By Jane Smith
    
    The height of the sea wall in Veterans Park will soon be raised to a uniform level and the two docks there rebuilt, after the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency agreed in late June to pay for the work.
    The agency could pay the estimated $643,700 cost during the current budget year from the savings of three items, said Thuy Shutt, assistant director.
    She told the board members that a less costly HVAC system was installed at the Old School Square complex for a $193,700 savings.
    Delray Beach officials also requested the agency remove two items from its current budget: improvements at the Swinton and Atlantic intersection, costing $300,000, and way-finder signs for the parking management program, costing $150,000.  
    Callaway Marine Technologies Inc., of West Palm Beach, was the lowest bidder. It will do the Veterans Park work for $585,178.80 with an additional 10 percent needed for construction engineering inspection services, for a total cost of $643,700.
    The city already paid about $80,000 to the Wantman Group to survey, design and supervise the construction of the sea wall cap and the two docks.
    The public sea wall will be 20 inches high and rid of slopes and other imperfections along its approximately 400-foot length to the Atlantic Avenue bridge. The sea wall height is measured from the average water level in the Intracoastal.
    Then in 25 years, the city can decide whether another 16 inches is needed because of rising sea levels. This can be done with a triangular parapet on top of the current sea wall to bring the height to 3 feet.
    The higher sea walls were recommended in mid-June. The city’s Rising Waters Task Force recommended a height of 5 feet for public and private sea walls along the Intracoastal.
    “What the city is doing is fine for now by designing a base that can hold increased height,” said Andy Katz, a task force member with a science background. “It doesn’t make sense to increase the height in one area and not the length of the waterway.”
    Delray Beach is in the bidding process for the southern portion of the repair work along Marine Way and the city’s marina. That street does not have a sea wall. The work is set to begin next year.
    The two docks at Veterans Park were closed last September because the wood rotted, making them unsafe to use. The replacement docks should be ready by January.
    Separately, Delray Beach is surveying the condition of public and private sea walls along the Intracoastal Waterway. The work is supposed to be finished in August.

By Jane Smith
    
    Free parking along Atlantic Avenue west of the Intracoastal Waterway is about to become a thing of the past.
    Delray Beach city commissioners directed staff to look into installing meters along the avenue to increase turnover for retailers and restaurateurs, especially between Swinton Avenue and the Intracoastal bridge.
    “Because the spaces are free, employees park there all day,” said Dale Sugerman, assistant city manager, when presenting a parking management plan to the commission at a mid-June workshop.
    Peter Arts, a Downtown Development Authority board member and an insurance broker, said, “Metering Atlantic Avenue would preclude people from parking all day.”
    Nine members of the public spoke about the parking plan at the workshop. Eight were for it. Only one was against it.
    “Parking meters would devastate the downtown,” said David Cook, owner of Hand’s Office and Arts Supply on Atlantic Avenue. He’s also a former DDA chairman, who termed out of the position.
    Commissioners want to see a  program that would allow residents to park for free after purchasing passes. That program also would cover seasonal residents.
    “It could be a pre-purchase program for the garages and surface lots,” Commissioner Mitch Katz said.
    Commissioners also want to see a breakdown of the revenue balanced by the costs of the new parking system, including meters and personnel.
    “I want to see revenue versus costs,” said Commissioner Shelly Petrolia. Previous staffers have said, “An army would be needed to make this work.”
    Her fellow commissioners agreed that they want to see the options available for the city lots and on side streets before approving the parking management plan. They want to see a range of rates and new hours that the meters will be enforced.
    The city has 3,277 parking spaces in the downtown and on the barrier island, Sugerman said.
    Smart meters already are installed in the city’s six surface lots on the barrier island and on Atlantic Avenue east of the Intracoastal. The meters, which can take various forms of payment, will be installed along Ocean Boulevard after the beachfront construction is completed in the fall.
    The barrier island has a total of 700 spaces, Sugerman said.
    Smart meters recently were installed in the city’s two garages, which have 727 spaces. Parking is free there most of the time. The city charges a flat rate of $5 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday after 4 p.m. and during special events.
    In June, Lanier Parking Management took over as the parking manager. Its duties include collecting revenue from the meters, issuing citations, staffing the garages and maintaining the meters.
    Patrons can download a ParkMobile application that will allow them to pay the meter by using a smart phone. People who downloaded the app reported on social media that it was easy to use.
    An employee program did not go over well, according to Sugerman’s report.
    Earlier this year, the city worked with the DDA to set up an employee parking program in the South County garage for $20 a month. Parking hours were 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. and a Downtown Roundabout Trolley would provide free rides to the garage.
    But no employee passes were purchased, according to the report. Employees said they could park much closer to their job sites for free, were afraid of entering the garage late at night with a day’s tips in their pockets and were inconvenienced by waiting for a trolley.
    Commissioners were not interested in setting up an employee parking program. They pointed out that parking is free in the city garages until 4 p.m.
    As to the rates, Sugerman told commissioners that no other town charges more than $3 per hour.
    Some commissioners want higher rates for Atlantic Avenue.
     “We are a hot spot,” Petrolia said. She would like to see the higher rates during weekend night hours for Atlantic Avenue, between Swinton and Northeast/Southeast Fifth avenues.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein agreed. “Friday and Saturday nights, when it is impossible to find a space along Atlantic Avenue,” he said, “people should pay for the convenience of parking close to their destinations.”

