts, Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies joined forces with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, arresting Del Rio on Sept. 13 after a traffic stop a short distance from his home. They returned to the home to conduct a search and were joined by the local bomb squad and fire rescue personnel, in part because they suspected the home might have a large number of weapons.
Salnick, Del Rio’s attorney, said the arrest did not surprise him and his client. He said Del Rio retained him more than a month before the traffic stop, and Salnick offered to surrender him to law enforcement officials but they turned down the offer.
During a first appearance court hearing on Sept. 17, Del Rio’s bond was set at $27,000, but he remains in jail after prosecutors contended that any money used to post bail would be from ill-gotten gains. A bond hearing has been set for early November.

Family tried to help
While investigators have charged Del Rio with taking just shy of $900,000 from the Cabrals, Robert Cabral said his aunt may have actually had more money at some point. He also thinks his aunt, who didn’t have any children or relatives living close by, was an easy target for someone wanting to access her money. “She was pretty naïve when it came to financial matters,” he said, adding that his uncle had handled all the finances before becoming ill.
Cabral, who lives on Florida’s west coast, said he came to visit his aunt and uncle several years ago after William’s decline became obvious and Betty was concerned that some of the checks she was writing were bouncing.
As he looked through papers his uncle kept in a desk drawer, he discovered what he says was close to $2 million worth of investments and bank accounts.
He took Betty to a nearby bank, set up an account so that money from savings would automatically go into her checking account if she was overdrawn and gave her the name of his financial planner in the Tampa area.
Instead of reaching out to him, it appears that she put her trust — and finances — in the hands of Del Rio.

Neighbors worried
While some neighbors said Betty Cabral loved Del Rio like a son, others were worried that he was taking advantage of the elderly widow. Some even confronted him, according to residents, after earlier this year he moved furniture out of her unit while she was visiting a niece in Massachusetts and replaced it with new furniture.
He told neighbors he was going to surprise her, but when she returned, Betty told others in the building that she didn’t really like it.
According to court records, Betty Cabral had also become worried about her dwindling savings and had expressed concerns to her caretaker as well as family members.
A neighbor told CBS 12 news that a few months before the killing, she saw Betty crying and complaining that she had no money left.
While legal proceedings are taking place in criminal courts, lawyers for families of both William Cabral and Betty Cabral are trying to sort out what will become of the remainder of the Cabrals’ estate, including the Highland Beach condo.
Preliminary probate files have been created in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Robert Cabral says he has hired an attorney on behalf of his two sisters and himself and thinks Betty Cabral’s relatives have also hired an attorney.
“If there’s a legitimate will out there, I would think the Cabrals would be in it and Betty’s family too,” he said.

Researcher Michelle Quigley contributed to this story.

Miss Boca 1953 recalls town in its infancy,
world at her fingertips as longtime travel agent

ABOVE: Alberta Schultz’s half century as a travel agent has taken her to 139 countries. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star BELOW RIGHT: Schultz worked for Southern Bell in 1953 when she reigned as Miss Boca Raton. Photo provided

By Ron Hayes

On Monday evening, Dec. 15, 1952, Alberta Domeyer was crowned Miss Boca Raton 1953 at the local Lions Club.
She was 19 and new in town, and Boca Raton was pretty new, too. The town, incorporated in 1925, was only 27 itself.
“Well, I didn’t have a lot of competition,” she says now. “The population was only about 1,000.”
In fact, 200 citizens had voted for Alberta Domeyer, The Delray Beach Journal reported at the time, which means about a fifth of the population wanted her to reign.
“My cousin, Dorothy Steiner, had been Miss Boca Raton 1952, so we kept it in the family,” she remembers.
Dorothy Steiner went on to be crowned the Delray Beach Gladioli Queen on Valentine’s Day 1953, then Miss Florida 1956 and fourth runner-up in the Miss America pageant in 1957.
Alberta Domeyer got married, became Alberta Schultz, had four children before she was 30, got divorced, became a travel agent — and went around the world several times.
She’s 85 now, and in November her four children, along with assorted grandchildren, great-grandchildren and about 100 friends and colleagues, will gather to celebrate both her birthday, Aug. 15, and her 50-plus years as a local travel agent.
Last year, Schultz and her daughter Cynthia sat down and drew up a list of the places she’s been.
Of 195 countries and continents recognized by the United Nations, Schultz has visited 139, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe, with Antigua and Yemen, Argentina and Vietnam, etc., etc., etc., in between.
It’s been a long, lovely trip for a girl who already thought she was going to the end of the world when her family moved to Boca Raton from Detroit.
Her parents had arrived at Ellis Island from Germany in November 1923, on different ships in the same month. Neither spoke English, but they learned, and in time her father owned five bakeries in Detroit.
“At high school graduation, I wanted to do two things,” Schultz says. “I wanted to do makeup or something in the theater, and I wanted to travel. But my father didn’t believe in college for girls.”

ABOVE: When Alberta Schultz posed for the cover of a 1953 city map, a Boca real estate company was offering two-bedroom retirement homes for $6,250 and three-bedroom homes for $7,650. BELOW: A  newspaper clipping from Schultz's scrapbook. Photos provided