Mayor Keith Waters says a proposal to add a 60-room hotel and 70 condos to the 15-acre Ziff estate

would represent a seismic shift in the land use, planning and zoning of Manalapan. The lush vegetation

of the grounds conceals the 33-room mansion and other buildings.

File photo/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

    Think about the Ziff property, that 15-acre parcel of pristine undeveloped land at the southern tip of Manalapan — a natural preserve that offers a glimpse of the unspoiled Florida that Spanish explorers might have seen when they visited the hemisphere five centuries ago.
    Now think about the Ziff property with a 60-room hotel on the Intracoastal Waterway side, 70 condominiums rising on the oceanfront and parking for dozens of cars and delivery vehicles.
    That’s what Tony Imbesi asked Manalapan commissioners to consider when he told them about his idea for the iconic property, known as Gemini to the Ziff family.
    Imbesi, 26, is the son of real estate investor Joseph Imbesi, who lives on Lands End Road in the town. Five years ago, Joseph Imbesi sold the Bal Harbour Club in Miami-Dade County to an Argentine developer for $220 million. The deal made way for the Oceana Bal Harbour condo tower that stands there today.
    The Imbesis are seeing the same kind of potential for big things when they look at the Ziff property.
    “This would be a very special condo hotel,” Tony Imbesi told the commission on June 13. Rooms would go for between $2,000 and $5,000 a night, “a seven-star hotel,” he said.
    Manalapan’s existing luxury hotel, the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, would be unaffected by the Imbesis’ vision, they say.
 “This is something that wouldn’t compete with the Eau but complement it,” Tony Imbesi said.
    The condo building would have “a small footprint and tall height” to preserve more of the 1,500 tropical plant species around it. The existing 33-room mansion on the property also would be preserved.
    Tony Imbesi came to the commissioners with no plans, drawings, studies or even details about the proposal. He was looking only for feedback to gauge how realistic his ambitious venture might be.
    “If they go along with it,” he said of the commissioners, “it’s extremely realistic.”
    Mayor Keith Waters told Imbesi the project would represent a seismic shift in land use, planning and zoning for Manalapan, changing population density, traffic patterns and even political apportionment.
    Town Manager Linda Stumpf said the administrative work needed to move such a project through town regulatory reviews would take at least two years in itself.
    Waters advised Imbesi to continue to solicit opinions about the idea from Manalapan residents and reminded him that the town is determined to remain “a small enclave, a little jewel.” The mayor said the commission will listen to the responses from the community that are sure to be coming.
    One recent change has made the Imbesi plan more realistic. The Ziff family cut the selling price of their compound by $30 million to $165 million, hoping to attract more buyers.

By Dan Moffett

    The running joke in Briny Breezes during the last month has been that the town might soon be able to score a huge windfall by investing in telescopes.
    A nudist group was pushing Palm Beach County to allow a clothing-optional beach at Gulfstream Park, just south of Briny Breezes. What an opportunity for Brinyites to cater to the needs of the throngs of curious onlookers that surely would be coming.
    But dreams of imminent prosperity died with the joke on June 8 when the county’s Tourist Development Council shot down the idea, telling members of the Freedom Beach Initiative that their proposal wasn’t right for the location.
    County Mayor Paulette Burdick, who sits on the council board, said the park is “family-friendly,” with playgrounds for children, so that means clothing has to remain mandatory.
    “I didn’t think it would get too far with the tourism board,” said Briny Alderman Bobby Jurovaty. “It was never going to happen.”
    Council President Sue Thaler said, all jokes aside, there wasn’t any support for the idea in Briny. “I don’t know anyone who was in favor of it,” she said.
    Karl Dickey, who championed the proposal to the county, said his grass-roots group will continue lobbying officials for a nude beach somewhere. Dickey said he has a half-dozen other prospective sites in mind and that public opinion about clothing-free beach-going is slowly changing.
    “We need county officials to get past the old myth that clothing- optional beaches are not family friendly,” he said. “The only people that would say clothing-optional beaches are not family friendly are those that have not been to one.”

By Dan Moffett

    South Palm Beach thought its long-awaited beach stabilization project was finally about to get started when Palm Beach County commissioners voted early last month to accept the town’s easements and begin permitting.
    Then came some sobering news from a neighbor to the south.
    Manalapan Mayor Keith Waters said his town is committed to doing whatever it takes to see that the project never gets off the ground.
    “We’re going to fight this project tooth and nail,” Waters told his Town Commission. “We’re going to vehemently fight it and bring to bear whatever we need to bring to bear.”
    Waters said he wants to set aside money in the town’s budget to cover the cost of a possible legal battle.
    The mayor thinks the seven concrete groins the county and South Palm Beach plan to install will steal sand that otherwise flows south and nourishes Manalapan’s beaches.
    “This is going to be seriously damaging to our community,” Waters said. “I don’t know anyone in Manalapan who supports that project.”
    South Palm Beach officials have declined public comment on the remarks, but privately say they feel blindsided. The project has been planned for more than a decade and they say no Manalapan official has complained to them directly.
    Representatives from the county and South Palm Beach say they’re committed to moving forward.
    “Our next goal is to submit a comprehensive Request for Additional Information response to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection,” said Kimberly Miranda, the county’s project manager. “It is our intention to submit the response to DEP over the summer.”
    On June 6, county commissioners approved 14 easements from property owners along the town’s beach, paving the way for permitting. The Concordia East condominium and the town of Lantana, which owns the municipal beach, are still negotiating easements with county attorneys.
    Project managers hoped to have construction started by November, but have pushed the target date back to November 2018. The project should take about four months.
    Waters points to the dwindling shoreline in Hillsboro Beach in Broward County as evidence of the damage groins can do. Hillsboro Beach has accused northern Broward County neighbor Deerfield Beach of stealing sand for decades because of a system of 56 groins installed in the 1960s. In April, Hillsboro Beach filed suit against Deerfield Beach, seeking to recover millions in damages.
    Manalapan’s opposition to the project surfaced in July 2016 when then-Mayor David Cheifetz wrote a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers. Cheifetz criticized the corps’ 500-page Environmental Impact Statement for not taking into account the damage the groins might cause to “downdrift” beaches south of the project that benefit from the natural sand flow.
    “The town is very concerned regarding the effects of the coastal armoring structures,” Cheifetz told the corps. “The EIS states that the groins will facilitate stabilization by disrupting a portion of the sand flowing south along the beach and encourage sediment deposition on the updrift side of the structure.”
    The corps also received a complaint from the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, which withdrew its support for the project that summer after hiring an engineering firm to study the plan.
    Eau President Eva Hill wrote: “The project will have a devastating impact on our beach and the operations of our resort.”
    Cost of the $5 million project is shared among governments, with the town paying about 20 percent, the county 30 percent through tourism taxes, and the state and federal governments covering about 50 percent.
 Manalapan and South Palm Beach have enjoyed a productive working relationship in the past, collaborating on police and traffic issues, as well as sharing a fire-rescue contract with the county.
    “We have a great neighbor to the north,” Waters said. “But we can’t allow this project to move forward.”
    In other business:
    • The South Palm Beach council scheduled its first budget meeting for the 2016-17 fiscal year for 1 p.m. on July 11.
    Mayor Bonnie Fischer said one of the top priorities for council members is deciding a plan for the Town Hall, which needs either a major renovation or a complete rebuilding.
    Either choice will have a significant impact on the town’s budget, she said. Property values in South Palm Beach are up about 6.5 percent, according to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office, giving the town increased tax revenues to help pay for the Town Hall improvements.
    • Town Manager Bob Vitas told the South Palm Beach Town Council on June 27 that groundbreaking will be at 10:45 a.m. July 12 for the 3550 project on the former site of the old Hawaiian Inn hotel.
    Paragon Acquisition Group and Manhattan-based DDG are building a 30-unit luxury condominium. Construction for the $35 million project will take about 18 months.

By Dan Moffett

    After hearing concerns about rising legal bills, the Briny Breezes Town Council has decided to seek “comparative proposals” for services from outside attorneys.
    The move comes in response to a growing number of complaints from residents about the size of recent payments to John Skrandel, who has served as town attorney since 2013.
    Ted Gross, the treasurer of the corporate board, and Mayor Jack Lee have been the loudest critics, saying the town is spending too much money for Skrandel’s work, some of which might not be needed. One recent monthly check topped $5,000, which Lee and Gross maintain is more than Briny can afford.
    Skrandel told the council during its June 22 meeting that his costs have been higher lately because council members have assigned him more to do.
    “My work is basically on demand. It’s not a set amount,” Skrandel said. “It can be from zero on up depending on what work is assigned to me by the council.”
    Skrandel also said he has voluntarily given Briny breaks on billing to keep costs down. He said he doesn’t bill the town for travel to Briny and he doesn’t round charges up on fractions of billable hours — he rounds them down. Skrandel charges $185 an hour for his services.
    Alderman Bobby Jurovaty, who acted as council president while Sue Thaler was on vacation, said the council intends to explore how other communities pay for legal services and then make a decision later this year.
    “I’d like to factor in as much as we can what other towns are doing,” Jurovaty said. “We’ll take a nice, long look at this.”
    Skrandel is only the second attorney Briny has ever had. His father, Jerome Skrandel, handled legal services for the town from 1975 until his death in 2013, when John took over.
    In other business:
    • The council approved a six-member advisory committee to research and develop a job description for a part-time town manager position. Members are Keith Black, Sue Revie, William Birch, Holly Reitnauer, Therese Tarman and Gross. Black volunteered to serve as committee chairman. The town hopes to hire a part-time manager before the end of the year.
    • Briny should receive about $25,000 a year from the county’s penny sales tax increase that voters approved in November. Alderman Christina Adams, who acts as the council’s liaison to the county on the tax, said the town has decided on the possible infrastructure improvements for spending the money: water systems, sewage systems, sidewalks and burying main electrical lines. The town likely will allow the tax proceeds to accumulate over two or more years to tackle larger projects.

    Along Florida’s east coast, sand drifts from north to south. Where it comes from and where it goes is ruled by wind and water.
    Sometimes our beaches feel wide and serene. At other times, finding a dry place to walk below a seawall is impossible.
    The ocean has a way of reminding us of nature’s power. Yet, for years we have built homes and condos on the dunes. Now, we search for ways to save them. We are caught in an intractable cycle of putting more sand down and building taller sea walls to keep our property safe.
    Due to the drifting of sand and limited natural dunes, the town of South Palm Beach hopes to build structures along the beach to catch the sand as it drifts south. The town of Lantana hopes to be part of this sand capture, as its public beach is often without sand for the public to park their towels on.
    The Eau Palm Beach Resort and Spa has opted out of the plan to build these structures, as it would have required heavy equipment operating near their hotel guests and would have meant that more of their “private” beach would be required to allow public access since taxpayers are funding the project. For obvious reasons, neither of these things would be desirable for maintaining a five-star rating.
     The town of Manalapan is now poised to join that opposition with concerns that trapping the sand to the north could further erode its beaches to the south. There are examples in Broward County that seem to show this to be a possible outcome.
    At the same time, residents in Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes are flabbergasted by an unusually tall duplex being built east of the dune between their towns. And Boca Raton is moving a similar structure in a similar location through the permitting process.
    The Coastal Star will be watching and reporting on how this all evolves over the coming months, but the cynic in me suspects lawyers will get rich and sand will continue to come and go until another major hurricane arrives to blow holes in all of our best intentions.
    In the meantime, the sea turtles return this time of year seeking places to nest along our dunes, and on Boca Raton’s newly renourished beaches, least terns are scouting nesting locations for the first time in 20 years — small, quiet acts that remind us of nature’s fortitude and reliance on the drifting of sand.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