She was working as a mail clerk at Michigan Bell, the phone company, when the Steiners persuaded her parents to join them in the sunny joys of Boca Raton.
“There was one church, the Methodist,” Schultz recalls. “I’m not Methodist, but I was Methodist then. There was nothing west of Dixie Highway, just the Air Force barracks on Spanish River.”
When she posed — in a tasteful one-piece bathing suit — for the cover of a 1953 city map, P.L. Weeks’ Realty was offering two-bedroom retirement homes for $6,250 — $7,650 if you wanted a third bedroom.
The town had no theater then, so the Boca Raton Club showed free movies.
The end of the world, she discovered, could be a delightful place.
“You could sleep on the beach all night, and you never locked your doors. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody was friendly. I loved it right away.”
It was a lovely place to live, if you were white.
“Black people had to be off the streets by 7 o’clock,” she says.
Her father opened Domeyer’s Bakery next to Love’s Drug Store on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach, and she found work at the Southern Bell office.
“I was a sales rep and took orders over the phone for people who were moving here.”
And people were moving to Boca Raton. By 1955, the year she got married, the population had nearly tripled to 2,872.
She worked for a time at the Boca Raton Club, serving cocktails off a tray suspended from a strap around her neck, like a cigarette girl. She sold tickets to the chimpanzee show at Africa USA, a 300-acre “Authentic Reproduction of the African Veldt” just south of Palmetto Park Road.
“Oh, boy, those chimpanzees were cute,” she says.
On Dec. 17, 1957, the “town” of Boca Raton officially became a “city” with more than 4,000 residents, and Schultz’s personal population was growing, too. By 1967, she had given birth to four children — Frank, Christopher, Cynthia and Felicia — and divorced a husband. She was a 34-year-old woman with four young children to support.
“I was a waitress at the Captain’s Table on Deerfield Boulevard,” she says, “and I didn’t want to be 50 and hauling trays around.”
She went to the maitre d’ and told him, “I need two nights off a week to go to school to be a travel agent.”
The night school class was at a high school in Fort Lauderdale, and later that year she went to work at the Dugan Travel Agency.
“At 75 S. Federal Highway in Boca,” she remembers. “I made $45 a week.”
Aruba, Australia, Austria, the Bahamas.
The adventure began.
When Mr. Cherry, the owner, went to Chicago for the summer, he asked her to manage the business while he was gone.
“I can’t do that,” Schultz protested. “I’ve got four kids.”
“You can do it,” he assured her.
She did it.
Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize …
In 1979 the new owner, Richard Hart, died and left her the business. She ran it until 1984, sold it to an employee and stayed on another five years to help out.
Canada, Chile, China, Colombia …
In 1989, she moved on to Red Carpet Travel in Delray Beach, stayed there six years, then came to Reid Travel in Boca Raton. She’s been there ever since.
“I haven’t stopped working since I was 14 years old,” she says, “except to have four babies.”
This is not a complaint.
Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary …
Fifty-one years a travel agent, 23 at Reid.
“When people ask me what country I like best, I say nothing’s the same,” she says. “Every culture is different, but if you keep your mind open, you find that people are basically good in their heart all over the world.
“But if I could only go back to one, I’d go to Germany, because my parents were from Germany.”
Nowadays, she’s an independent contractor, going to the agency a couple of days a week to set up appointments while otherwise working out of her home office.
“I take groups on tours. We go to Israel, Greece, Italy, the Amazon …”
Two years ago, she went horseback riding on a beach in Uruguay.
Last year, she went whitewater rafting in Washington state.
This year, she and her daughter Cynthia went on a six-week cruise to Japan, Korea and Alaska.
“Sailing from Japan to Alaska,” she says, “we crossed the International Date Line and lived May 7 twice!” Her eyes twinkle at the memory. Next April, she’ll lead 28 members of Advent Lutheran Church to Ireland.
“But no matter where I went in the world,” she says, “when I came back home to Boca, it was home.”
Scotland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia …
Thailand, Trinidad, Tunisia, Turkey …
Next year, she’ll retire.
“It’s time,” she says, without regret. “It’s long enough. The party’s over, let’s call it a day. I’ve always loved the work, but keeping up with all this new technology, the airline maps — everything’s changed.”
The town she came to 66 years ago has changed, too. The population is nearing 100,000, and what Boca Raton has gained in people and prestige, she fears it has lost in simplicity.
“I’m disappointed with all the high-rises,” she says. “They’re too high, cutting off the air we need, and the sunsets. And the growth!
“I used to go to the grocery store and know everybody.”
And she used to be Miss Boca Raton, elected by nearly a fifth of the town. It’s all there in her scrapbook, the 8-by-10 black and white photos, the newspaper clippings. The memories.
Does she still have the tiara?
No, she laughs. No tiara.
For winning the title, Miss Boca Raton 1953 was awarded an orchid corsage, dinner for two at Brown’s Restaurant, an oil change and grease job from the local Sunoco station, and a load of topsoil.
“I gave the muck to my father for our yard,” she says.

By Steve Plunkett

The Palm Beach County Office of the Inspector General has scolded Gulf Stream town officials for using the same outside auditor since 2000, renewing the contract four times when the town’s original request for proposals did not mention any renewal options.
Additionally, the inspector general said, contract extensions with auditor Nowlen, Holt & Miner PA in 2005, 2010 and 2014 should have instead been put out to bid again and ranked by an internal audit committee established by the Town Commission.
“Therefore, the amount paid to Nowlen, Holt & Miner for audit services for fiscal years 2005 through 2017 totaling $189,650 is considered questioned costs because the town did not comply with applicable provisions” of state law, the Inspector General’s Office said in a Sept. 25 report.
The office also faulted Gulf Stream for not having a “documented policy or procedure for contract monitoring” and for not utilizing a “risk assessment tool” in monitoring contracts.
Trey Nazzaro, the town’s staff attorney, conceded in a response to the report that the language in the original RFP was “ambiguous,” but said Gulf Stream officials “believe [it] could be interpreted to allow for the renewals that you have marked as questioned costs.
“We do appreciate your clear note in bold that ‘in this specific case’ the questioned costs are not indicative of fraud or waste,” Nazzaro continued. “This can be seen by an initial procurement following the law, and the price staying very reasonable for the duration of the relationship between the town and auditors.”
Investigators for Inspector General John Carey said minutes of the Town Commission’s Aug. 11, 2000, meeting showed that then-Town Manager Kristin Garrison advised that the auditor selection committee, which included herself, Mayor William Koch Jr. and finance officer William Thrasher, had reviewed six proposals and interviewed three firms. The committee recommended hiring Nowlen, Holt & Miner “due to their competitive rates and ability to meet the town’s needs.”
Gulf Stream paid its outside auditors $13,050 in fiscal 2005. The amount gradually rose to $15,050 for fiscal 2010 and stayed there through fiscal 2017.

A no-swimming flag flies at the public beach in Lantana on Sept. 30 to warn people of an irritant blowing in on the wind and waves that caused respiratory issues and eye irritation. As a precaution, officials closed Palm Beach County beaches from the Martin County line to Lake Worth. Lantana followed suit, and other municipalities south of Lake Worth were monitoring the situation. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Cheryl Blackerby

A police officer handed South Palm Beach Mayor Bonnie Fischer a face mask to help relieve her burning eyes and sore throat when she walked on the beach.
During the last week of September, officials knew there was an airborne irritant from the ocean that was causing coughing and burning eyes in some beachgoers, but they didn’t know what it was.
The mystery was solved Oct. 1 when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s water tests, taken from 11 sites from the Palm Beach Inlet north to Jupiter Inlet, came back identifying the culprit.
Red tide had made a rare appearance on Florida’s southeast coast, its first since 2006-07.
The algae, which can cause a red tint in the water, have shown up only nine times since 1953 on Palm Beach County beaches (with cell counts of 100,000 cells/liter or more). On Florida’s Gulf of Mexico beaches, red tide has occurred 57 times during that time frame. 
Public beaches from the Martin County line to Lake Worth were given health advisories from the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County on Sept. 29. South of Lake Worth, Lantana closed its beach to swimming after people complained of symptoms. Other municipalities were monitoring the situation, and Palm Beach County changed its mind about lifting advisories effective Oct. 3 after seeing that red tide conditions were forecast to persist. Broward and Miami-Dade counties also planned to test for red tide on their beaches.
This September appearance of red tide, like the previous eight occurrences on county beaches, originated in the gulf and was carried by currents through the Florida Straits and on the Gulf Stream to the East Coast, said Tim O’Connor, spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County.
“The red tide is a few miles offshore and winds are carrying it in,” O’Connor said. “It looks like low concentrations. It breaks up as it comes in.”