    City commissioners will select a firm this month to search for a permanent city manager.
    Interim City Manager Neal de Jesus told Delray Beach commissioners in early June that he would serve through the upcoming budget cycle. That should give the commission enough time to find a new city manager, de Jesus said.
    City commissioners have talked about hiring a business executive, a chief executive officer, as the next city manager.
    “It’s not an easy town to run,” Mayor Cary Glickstein said at the meeting. “We have a $150 million budget and five bosses. You have to pay for what you get.”
    The current salary range for the city manager is $127,108 to $203,000. The city needs to advertise a base salary of $200,000 to $275,000, de Jesus said earlier in the year.
    As the interim city manager, de Jesus makes $187,012.80. He received that salary in March when his contract was amended to equal the pay of the former city manager.
 He also receives a $2,000 monthly housing allowance. When de Jesus returns to being the fire chief, he will make $159,515.20.
    Also at the early June meeting, de Jesus withdrew a third amended contract that would have paid him $200,000 and given him 24 weeks of vacation. The contract also would have raised his fire chief salary to equal his pay as interim city manager.

—Jane Smith

    Architect Reggie Cox will serve another four years on the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency board.
    Three new members will join him: Morris Carstarphen, Annette Gray and Allen “Sandy” Zeller.
    It took two meetings to fill the four open seats because Commissioner Mitch Katz missed the first meeting due to a travel delay.
    Cox was Mayor Cary Glickstein’s CRA pick at the City Commission’s first June meeting.
    Vice Mayor Jim Chard and Deputy Vice Mayor Shirley Johnson agreed, but Commissioner Shelly Petrolia did not. She wanted new candidates. The vote was 3-1.
    Johnson’s two nominations ended in tied votes. Then Chard selected Carstarphen, a businessman who used to be a Target Stores manager, as his pick. The three others agreed.  
    At the second June meeting, Katz selected Gray, a real estate broker and entrepreneur who had served on the CRA board previously. The vote was 4-1, with the mayor dissenting. Gray was one of Johnson’s picks that ended in a tied vote two weeks earlier.
    Zeller, a real estate lawyer with municipal board experience, was Petrolia’s selection.
    At the first June meeting, his pick did not receive a second. Petrolia deferred rather than lose that selection. At the second meeting Zeller’s selection received unanimous approval.
    Terms for the new CRA board members begin July 1.

—Jane Smith

    A public outreach campaign for the Palm Beach County Metropolitan Planning Organization’s multimodal study of the U.S.-1 corridor from Boca Raton to Jupiter continues with a workshop from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on July 22 at the Lake Worth Art Center. The study focuses on potential improvements for pedestrians, cyclists and transit along the 42-mile stretch of U.S. 1, including Hypoluxo, Lantana and Lake Worth.
    The Saturday workshop, one of several held throughout the county, includes an introductory presentation, a walking tour to audit existing facilities and needs, followed by group discussion on observed problems and potential solutions.
    The purpose is to develop a comprehensive plan to implement continuous multimodal facilities that connect the communities along the corridor, including upgraded Palm Tran bus service.
    Open studio/charrettes will follow July 24-26 at Lake Worth Art Center, 1121 Lucerne Ave., Lake Worth. For more information, see www.palmbeachmpo.org.

­—Mary Thurwachter

By Mary Thurwachter

    With an anticipated property tax revenue increase of $182,866 this year, Lantana Town Council members may have thought they’d be able to spend money on “want and wish list” items, including building a 6-foot wall to surround the town’s operation center, replacing a police motorcycle and adding a police officer, dispatcher and part-time assistant at the library.
    But the prospect of any of those things happening looks bleak, council members learned during the town’s first budget workshop of the year on June 12.
    Instead, the extra $182,866 will be swallowed by sports complex expenses and pensions for Police Department employees.
    Although the sports complex brought in $40,000, four times what had been projected, operational costs for staff for the complex are about $275,000.
    “So, we’re bringing in $40,000 and it’s costing us a quarter of a million,” Mayor Dave Stewart said. “There goes the $183,000. Gone. History. Sayonara.”
    More bad news came when the council learned that pension costs for police officers jumped about a half million dollars, from about $415,000 to $904,992.
    “I want to know why, because $904,992 is over 30 percent of what we bring in in taxes,” Stewart said. “So, 30 percent of every dollar every person pays in this town doesn’t go to anything except pension costs for the Police Department.”
    Town Finance Director Stephen Kaplan said the state would kick in approximately $115,000 and there are the employees’ contributions to consider, as well.
    “Why did it go up a half million dollars in one year?” the mayor asked.
    Town Manager Deborah Manzo said the soaring increase in pension costs was necessary to comply with state law, mainly relating to a jump from 25 percent to 45 percent in disability costs. The percentage changed because “that’s what the law is and we have not been compliant with the law,” she said.
    Other factors in the increase, Manzo said, included cost-of- living increases, new mortality tables used in calculations, and the addition of two officers to the town’s force in the past year.
    “Now [pension costs] are like double of what it was,” Stewart said. “I can’t accept that.”
    Stewart said he wanted to propose adjusting town employees’ wages so “that out of 90 employees five years later you don’t have only 15 left.”
    “I guess,” Stewart said, “it goes back to the old Mick Jagger Rolling Stones song You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
    Projected general fund revenues for Lantana also include $560,000 from the 1-cent sales tax increase (although that money can be used only for infrastructure such as roads, bridges and drainage, and amenities such as parks), $568,000 from grants, plus a $100,000 transfer from the town’s insurance fund.
    The town will propose a tax rate during the second budget workshop on July 10. Lantana’s tax rate has been $3.24 per $1,000 of taxable value and is projected to stay the same for the 10th consecutive year, 2017-2018.
    But some council members suggested it may be time for an increase.
    “Everybody else raises it,” said Vice Mayor Lynn Moorhouse. “If [the rate] changed a hair probably a lot of these projects could go away. We’re not talking about a gazillion dollars, not when you’re looking at 3.2395. I know that’s set in stone for you, but things have changed over the past 25 years and this hasn’t. Just a thought.”
    The mayor didn’t respond, but council member Phil Aridas, who has favored a tax rate increase in the past, gave Moorhouse reason to hope.
    “That’s not set in stone for everybody that sits up here,” he said.

When rough seas kicked up by Tropical Storm Cindy made it impossible to offer entry-level instruction

as part of the ‘World’s Largest Swimming Lesson,’ Boynton Beach lifeguards decided to give young swimmers

a chance to try surfing and provided education about rip currents. The WLSL event was held globally to help

prevent drowning, the second-leading cause of injury-related deaths among children aged 1-14. Here, lifeguard

Tyler Russell assists 6-year-old Owen Finn as he tries out a surfboard.

Other swim and surf classes are offered during the summer.

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith
    
    Two areas of Delray Beach may soon see new grocery stores in their neighborhoods.
    In the south side of the city, a type of Whole Foods Market likely will open in late 2018 in Lavers International Plaza.
    The Delray Beach location at 600 W. Linton Blvd. could be the first 365-branded store in Florida, according to the Whole Foods website. The 365 stores are smaller and focus on produce.
    In the Set, made up of the Northwest and Southwest neighborhoods along Atlantic Avenue, a Publix store could open in 2019.
    The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency agreed to sell 2.75 acres in the 600 block of West Atlantic to a broker for Publix. The grocery chain has 150 days to allow its real estate committee to review the site. The price will be $2 million for the land, where Publix could construct a 25,000-square-foot store.
    “There’s a whole process this has to go through,” said Randy Holihan, president of Pasadena Capital Inc., a real estate broker in Orlando. “Everyone is putting the cart before the horse.”
    But residents living in the Set have waited more than 30 years to have a grocery store within their community.
    “It’s been in the plans for a long time,” said resident Angie Gray, who is a residential real estate agent and former city commissioner.
    After the CRA board approved the deal on June 8, the meeting room erupted in applause.
    The Lavers Plaza store is further along with its plans. The project’s site plan was approved by the city in May.  
Steve Collins, of S.J. Collins Enterprises of Georgia, represented the project before the city’s Site Plan Review and Appearance board.
    He could not be reached for comment. But other indicators point to the location as suitable for a 365-branded store from Whole Foods. The 365 concept, named after the chain’s private-label brand, was created as the answer to critics who said Whole Foods’ products are too expensive.
    The 365 stores carry one-third of the products of the traditional Whole Foods Market and have more self-service departments, such as for meat and seafood, John Mackey, co-CEO of Whole Foods, said at the Oppenheimer Consumer Conference last year. As a result, Mackey said, labor costs are lower and the 365 stores are less expensive to run.
    The 365 stores also feature a loyalty program and have in-store “grocerants,” food boutiques set up by entrepreneurs.
    The Lavers Plaza 365 store would be approximately 30,025 square feet and offer outside dining.
    The site is less than a mile west of a Trader Joe’s grocery store in Delray Place. Market basket surveys of similar items in Trader Joe’s and 365 by Whole Foods showed that prices in both were similar.
    When announcing its Whole Foods chain purchase in mid-June, Amazon threw the grocery chain a lifeline.
    Its $13.7 billion acquisition, expected to close by the end of the year, came after several quarters of declining sales at Whole Foods stores that had been open at least one year. The declining sales had attracted some activist investors who pressed for a sale.
    The deal could help the Whole Foods chain buy more higher-quality products at lower prices, several analysts have said.
    So far, Amazon has said little about how it intends to run the Whole Foods chain.
— Rich Pollack contributed to this story.