People with health issues are warned off beaches
Red tide is caused by the karenia brevis algae common in the gulf. When it blooms in high concentration, it produces toxins that kill fish and water mammals, as has happened on Florida’s West Coast this year. Red tide can cause respiratory irritation such as coughing, tearing and sore throats in humans.
Officials say they can’t predict the future of red tides on the East Coast, but they don’t expect any fish and mammal deaths here this year.
“Red tides can even subside and then reoccur,” said Lisa De La Rionda, public affairs director for Palm Beach County. “The duration of a bloom in nearshore Florida waters depends on physical and biological conditions that influence its growth and persistence, including sunlight, nutrients and salinity, as well as the speed and direction of wind and water currents.”
People with respiratory problems such as emphysema or asthma were advised to stay away from the beach and those who live in beachside homes to stay indoors until the algae dissipates.
Residents should check with local towns to see if public beaches are open. Kevin Saxton, a spokesman with Delray Fire-Rescue, said the beach was open as of Oct. 1 but the city had an advisory in effect. Delray Beach lifeguards were still staffing the towers, unlike in Lake Worth where all entrances to the beach and upper-level parking lots were closed beginning Sept. 30.
Boca Raton was monitoring the situation. “Boca Raton Ocean Rescue has not had any reported complaints or incidents at this time,” said spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson.
Mayor Fischer, who lives in an oceanfront condo and has a history with South Palm Beach that goes back to 1974 when she visited as a child, said she was stunned to encounter red tide and forced to leave her condo.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. It took me by surprise. I couldn’t sleep at night and am not staying here,” she said Oct. 2.
She had seen just how bad red tide can be when she attended a beach preservation conference in Clearwater in September. “There were dead fish there with the red tide,” she said, but she wasn’t bothered as much physically then.
“This has been worse.”

Jane Smith and Dan Moffett contributed to this story.

By Steve Plunkett

Waste Management’s familiar green trucks will disappear from town streets in six months unless the garbage-hauling giant and Gulf Stream officials can renew a contract at a “comfortable” rate.
Town Manager Greg Dunham, who in July planned to sign a five-year extension of the contract with the price adjusted for inflation, negotiated an extension through March 2019.
“We’ve talked with them on a number of occasions. They’ve really not provided a number that we’re comfortable with in terms of the increase,” Dunham told Gulf Stream commissioners Sept. 14.
Mayor Scott Morgan said Dunham should continue negotiating with Waste Management but also draw up a request for bids from other trash haulers if the two sides cannot reach a deal.
“I think we should authorize the town manager to begin work requesting public bids to provide the services,” Morgan said.
Waste Management trucks have been on the scene in Gulf Stream for 25 years, since Oct. 1, 1993. This five-year extension would have been its last before state law would have required the town to seek a new round of competitive bids, Durham said in July.
“The staff rarely receives complaints regarding garbage collection,” Dunham said in a memo then. “When there is an issue regarding the service, Waste Management responds quickly, without hesitation.”
Single-family homes will pay $31.13 a month through March for garbage service, up 2.7 percent from the expired contract, Dunham said.
Garbage is picked up on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with recycling also collected on Saturdays and yard waste and bulk on Wednesdays.
In other business:
• Town commissioners approved a $5.58 million budget for fiscal 2019. The tax rate is $4.05 per $1,000 of taxable value, a decrease of .24 percent from the budget year that just ended. The spending plan includes $531,383 to design and get permits for the first phase of Gulf Stream’s ambitious 10-year plan to improve streets and drainage.
• Dunham proclaimed phase one of the utility-line burial project “finally complete” with the removal of power poles on Pelican Lane, Andrews Avenue and Driftwood Landing. Also, Florida Power and Light Co. has made all its conversions from overhead to underground connections in phase two, he said.
• Workers at 3140 Polo Drive graded the front and back yards and were preparing to put in landscaping before finishing the interior of the house, which has been under construction nearly three years.

By Dan Moffett

The Manalapan Town Commission’s unanimous approval of a request to build a new cabana on property east of State Road A1A near the town’s southern end drew a pointed warning from Mayor Keith Waters.
“We’re opening ourselves to things unseen — opening a door that we didn’t intend to open,” Waters said. “This was not the intent of our law and not the intent of our zoning. Never.”
Waters opposed allowing the cabana to homeowner Jeffrey Lee, 3070 S. Ocean Blvd., based on Town Attorney Keith Davis’ opinion that it would violate language in the town’s code that prohibits expanding nonconforming structures.
Lee already has a beach house on the property that became an exception to the town’s rules through a 54-year-old court decision, a ruling that permitted two residences on the parcel, one on the west end and another on the ocean.
Lee’s attorney, Ken Kaleel, said denying the cabana would be “unconscionable, unreasonable and arbitrary.” Five commissioners agreed and voted approval on Sept. 25. Commissioner Jack Doyle was absent and Waters had no vote.
With ongoing efforts to sell the Ziff estate and the purchase of property by prominent investors such as billionaire Jeff Greene, the potential development of Manalapan’s southern end is likely to raise important issues for the commission going forward.
Despite Waters’ concerns, Davis said he doubted approving Lee’s cabana would set a precedent because of the property’s “unique” status. The attorney said, however, that there are “glaring inconsistencies” in the town’s code that need fixing.
In other business:
• Commissioners gave unanimous final approval to a proposed tax rate of $3.03 per $1,000 of assessed property value, a hefty increase of 17.15 percent over the rollback rate of $2.58. The tax rate in last year’s budget was $2.80 per $1,000.
The increase in revenue is needed to pay for a major expansion of police and security services. The town intends to hire four more officers, hire private security guards for Point Manalapan and upgrade its network of surveillance cameras.
The $400,000 expansion also includes pay raises for current officers and defined benefits pension plans for the department.
• The roughly 550 Hypoluxo residents who get their water from Manalapan’s utility department will remain the town’s customers for two more years.
Hypoluxo decided last year to switch to Boynton Beach Utilities for water services, though Hypoluxo is under contract with Manalapan until 2020. Town Manager Linda Stumpf said negotiations failed for an early buyout of the contract with Hypoluxo, “so we’ll have them for another two years.” With more than 110,000 customers, the fast-growing Boynton utility is more than 12 times larger than Manalapan’s and offered rates the town couldn’t match, Stumpf said.
• The commission is scaling back plans to renovate the Town Hall chambers because of cost concerns.
Stumpf said two contractors’ estimates for an extensive overhaul of the meeting auditorium came in higher than expected at $336,000 and $292,000. Waters told Stumpf to concentrate on reconfiguring the dais to allow better interaction among officials and forget major reconstruction of the room. Stumpf said she hopes to have estimates for a more modest renovation ready by the Oct. 23 meeting.
• Commissioners have approved a revised meeting schedule to ensure quorums during the holiday season. The commission will meet at 10 a.m. on Nov. 13 and Dec. 11.

By Dan Moffett

Despite opposition from Ocean Ridge residents and commissioners, developer William Swaim is making another attempt to secure the permits needed to build a residential development in the mangrove lagoon behind the Town Hall.
In September, Swaim’s Waterfront ICW Properties LLC of Delray Beach applied for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seeking permission to fill in part of the 3.34-acre site in the lagoon and build three houses.
To mitigate potential environmental damage and loss of wetlands, Swaim is offering to transfer to the state other submerged land he owns in the Palm Beach Inlet near John D. MacArthur Beach State Park on Singer Island.
Swaim has been pushing the Ocean Ridge project for four years, suing the town and residents who have opposed his plan. The developer needs an easement from the town in order to gain access to his land behind Town Hall. The Town Commission has ignored Swaim’s repeated requests, saying he needed to satisfy state requirements and obtain permits before asking for an easement.
Town Attorney Brian Shutt said he couldn’t comment on Swaim’s recent permit application because of the ongoing court case. Residents from the Wellington Arms condominiums, who live just east of the proposed development site, have been vocal in their opposition, arguing the mangrove-rich lagoon has to be protected and preserved.
Pat Ganley, a Wellington Arms resident, said his group remains committed to blocking the project. “We are still fighting this,” Ganley said.
Opponents suffered a setback last year when a mediation judge issued a judgment that sided with Swaim and concluded that parts of the lagoon were created by human activity and potentially not protected as environmentally sensitive native land.
The Army Corps has opened the permit request to public comment until Oct. 15. A decision on Swaim’s application is likely months away.
Comments on the project should be submitted in writing to the Army Corps District Engineer, Palm Beach Gardens Permits Section, 4400 PGA Blvd., Suite 500, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410.

By Dan Moffett

Ocean Ridge commissioners moved an important step closer toward lifting the town’s construction moratorium when they gave preliminary approval to a bundle of new building rules on Oct. 1.
Mayor James Bonfiglio said the overhaul is needed to close loopholes in the town’s code — some of them gaping enough to allow the construction of oversized residences that might be used as group sober homes.
Commissioners approved the moratorium on new projects in May and have been working with Planning and Zoning Board members since to rewrite rules.
Town Attorney Brian Shutt said that, if commissioners give final approval to the new ordinances during their Nov. 5 meeting, the moratorium will end.
Key provisions included in the rule changes call for more parking spaces for bigger homes and more green space to promote better drainage.
A new requirement mandates that a parking space must be provided for each bedroom or a room that may qualify as a bedroom for single-family or two-family dwellings. Each of these homes must have an enclosed two-car garage, and homes with more than four bedrooms must have an additional garage space for every two extra bedrooms.
Another new requirement sets a standard of 35 percent for pervious, or permeable, areas on properties and calls for planting more shrubs and trees. Commissioners are considering reducing the 35 percent standard for residences with smaller lots.
Home size became an issue in Ocean Ridge last spring when part-time resident John Lauring proposed building a nine-bedroom home on Island Drive South. However, Bonfiglio has said commissioners weren’t looking at any specific project when they decided to hit the pause button.
Lauring, through his attorney, has objected to the moratorium and rule changes.
“We understand and respect the town’s right to amend its land development code,” attorney Shai Ozery said in a letter to the town. “However, that right should not be used as a sword to prevent the equitable rights of property owners. ...”

In other business:
• Ocean Ridge voters are likely to find several charter amendments on their ballots for the March municipal election.
Commissioners have given preliminary approval to several amendments that set term limits for elected officials, define the hiring and firing powers of the town manager, and require a supermajority of four commission votes for approval of certain high-rise or high-density projects.
The term limits change would restrict a commissioner to no more than three consecutive three-year terms and then require a break from office. The supermajority amendment was narrowly approved on first reading, 3-2, with Commissioners Steve Coz and Phil Besler dissenting.
The proposals require final approval at the Nov. 5 meeting to make it onto the March 12 ballot.
Members of the Charter Review Committee include Zoanne Hennigan, chairman, Terry Brown, Polly Joa and former Mayors Geoff Pugh and Ken Kaleel.
• Commissioners have unanimously approved a budget for fiscal year 2019 that sets the property tax rate at $5.35 per $1,000 of taxable value, 5.9 percent above the rollback rate of $5.05 that would have kept revenues flat year-over-year.
To balance the budget, the commission will have to move about $153,300 from reserve funds, Town Manager Jamie Titcomb said.
The budget includes a 6 percent increase in police salaries after resolution of a new collective bargaining agreement. Fire-rescue services from Boynton Beach are up 4 percent and health insurance renewals increased 11.6 percent. Commissioners have set aside a $60,000 pest control fund to combat no-see-ums and iguanas.
Titcomb received a $5,000 pay raise to $112,500 and signed a new one-year contract after working the last year on a month-to-month basis. Police Chief Hal Hutchins got a $4,363 increase to $104,092.

By Steve Plunkett

Former Ocean Ridge Vice Mayor Richard Lucibella has rebuffed “multiple offers” to settle felony charges against him without going to trial, his prosecutor said.
“Just so the record’s clear, what was the offer? Was it rejected? I mean, just trying to understand,” Circuit Judge Daliah Weiss asked at a status hearing Sept. 5.
“There were multiple conditions that were bounced around back and forth,” Assistant State Attorney Danielle Grundt replied.
Lucibella will return to Weiss’ courtroom Oct. 12 for her ruling on Grundt’s motion to limit what attorneys and witnesses for Lucibella can tell the jury. His trial was rescheduled to Jan. 28.
Lucibella, 65, is charged with battery on an Ocean Ridge police officer and resisting arrest with violence, both felonies, and a misdemeanor count of using a firearm while intoxicated. The charges are punishable by up to 10 years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.
Police went to Lucibella’s backyard Oct. 22, 2016, when neighbors reported hearing gunfire. He resigned from the Town Commission seven weeks later.
Lucibella’s first trial date was in April 2017 but was postponed several times. Most recently it was to start Aug. 20, but Grundt’s motion derailed that schedule.
Grundt wants to keep Lucibella and defense lawyer Marc Shiner from referring to Lucibella’s age or suggesting that the case is politically motivated, among other things.
Such statements would “inflame the jury,” she argued in her motion.

By Mary Thurwachter

Officials at Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, Manalapan’s five-star destination, say Robert Johnson’s experience there — the one where he said he was humiliated when he tried to check in — was “just a misunderstanding.”
But when it happened, Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, didn’t see it like that.
Days after the encounter, Eau’s brass and Johnson worked out their differences over a cordial lunch at the resort. Hotel management apologized and Johnson, the world’s first black billionaire, said he plans a return visit.
Johnson, owner and founder of the asset management firm RLJ companies, sits on the board of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Here’s what happened on Aug. 24:
Johnson told ABC News and other media outlets that he felt humiliated when an employee at the front desk demanded that he remove his prescription sunglasses to allow visual verification of his identity. Johnson had already provided his Florida driver’s license, passport and a credit card.
Johnson said it was a “silly rule” and that it “had overtones of racial profiling.”
Instead of proceeding to a guest room, Johnson left the hotel after talking with police, whom he asked to be called.
Several days later, Johnson was invited for lunch at the resort, according to a joint statement issued Sept. 11 by Eau Palm Beach and Johnson.
“We let Mr. Johnson know that we sincerely apologize that he left our property feeling offended and unwelcome,” according to the statement on behalf of the resort.
“The safety and security of our guests is top priority. We learned a valuable lesson in the delivery of our check-in policy and will ensure this scenario does not reoccur.”
Johnson, in his statement, said that the management team at Eau personally apologized and acknowledged his concerns with the check-in policy.
“I appreciate their willingness to re-evaluate this practice moving forward,” he said. “I’m glad they understand my perspective on this matter. I look forward to returning and enjoying the resort’s amenities in the future.”