By Dan Moffett

    Ocean Ridge Vice Mayor James Bonfiglio says he’s spent hours in recent weeks trying to figure out what went wrong with the town’s financial record-keeping last year.
    He’s not happy about that. And he’s not happy that Town Manager Jamie Titcomb failed to catch the problems months ago — and then didn’t tell the commission immediately when he found out about the errors.
    “When were you planning on telling us that our books didn’t balance?” Bonfiglio asked Titcomb during the June 5 town meeting. “It’s the manager’s job to catch this. Your hair should have been on fire.”
    Titcomb accepted responsibility and told the commission he’s been taking a forensic approach to finding the source of the technical problems.
    Bonfiglio said he has talked on the phone for hours with the town’s auditor and a data consultant the town had to hire to undo the damage caused by an apparent software glitch.
    About a year ago, Bonfiglio said, something went wrong with transmission of the town’s monthly financial statements. Incoming revenues were not recorded in the data collection.
    This went on for nearly a year, the vice mayor said, until the town’s auditor, Ron Bennett of Nolan, Holt & Miner, caught the problem in February during his annual review of the town’s books.
    Bennett advised Titcomb to hire the data retrieval consultant to find the glitch and reconstruct the missing data.
The consultant charged the town roughly $7,000 to straighten out the mess — a bill Bonfiglio and Commissioner Steve Coz think the town would have avoided had Titcomb been more vigilant.
    “Nobody was balancing the books,” Bonfiglio said. “Nobody was reconciling the monthly statements to the general ledger.”
Commissioners said they were also annoyed the manager kept them in the dark about the consultant’s hiring until it came up as a surprise during a budget workshop in May.
    Titcomb has said he thinks the data loss was caused either by a lightning strike in March 2016 or by an appending glitch that occurred when two employees tried to work in the system at the same time.
    He also said reassignment of some staff duties and outdated accounting software have contributed to problems.
    The vice mayor said only Titcomb and Town Clerk Tracey Stevens are authorized to reconcile the monthly statements, so the blame shouldn’t go to office staff members.
    “It really doesn’t have to do with software or changing assignments,” Bonfiglio said. “This should have come to somebody’s attention in March [2016].”
    The commissioners and Titcomb do agree, however, that the town has received all the money it was supposed to receive, and the problem does not go beyond record-keeping.
    “To me, it is my responsibility,” Titcomb told the commission. “You hired me to fix and evolve and modernize legacy systems in this town. I have taken the approach of trying to forensically understand why certain things aren’t working properly and gone about trying to break them to fix them.”
    Mayor Geoff Pugh told Titcomb: “You are the finance manager and the budgetary manager. You should have seen those zeros and figured it out.”
    Titcomb said the problem is obvious in hindsight but was not as apparent last year.
    He told commissioners corrections made to the system will prevent problems going forward.
    The manager said he expects Bennett to give the town a clean bill of health when he makes his audit report this summer.
    Said Bonfiglio, “Frankly, I’m disappointed.”
    In other business, commissioners directed Police Chief Hal Hutchins to put up a “No Unloading or Loading” sign at the east end of Beachway Drive and to work with Titcomb to develop a plan for changing the traffic pattern on the street.
    The commission wants to consider the plan at the July 10 meeting.

Related story: Two municipalities strengthen group-homes ordinances

By Mary Hladky

    New laws and funding are in place to crack down on the addiction treatment industry and fight the opioid crisis in Florida.
    Gov. Rick Scott on June 26 signed into law wide-ranging legislation introduced by state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, and state Rep. Bill Hager, R-Boca Raton, intended to halt patient brokering and deceptive marketing.
    Provisions of the legislation, consolidated under Hager’s version of the bill, include:
    • Prohibiting service providers and sober home operators from engaging in deceptive marketing and enacting criminal penalties for violations.
    • Increasing penalties for patient brokering and adding patient brokering to the list of offenses that the Office of Statewide Prosecution may pursue.
    • Giving new powers to the state Department of Children and Families to regulate treatment centers. DCF will draft rules on administrative and clinical standards by January, and licensing fees will be increased substantially to pay for the increased regulation.
    “I’ve seen firsthand the deplorable conditions that some of these (sober home) residents live in, which cause havoc in their neighborhoods,” Hager said in a statement. “With this new legislation, law enforcement will have more tools in which to arrest and subsequently prosecute bad actors.”
    Scott also signed into law tough penalties for possession of fentanyl, a painkiller as much as 100 times more potent than morphine, and similar synthetic opioids. Heroin is often cut with fentanyl, making it far more deadly. Synthetic opioids are added to the list of drugs that can result in a dealer’s being charged with murder if the buyer dies.
    Another bill that is now law enhances collection of overdose data by allowing emergency medical technicians and paramedics to report overdoses to the Florida Department of Health. In addition, it requires hospital emergency departments to establish overdose policies.
    Also signed into law is a bill that requires prescriptions filled for controlled substances be entered into a state prescription monitoring database by the end of the next business day. One of its original provisions that would have limited the initial amount of opioids prescribed to a five-day supply was stripped from the final bill.
    Three legislative appropriations survived a fierce battle between Scott and legislators over the state budget.
    The Sober Homes Task Force, launched last year with $250,000 in state funding by Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg to investigate allegations of fraud and abuse within the drug treatment industry and propose solutions, will continue its operations for another year.
    Lawmakers appropriated $300,000 to keep the task force in business.
    Many key task force recommendations were incorporated into the legislation drafted by Hager and Clemens. The task force’s law enforcement arm has been responsible for the arrests of nearly 30 people on charges of insurance fraud or patient brokering.
    “The task force is now on track to continue its work through June of 2018,” said Chief Assistant State Attorney Al Johnson, who heads the task force.
    The Legislature also appropriated $500,000 for the county’s Opioid Abuse Pilot Program launched early this year. The program offers people who overdose support services after they leave the emergency room at JFK Medical Center in Atlantis.
    The Florida Association of Recovery Residences, a nonprofit that oversees voluntary inspection and certification of sober homes for the state, was not fully funded.
    The Legislature appropriated $100,000, but FARR had requested $275,000. Last year, lawmakers allocated no money to FARR, forcing it to seek donations and loans.
    “The question is, how do we fulfill the mandate properly without adequate financial support?” CEO John Lehman asked in an email.
    FARR was expected to move its offices from Boca Raton to Lantana on July 1 to save money. Supporters, including addiction treatment centers Treatment Partners of America in Boca Raton and Hanley Center in West Palm Beach, are planning to host fundraising events, Lehman said.
    That will help FARR bridge the gap until it becomes self-supporting through fees charged for certifications.