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach city commissioners approved a $134.5 million budget for the 2019 financial year in late September.
The approved tax rate is $6.97 per $1,000 of taxable value, a decrease of 1.6 percent from the budget year that just ended. But property owners likely will see increased tax bills because property values rose. An owner of a $300,000 home with a $50,000 homestead exemption will pay about $7 more for city taxes.
The budget includes $476,000 to the Police Department to acquire more body-worn cameras, Tasers, in-car video cameras and interview room cameras; $2.5 million to Public Works for general construction needs such as beautification projects; $542,726 to the information technology department for software subscriptions; and $250,000 to the development services department for inspection and plan review services.
Meanwhile, Finance Director Kim Ferrell told commissioners of a $2.5 million shortfall when the city’s police and firefighters pension boards reduced their estimated rates of return from 8 percent to 7.25 percent.
The city would have to pay the difference, Ferrell said. But with the fiscal year set to begin Oct. 1, the money wasn’t available. Commissioners asked the city manager to find a source for the money, possibly the city’s reserves.

Delray Beach librarian Isabella Rowan (pink shirt) is surrounded by children holding books they received in the Kenya Library Project. Rowan already has books for next year’s trip. Photo provided

By Lucy Lazarony

Delray Beach librarian Isabella Rowan has returned from Africa, but she’s already planning to return.
When she went to Kenya in June she helped deliver 15,000 library books to 15 schools as a volunteer with Project Humanity, a nonprofit out of Key West.
The books were part of 60,000 delivered to Africa by a nonprofit called the African Library Project.
Next summer she’s going back to Kenya with books to open a sister library in Kendu Bay, a small coastal town on Lake Victoria.
It will be the town’s first library and will be housed in a local school.
“The main reason I selected Kendu Bay was because it basically was the only community that applied for a community/public library,” Rowan says. “Because I am a public adult services librarian, I really wanted a community library. Once that detail was out of the way, the more I learned about Kendu Bay and its history, the more I liked and respected the community. Though not the booming port city and center of commerce it once was, it has always been a town, since the earliest settlers came, known for its religious tolerance and for its inhabitants of various backgrounds living peaceably together.”
The Kenya Library Project is an initiative of the Delray Beach Public Library. Organizers are looking to collect 1,000 to 1,500 new or gently used books for the Kendu Bay library.
People may support the Kenya Library Project through cash and Amazon gift card donations. And they can purchase books from the Kenya Library Project wish list on Amazon Smile.
“That’s the biggest and best way you can support this project is buy a book for us,” says Rowan, who is educational programs and volunteer manager at the Delray Beach library. “We have 275 books on shelves in my office right now.”
Rowan called her time in Kenya “amazing and nonstop” and said students were grateful for the visitors and books.
“It was a wonderful, beautiful experience, schoolchildren singing and dancing to welcome us,” Rowan says.
The schoolchildren in Kenya speak three languages — their tribal language, Swahili and English — and they were eager to practice English.
“The girls were so excited to practice reading English with me,” Rowan says. “It was awesome.”
Rowan can’t wait to return to Kendu Bay next summer. “I fell in love with Kendu Bay. I’m in love with this project,” she says. “For me personally, it’s going to be a lifelong mission.”

By Jane Smith

The city’s Beach Property Owners Association board does not like the prospect of a 1.2-mile stretch of A1A in Delray Beach going dark for eight months starting in March.
Bob Victorin, association president, sent an email to city leaders opposing the recent change proposed by Florida Power & Light.
“We feel that no street lights during the eight months of turtle season is not a viable alternative,” he wrote on Sept. 21. “We are concerned about the safety of the residents and visitors who choose to use that portion of our downtown at night.”
The utility no longer wants to have individual cities provide light fixtures on its power poles. FPL gave Delray Beach two choices for lights along A1A, which fronts the beach. The choices were: white LED lights from November through February and no lights during the turtle-nesting months of March through October, or red LED lights that can stay on throughout the year.
The email was sent to the Delray Beach city commissioners, city manager and city attorney with copies to the assistant city manager, acting assistant city manager, acting chief of police, parks and recreation director and the assistant public works director.
“Our beachfront is part of our downtown and is heavily used, both day and night, by Delray Beach residents and the many patrons of the restaurants and hotels,” Victorin wrote. “It only takes one victim of a nighttime crime and our precious beachfront could become known as a dangerous part of town.”
The association board urged the city to meet with FPL to come to an agreement that would let the current amber lights stay lit year-round.
At the end of the Sept. 6 City Commission meeting, Mayor Shelly Petrolia said she was hearing many safety concerns raised about the Aug. 21 decision to go dark on A1A for eight months. She told City Manager Mark Lauzier to talk with FPL about the amber lights.
Lauzier, who has been busy with budget preparations and then attending a city managers conference, says he now has some time to talk with FPL representatives.
FPL won’t make any changes to the lights until January, said Richard Beltran, an FPL spokesman. The utility works with the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to approve turtle-friendly lighting.
“At this moment, (the red hue) is the only FWC-approved LED light we offer that can remain on during turtle nesting season,” he wrote in an email.

By Jane Smith

Work is underway at two Delray Beach barrier island intersections to replace the crosswalk pavers.
The replacement work at the Atlantic Avenue intersections at Gleason Street and at Venetian Drive will be finished Dec. 3, said Isaac Kovner, city engineer and project manager.
The Florida Department of Transportation owns Atlantic Avenue on the barrier island, Kovner said. The pavers are worn and need to be replaced, but FDOT no longer allows pavers. The department lets cities use stamped concrete, which can look like pavers, Kovner said.
But FDOT pays only for the basics and considers stamped concrete an upgrade, Kovner said. That’s why the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency has agreed to cover the $329,965 cost to R&D Paving LLC of West Palm Beach.
The Beach Property Owners’ Association did not push for the pavers to be replaced, said Andy Katz, a trustee of the group. “We did alert our members about the work,” he said.
The pavers will be replaced in two phases, Kovner said, first in the inner two lanes of Atlantic at the Gleason Street and Venetian Drive intersections, then in the outside lanes.
That way, traffic will keep moving on Atlantic Avenue, Kovner said.
All disturbed areas will be restored before the project ends.
For questions or concerns about the project, Kovner can be reached at 243-7341.