    Two south county coastal cities are reining in rogue sober homes by strengthening their group homes ordinances.
Boynton Beach will hold a public hearing July 18 on these proposed changes:
    • Have at least 300 feet between group homes. In June, city commissioners asked whether the distance could be greater. Planning staff members said they would check on that.
    • Require that new group homes, including sober homes where drug users stay while going through rehabilitation, be certified. The Florida Association of Recovery Residences offers the only program recognized by the state, and it is voluntary. Existing sober homes will have until Oct. 1, 2018, to become certified.
    • Group homes must obey parking regulations in neighborhoods.
    Delray Beach’s community residences ordinance passed through the city’s Planning and Zoning Board in mid-June. Commissioners will vote this month on these changes:
    • Have at least 660 feet between the group homes, if they are new.
    • New sober homes will have to be certified by FARR. Existing sober homes will have until April 1, 2018, to become certified.
    • Group homes must obey parking regulations in neighborhoods.
    Addicts who maintain sobriety while living together are a protected class under federal laws.
—Jane Smith

By Jane Smith
    
    Boynton Beach’s long-awaited Town Square project received a cash infusion in mid-June.
    City commissioners began the June 12 meeting in their usual places on the dais.
    Midway through the meeting, they adjourned and switched name plates to their Community Redevelopment Agency positions. After voting on the agency contribution, they ended that meeting and reopened the City Commission meeting.
    When all was said and done, they agreed to pay $4.36 million in the first phase of the Town Square project. About $1.5 million of that will go toward restoring the city’s historic high school.
    In addition to the high school renovations, the money will be used to create plans for the new police headquarters and fire station, and to cover other costs such as architectural, engineering, surveying and permit fees.
    Members of the public will be invited to meetings in late July and early August, said Colin Groff, assistant city manager, to say what they think about uses for the high school and where the project’s parks should be.
    Groff said he hopes to have a contract that the City Commission can vote on in November.
    Town Square’s total estimated cost is $94.5 million, Groff said. The amount will be reduced by land sales to the developer, projects that are already in the budget for the next few years and CRA contributions, he said.
    The 16.5-acre project will create a downtown-like area with a hotel, apartments, condos, townhouses and shops, just south of Boynton Beach Boulevard and between Seacrest Boulevard and Northeast First Avenue.
    A new City Hall, updated city library, renovated Schoolhouse Children’s Museum and restored high school will be part of the mix. Outside of the project area, a new police headquarters is tentatively set for city land on High Ridge Road, while a new Fire Station 1 will sit just east of Northeast First Avenue.
    During the agency portion of the meeting, board members learned from the CRA director that the agency’s share of Town Square will come from the sale of the Magnuson House, leftover dollars from the Marina project and the unused money for a proposed dog park that was not approved.
    “This project is going to take a significant portion of the budget for the next four to five years,” said Michael Simon, agency director. “Then it will be multiple years of payments.”
    The city and CRA expect to pay for their shares of the project by selling land and issuing bonds. The bonds would retire on Sept. 20, 2044, to coincide with the date the CRA sunsets, Simon said.
    “This is sticker shock when you look at the CRA budget,” said Justin Katz, CRA board member. “But the alternative would be to raise taxes.”

Lyn Tate with her dachshunds Sir Charles, 12, and Duke, 4, outside her Hypoluxo Island home.

Tate is a community activist for the island and the town of Lantana.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

    Getting Lyn Tate to sit still for even a short time is no easy feat.
    With her years in retail (including a stint working closely with legendary lingerie designer Eve Stillman at Saks Fifth Avenue on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach), plus raising two children to adulthood, and her current role as community activist in Hypoluxo Island and Lantana, Tate seems to always live her life in overdrive.
    “My husband (Rock) watches old Westerns or sitcoms on TV on weekends and he says to me, ‘Can’t you relax?’ I can relax, but I look around and it’s not going to get done unless somebody does it.
    “I’m like Mrs. Kravitz from the old Bewitched show. If anybody needs a question answered they don’t bother calling the town, they just call me. And that’s fine. I know the people to call and I’ve gained their respect. I’ve worked with them for three or four years now so they know who I am.”
    Tate, 58, lost her mother at a young age and moved from Port Washington, N.Y., to South Florida with her father when she was 12. A 1980 graduate of Florida State University, she split time between retail positions and being a homemaker until son Rock graduated from college in 2013.
    Then Judy Black, former president of the Hypoluxo Island Property Owners Association, pushed her until she joined the HIPOA Board, where she quickly became treasurer.
    Since then it’s been one add-on after another: Planning Commission for the town of Lantana, chairwoman of the Lantana Education Council, chairwoman of council member Malcolm Balfour’s election campaign, chairwoman of traffic calming for Hypoluxo Island.
    “So it’s funny,” she said with a grin, “I’m just sort of getting real big.”
— Brian Biggane

    Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How has that influenced you?
    A. I’m definitely a New Yorker. From Port Washington, N.Y. My mother passed when I was 10, so I had my father and my older brother raising me from that point. My father retired and came to Florida when I was in eighth grade, so I had to retire, too, which is what brought me to Florida.
    Because of my superior New York education, I wound up in the advance classes down here.
    I put myself financially through college, worked from when I was 16, mostly in retail. I spent 10 years with Saks Fifth Avenue, which was pretty cool. That influenced our family in a big way, because both of our children went North to go to college. So I really believe in having that kind of exposure. I love Lantana and South Florida, but there’s more than that.
    But it sort of backfired, because our son opened his business in New Jersey. But we love going back to visit. And Linda, our daughter, was there a long time. She went to Rutgers and stayed three or four years up there after graduation, but now she’s back here.