Commonly used weed killer
suspected in cancer cases

By Mary Hladky

Citing the absence of proof that Roundup weed killer causes cancer and the high cost of using organic herbicides in city parks instead, Boca Raton City Council members are hesitant to stop using the world’s biggest selling weed killer.
Council members Sept. 12 considered the cost and effectiveness of organic alternatives to Roundup before deciding that city workers should continue testing organic products and looking for cheaper alternatives.
The discussion came just weeks after a San Francisco jury in August found chemical giant Monsanto liable in a lawsuit filed by a school groundskeeper who alleged its glyphosate-based weed killers, including Roundup, caused his cancer and ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages. Monsanto has asked the judge to toss the jury verdict.
The award is expected to bolster thousands of similar cases pending across the country. Bayer AG, which acquired Monsanto earlier this year, said in September that it faces about 8,700 lawsuits related to Monsanto’s glyphosate products and expects more.
But the trial’s outcome does not mean glyphosate has been found to cause cancer. Rather, the jury concluded that Monsanto intentionally kept information about glyphosate’s potential harms from the public.
Evidence linking glyphosate to cancer is scant. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, European agencies and the World Health Organization have found it to be safe. But the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said in 2015 that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic,” opening the floodgates to litigation. A number of cities, counties, states and countries have taken steps to restrict or ban glyphosate.
On Sept. 24, Stuart city commissioners voted to ban the use of glyphosate and will switch to organic products, at an increased cost of about $8,000 a year, said city spokesman Ben Hogarth. One day later, Martin County commissioners directed staff to come back to the board in 90 days with an integrated pest management plan to reduce the use of glyphosate with the goal of eliminating it, said spokeswoman Martha Ann Kneiss.
Boca Raton has been studying the cost and effectiveness of organics for a little more than a year in several parks.
A staff update to council members on Sept. 12 did not differ from a January update. Roundup is cheaper to use and more effective than organics, said Recreation Services Director Michael Kalvort.
“Roundup is widely used in the nation and the world because it kills so effectively,” he said.
Weeds treated with organic Avenger and Mirimichi Green started growing back after two weeks and had fully returned after a month. Those treated with Roundup had not returned after a month.
Since organic products need to be applied more frequently to keep weeds at bay, the cost increases. And additional employees and equipment are needed to use them.
Roundup costs just under $6,000 a year for 12 applications. Avenger must be applied 36 to 48 times a year, costing $39,000. Eliminating Roundup completely in three barrier island parks would cost $306,000, including the hiring of four additional groundskeepers and the purchase of two vehicles.
The city’s recently hired sustainability manager, Lindsey Nieratka, said more cities are trying to reduce the use of synthetic herbicides, but that means living with more weeds.
She suggested looking into using more native plants in landscaping, which can be maintained with less water, herbicides and pesticides.
“There are a lot of native plants that are beautiful and work,” she said.
Another option to consider, she said, is managing the expectations that residents have about the appearance of the city’s parks by getting the word out that if the city decides to use organic products, the trade-off will be more weeds.
Extrapolating from the cost figures Kalvort provided, Mayor Scott Singer said the cost of using organics at all city parks would be a significant expense.
“If you want to avoid a common household chemical that is widely used, used across the world, we are talking millions of dollars. I don’t think that is a viable solution,” he said.
Speaking of the California jury award, council member Monica Mayotte said, “It just makes me nervous. I don’t want to put our residents’ and our city workers’ health at risk from using all of this. We just need to balance the cost of our budget versus the cost of the lives of our park-goers.”
It is “imperative,” she said, to move away from synthetic herbicides, even if slowly.
She and Deputy Mayor Jeremy Rodgers urged the use of more native plants.
They and other council members agreed the city should keep looking for less costly products. They also want staff to research Garlon, a herbicide used to kill invasive vines, that the organic advocacy group Green Boca Now contends blinds animals and kills trees.
They also encouraged staff to move ahead with testing a machine that uses steam to kill weeds and ants and can be used to sterilize garbage cans and other objects. Organic farmers are using it in Florida, Kalvort said.
“We would love to try it,” he said.
The hesitation to stop using Roundup stunned Green Boca Now member Lauren Quinn.
“We’re in shock they would consider using Roundup after that lawsuit,” she said after the meeting. But she is holding out hope that the city will decide to buy the steam machine.
“The steam machine is the answer to everything,” she said.

It’s unclear if Clair Johnson’s dock would have to be removed to allow work on the sea wall. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

For decades, a few Delray Beach residents have lived on the first block of Marine Way where extreme high tides flooded the road and part of their lawns by as much as 15 inches.
It became the go-to place for local TV stations to show flooding scenes from high tides that occur several times a year. Water would flow out of the adjacent Intracoastal Waterway. Video would be broadcast of fish from the mangroves swimming down Marine Way.
Water also pushed up through the stormwater drains, adding to the flooding.
Last fall, Delray Beach finally got started on the Marine Way flooding problem by hiring the Wantman Group Inc. for $284,373 to create a conceptual plan and site analysis.
Now the project is on hold.
In August, Public Works staff reported that West Palm Beach design engineers had found the city does not own the road or the submerged, crumbling sea wall.
Through title and easement searches it appeared the Florida Inland Navigation District or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns the property encompassing the road and the sea wall. But neither agency owns the land or the sea walls, according to Glenn Scambler, the district’s finance director, and Nikki Nobles, Army Corps spokeswoman. The entities do have easements near and in the Intracoastal Waterway.
As a result, city staff says it can’t legally proceed and the delay has left the residents in limbo. Not only would they have to live on a street that floods several times a year, they’d also have to worry about losing their docks. Repairs or removal of the submerged sea wall may require the private docks to be removed.
Also, one of the city’s plans included a promenade connecting Veterans Park, north of Atlantic Avenue, with the city’s marina in the second block of Marine Way. The walkway would sit out in the Intracoastal, east of the mangroves and the submerged sea wall.
“We paid taxes on the docks,” said Genie DePonte, a Marine Way resident. “I use mine for entertaining.” Her dock was permitted by the city and Army Corps when the previous owner installed it in 1989, she said.
She joined neighbor Clair “C.J.” Johnson, his wife and another property owner, Adam Bankier, to hire Miami attorney Tucker Gibbs, who declined to answer questions, citing lawyer-client confidentiality rules.
The city has not determined whether dock removal is necessary, Susan Goebel-Canning, Public Works director, said via email. “That determination will be made by the Army Corps during the permitting process,” she wrote.
The remaining two houses and the historic Anchorage apartment building are owned by the Burt Handelsman family. Burt and his wife of nearly seven decades, Lovey, were divorced earlier this year. They are in the final stages of dividing the properties among themselves and their adult children. None of the parties could be reached.
The Florida Internal Improvement Trust Fund likely owns the submerged land in the waterway, said Tamara Crocker-Howard of the Army Corps’ Jacksonville office.
The state Department of Environmental Protection oversees the trust fund. As of press time, DEP spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller had not heard from the southeast division.
Fixing Marine Way’s flooding problems will not be easy. The one-block stretch has a decayed road bed from tidal flooding, private docks, a sea wall in the Intracoastal that is submerged and no longer usable, and various regulatory agencies involved, city stormwater engineer Jeff Needle said at the time Wantman was hired.
Marine Way was platted prior to 1896, according to the city. In the 1930s after the Army Corps created the Intracoastal, mules were stationed on each side to pull barges through the channel.
The city wants to keep the $2.8 million in the budget for the current financial year while it figures out the ownership issues of Marine Way. The money would be used to improve the drainage, rebuild the road and add a new 2-foot-8-inch-tall sea wall.
DePonte and Johnson both said that’s too high. Neither is an engineer, but they said a 10- or 12-inch curb on the west side of the mangroves would keep back the tidal flows.
The neighbors also want a gate at the base of the street where Marine Way meets Southeast First Street. Signs now warn of flooding and restrict access to residents.
Farther down Marine Way, adjacent to the city’s marina, the stormwater plans are in the design stage, Public Works said. The marina, last renovated in 2002, will be redone during the next financial year.
On the north side of Atlantic Avenue, west of Veterans Park, the Atlantic Crossing project proceeds with excavation on the western garage.
“Atlantic Crossing’s plans have been designed and engineered to deal effectively with any deviation of the water table from tidal influence,” said Don DeVere, vice president of project developer Edwards.

King tides
The highest tide in Delray Beach’s Intracoastal this autumn — 3 feet, 8 inches — will come at 10:50 a.m. Oct. 9, NOAA says.

By Mary Hladky

Close on the heels of landowner Robert Buehl’s announcement that he planned to sue the city over rejection of his proposed luxury adult living facility, developer Crocker Partners said it would go forward with a similar lawsuit over the city’s decision not to adopt regulations that would allow its Midtown project.
That decision increases the financial risk the city faces if the landowner and developer prevail in court. Buehl will be seeking as much as $100 million in damages, while Crocker will seek $137 million.
The litigation does not end there. Developer Group P6, which worked with Buehl on the Concierge ALF in the downtown, headed to court in late August in an effort to quash the city’s denial of the project, but is not seeking damages.
And Crocker filed a separate legal action in May, seeking to have a judge compel the city to write land development regulations for Midtown, and to rule that the Boca Raton City Council’s January decisions to delay adopting the regulations and vote instead to develop a “small area plan” for Midtown are illegal. The developer also says the delay created an illegal building moratorium.
Crocker’s Sept. 13 announcement came after the developer told the city in April that it would sue because approval delays for its Midtown project left it unable to redevelop three properties it owns in Midtown — Boca Center, The Plaza and One Town Center.
That notice of a Bert Harris Act lawsuit gave both sides 150 days to resolve their differences.
But Crocker managing partner Angelo Bianco said the city didn’t talk by the deadline.
“I was hoping to avoid this,” Bianco said in late September. “That is why our primary action is not seeking damages, but to compel the city to do what it said it was going to do — adopt land use regulations that would allow us to build.”
Crocker won an early court round in late August, when Circuit Judge Howard K. Coates Jr. denied the city’s effort to dismiss the May legal action.
“I am very pleased with that ruling,” Bianco said. “I am not interested in handing a bill to the taxpayers of Boca Raton, especially one created by poor leadership at City Hall.”
Crocker Partners originally joined other landowners in the Midtown area to redevelop about 300 acres between Interstate 95 and the Town Center mall. They envisioned a “live, work, play” development where people would live in as many as 2,500 residential units and walk or take shuttles to jobs, shopping and restaurants.
Because of the delay in getting city approval, the group broke up and some are moving ahead with individual redevelopment plans, rather than wait for the “small area plan,” which won’t be completed at least until year’s end.
While Midtown was a complex project, the Concierge was straightforward.
The developer and landowner wanted to build a $75 million ALF at 22 Southeast Sixth St. that would have 53 independent living, 37 assisted living and 20 memory care units.
The project was not controversial, and the City Council’s July 23 rejection was unexpected since Group P6’s previous condo projects in the city were easily approved and the council unanimously supported a separate downtown luxury ALF last year.
But this time, some council members expressed concerns the facility would overburden the city’s fire-rescue services.
Council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte questioned if another ALF was a good fit downtown. Speaking of the city’s vision of a vibrant downtown, O’Rourke said she was not sure how much the Concierge’s residents would be engaged in the community.
“I am not against ALFs in our city,” Mayotte said. “I’m just not sure that the downtown is the right location for them. Other places within our city limits are probably more applicable for these types of residents and I just wanted to make that clear.”
Mayotte and O’Rourke suggested the city may need to create a way for ALF developers to pay for the increased cost of providing ambulance service.
Her comments came after city staff and Fire Chief Tom Wood said ALFs have 15 times the calls per bed than a typical multifamily development.
City Manager Leif Ahnell said a special assessment could be an option, but the city would have to research how that could be done and what costs could be recovered with it. But he said typically an assessment would recover only capital costs, such as for a fire-rescue unit.
That amount, though, is minor compared with the personnel costs to operate the unit — about $70,000 per year per fire-rescue unit and $2 million a year for personnel operating costs.
City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser said there also are legal impediments to levying an assessment only for increased demand for a service. Ahnell said it might be necessary to spread the cost to all types of properties in the city.
In his notice that he planned to sue, Buehl highlighted council member comments he said were discriminatory.
“The statements made by elected officials regarding our city’s elderly residents were absolutely discriminatory and shameful,” Buehl said.
Group P6, in its petition to have the court overrule the city, echoed Buehl’s claim.
But the developer also noted that it is the city’s obligation, not the property owner’s, to provide emergency medical services. If EMS services are overburdened, the city can raise taxes or cut other parts of the city budget to provide more funding to EMS. If not, the city should deny any further downtown development, the petition said.
City staff said the project complies with ordinances governing downtown development, the petition said, as did the city’s urban design consultant, which praised it.
“This project has no basis for denial and we do believe these are all red herrings to deny it,” Group P6 co-owner Ignacio Diaz said in an email.

By Mary Hladky

Just over one year ago, antagonists in the battle over the proposed luxury condo on Southeast Mizner Boulevard struck a deal.
Developer El-Ad National Properties made concessions on building design, landscaping and setbacks that won over project opponents. After the Boca Raton City Council gave its unanimous approval, Amnon Safran, then El-Ad’s chief executive, fist bumped the five council members.
Fourteen months later, that kumbaya moment has given way to new acrimony.
El-Ad is seeking approval to build the 384-unit project in two phases. Residents of the neighboring Townsend Place condos contend — and city records and even El-Ad’s submission to the city agree — that the city’s 2017 approval was based in part on the project’s being built in a single phase.
Phase 1 would consist of 140 condos in one tower built on the northern portion of the nearly 9-acre site. Phase 2 would be 244 units in two towers on the southern end. The 246 Mizner on the Green townhouses, which would give way to the redevelopment, also would be torn down in two phases — 115 in Phase 1 and 131 in Phase 2.
El-Ad promises to fulfill last year’s promises to enhance the landscaping, including a wide pedestrian promenade along the boulevard and a larger landscaped buffer zone between the project and Townsend Place.
But Townsend Place residents aren’t sure that will happen right away. The developer’s submission says “to the maximum extent practicable.”
Another proposed change is adding valet parking, though a condition of approval last year said that was not allowed.
Townsend Place residents and those active in the BocaBeautiful blog say the request is “bait and switch.”
“It was agreed this was it. It was agreed there would be no changes,” said Norman Waxman, a member of the Townsend Place board.
John Gore, president of BocaBeautiful and a former Townsend Place resident, said his concern is the two phases.
“Now they are saying ‘We are not going to build it as a single building,’” he said. “‘We will build some and see how that sells and then we will see about the rest.’”
If El-Ad decides to build only one phase, it will have one condo tower and the remnants of the old townhouses — an outcome no one wants.
Architect Doug Mummaw, who sided with Townsend Place residents in the previous battle, said he was “displeased” with what El-Ad is now proposing for the ALINA Residences Boca Raton, formerly known as Mizner 200.
If a second phase is never built, “you will end up with half of a beautiful project and the Mizner on the Green townhouses,” he said. “Imagine what that would look like.”
Major downtown landowner Investments Limited also negotiated for design changes because the project would have blocked views from Royal Palm Place, which the company wants to redevelop. A project redesign satisfied the company.
Robert Eisen of Investments Limited said he doesn’t yet know what the company’s position will be on El-Ad’s requests. But he has qualms. “I think it is obvious they want to minimize their exposure if [condo sales] turn out badly,” he said.
Noam Ziv, El-Ad’s executive director of development, insisted the project remains as agreed to — three towers with 384 units and the same architectural design and landscaping.
But, he said, “we never intended to build all three [towers] in one shot. It would saturate the market.”
He described the phasing request as a “technical process” rather than a change.
Ziv said he has made a concession to city staffers, who asked him not to do the landscaping in phases. “We agreed to do the landscaping in front of the second phase before we [build] the second phase,” he said.
“There is some limitation because the [townhouses] are there,” he conceded.
If for some reason the second phase is not built, Townsend Place residents should be pleased because the project would not interfere with their eastward views, he said.
Ziv said his representatives have met with Eisen and individually with members of the City Council. Eisen was noncommittal and council members “are not unified in their opinion,” he said.
Waxman said Townsend Place president Craig Sherman heard from an El-Ad representative a few months ago and said the condo board would “absolutely not” support the developer’s plans.
The city has not set a date when the Planning and Zoning Board will hear El-Ad’s request regarding phasing and valet parking — the first step to city approval or disapproval. It is not clear if the landscaping plans will come before the board.
The City Council also must consider the requests.
While the city has not given its approval, El-Ad is pressing forward. The project debuted its new name last month, and Douglas Elliman is handling sales and marketing. The units range from just under $1 million to $6 million.
El-Ad is constructing a sales office on the Mizner on the Green property and has a preview center in Mizner Park. At the end of September, El-Ad had one signed contract for purchase, Ziv said.
“We could not be happier with the reaction we’re getting from the market,” he said.
El-Ad, part of the Elad Group, has moved its local headquarters to the Bank of America building at 150 E. Palmetto Park Road. The company has four other rental communities in Boca Raton: Camino Real, Tuscany Point, Somerset Place, and Savannah Place.
“The most exciting place to be now is downtown Boca,” Ziv said. “We want to be close to the action.” With five properties already in the city, “it made sense to call Boca home.”

By Mary Hladky

Mayor Scott Singer may finally have enough support on the Boca Raton City Council to build a public parking garage near City Hall.
Singer has long called for a parking garage to alleviate the shortage of public parking downtown. But City Manager Leif Ahnell has said repeatedly that no property owners in the heart of downtown are willing to sell land to the city.
So Singer, while conceding the location is not ideal, has suggested building on city-owned land near City Hall and using a shuttle or circulator system to ferry people from there across the FEC railroad tracks to popular destinations such as Mizner Park and Royal Palm Place.
The idea didn’t get much traction until a Sept. 25 Community Redevelopment Agency meeting when newly elected council member Andy Thomson supported it.
“We can’t afford to let this slip any further,” he said. “Let’s get the garage going.”
Council member Andrea O’Rourke, sitting as CRA chair, said the parking garage could be part of the master plan for a new downtown government campus.
“This is the closest I’ve gotten to getting three votes for a parking garage,” Singer said.
The City Council has debated what to do about inadequate downtown parking for nearly two years, but ideas finally began to solidify at the CRA meeting.
Technically, the city has enough downtown parking. The problem is that many of the public spaces are not located near where many people want to shop and dine, and many don’t want to park and walk several blocks. That creates a parking crunch at popular spots.
Council members want to do more to encourage owners of buildings with surface parking or garages to make agreements with the city to open their spaces to the public after business hours when downtown parking demand is the greatest.
The hurdle here is to work out liability and security issues, said consultant Chris Heggen of Kimley-Horn and Associates. Private parking owners also would have to be authorized by the city to charge the public to use their parking, he said.
The council seemed open to streamlining cumbersome city processes so it’s easier for the owners to ink deals with the city.
A variation of that idea is getting business and restaurant owners to make their own arrangements with owners of surface parking and garages.
Even if a garage near City Hall proves unpopular with the public, O’Rourke said, employees of downtown businesses and people going to special city events would be able to use it.
Still up in the air is how to get users of the city parking garage into downtown. In the past, the council members have talked about shuttles, circulators and encouraging residents to make greater use of ride-sharing services.
Parking meters are also part of the conversation. Current downtown meters are at the end of their life spans.
Another Kimley-Horn consultant said he is investigating various options, such as allowing people to pay for parking via cellphone apps, such as PayByPhone and ParkMobile, that many other cities already use.
Robert Eisen, who works for the city’s largest downtown landowner, Investments Limited, has in the past been opposed to more meters.
Investments Limited is now “repenting,” he said. “Investments Limited will not oppose the expansion of parking meters in the downtown.”
The city is also exploring how to make it easier for visitors to find their way around.
A third Kimley-Horn consultant said most of the signage to attractions such as Mizner Park and museums would be concentrated on Federal and Dixie highways and Palmetto Park Road.
They have settled on 12 signs for now and have been designing them and making color selections. Nonstandard directional signage also could be used, such as embedding directions on pavers in sidewalks.
They also are looking at interactive hubs that people could use to find where they need to go. These could include Wi-Fi hotspots and charging stations, the consultant said.

By Steve Plunkett

A consultant’s plan for Silver Palm Park would add a third boat ramp and 16 more spaces to park boat trailers to the city’s only launch site.
It also would put “shade sails” along the seawall to give boat watchers by the Intracoastal Waterway some respite from the afternoon sun.
“One thing we learned very early is that it’s hot. When we were out there I kept trying to find the smallest piece of shade,” consultant Kona Gray of EDSA Inc. told a group of about 65 Boca Raton residents who gathered Sept. 26 for an outreach session on plans for the park.
He and his team went to the park July 14, a Saturday, to see how people use it.
The residents overwhelmingly preferred Gray’s concept with the 16 extra parking spaces to another that left more green space but added only two spaces for trailers.
Retired firefighter Bill Trinka said Silver Palm is primarily a boat launch.
“This park has a function that we really, really need,” Trinka said.
Gray also plans to put a new sign and a more inviting pedestrian entrance at the park’s northwest corner, on Palmetto Park Road and Southeast Fifth Avenue.
Now, “It doesn’t feel like you’re walking into a park from this corner,” he said.
Gray asked attendees to write down suggestions for improving his concept so he could refine the plan before he presents it to the City Council in November. Comments made at the outreach session included moving the restroom away from its location at the base of the Palmetto Park Bridge to give people more room to see the waterway. Other residents wanted to delete palm trees proposed to help delineate trailer parking spots.
Gray said it could take up to 12 months to create construction drawings after council members decide in November what design elements to keep. The city budgeted $50,000 to pay for the plans and has $1.5 million tagged in its long-range plan for the 2020 budget year.
The budget also includes $1 million this budget year and $2 million the following year to build a park at the Wildflower site just to the north, which will connect to Silver Palm.