    Q.  What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
    A. In retail I got to know Eve Stillman, a famous designer with whom I worked a lot toward the end of my career, so that was a big deal. Lingerie was big with her. There are other designers, but she liked me a lot and we had a great relationship. That was primarily in the Palm Beach Saks Fifth Avenue. I trained in Bal Harbour, moved to Atlanta, opened a variety of stores, came back to Boca Raton, they transferred me to Palm Beach, and then we decided to raise a family.
    In my second profession, motherhood, I’m just proud of the people my kids turned out to be. They’re hardworking people, they give back to society, so I’m proud of that.
    In the community part, they call me MacGyver now. I get things done. I’m sort of creative in my approach, and I have zest, and I guess I’m just really proud that I can stand on my own at 58 years old now and say, “Hi, I’m Lyn Tate.” It’s a little more about me right now.

    Q.  What advice do you have for a young person selecting a career today?
    A. Find your passion. When I went to Florida State I picked a program that had a 100 percent graduation rate and job placement. I got sort of cookie-cuttered in. My husband has been with the same firm for 34 years now. That’s not what it’s about today. We were loyal to our trade. Now you just don’t stay 34 years with a company. You better be passionate about what you do now.
    And find something that gives back. My children — Linda is great, she’s a mentor with a program that gives back to athletes, and our son has taken high school kids under his wing and given them internship programs.

    Q.  How did you choose to make your home in Hypoluxo Island?
    A. My husband and I were renting in Delray and we decided to buy a home. We looked for over a year, and just couldn’t find anything we could afford. So the woman who gave him his college loan to go to Brown University called and said she was selling this house. I came over and looked and said no way. The trees were overgrown. It wasn’t what I wanted.
    Two weeks before she left she was going to give it to a Realtor and called and said, “I’m out of here,” and we were exhausted from looking. We came, got a hot dog over at the old Hawaiian, and we looked, and I said, I can’t believe I’m going to buy this old house.
    Then I started thinking about the crown molding in the living room, about the character. We had to do a lot of work on it. My father worked like 20 hours a week, we painted it, cleaned everything, tiled everything, carpeted everything. We moved in and I was laying tile on the floor a month before my daughter was born, and I couldn’t get up. I said, “OK, I’m done, you have to finish.”

    Q.  What do you like most  about Hypoluxo Island?
    A. I was taking a bike ride today and helped a blue crab across the street. That’s what I like. The butterflies, the birds, the blue crabs. We used to have red foxes, and still have one come by every now and then. But it’s really the nature. It’s so beautiful. We feel like we’re on our own little island.
    And as far as safety goes, we’ve really educated people on the island that if they see something, say something. We have a camera at the entrance and exit of the island, so that’s good, but the people have really become aware that we need to look out for each other.

    Q.  What book are you reading now?
    A. See Me, by Nicholas Sparks. He’s amazing. I’ve read every one of his books.
    Q.  What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
    A. I have everything from the Monkees to Frank Sinatra, and I have the same music for stress relief or to relax. Whatever it is, it’s my go-to. And if ’70s music comes on we start dancing, my husband and I. Typically, though, other than the morning news, I try to listen to the noise of the island. I’d rather listen to the birds and whatever.

    Q.  Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
    A. “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” (Anonymous) That’s really my mantra. I was probably always like that because of different times in my life when it wasn’t so easy.

    Q.  Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who inspired your life decisions?
    A. With my mother passing when I was young, definitely my brother, Andy, and my father, Andrew. Also my husband. My father taught me everything, which is why they call me MacGyver, because I can fix anything. My brother never let me say no. He was like, “You will go to college, you will get a job.”
    
Q.  If your life story was made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
    A. Helen Mirren. She’s a timeless, ageless beauty who’s smart, witty and strong.

By Rich Pollack

    BOCA RATON — Even in retirement, Dr. Pinghui Victor Liu remained a scientist.
    A microbiologist, physician, and tenured professor at the University of Louisville, Dr. Liu was a leader in his field and in the 1960s discovered two kinds of exotoxins from a common type of bacteria.
    Those toxins led to sometimes-fatal illnesses in patients.
     “This was a bug that would kill people,” said his daughter, Dr. Nancy Liu, a Boca Raton physician.
    Her father’s research led to the development of treatments for illnesses from the toxins created by the bacteria, with his work resulting in the publication of more than 40 of his scientific papers.
    A resident of Boca Raton following his retirement in 1997, Dr. Liu was 93 when he died on June 6.
    While living in South Florida, Dr. Liu — known by friends and neighbors as Victor — enjoyed gardening and was always searching for ways to improve his plants and fruit trees, testing a variety of fertilizers and alternative growing techniques.
    “He was always a scientist and always experimenting,” his daughter said.
    Born in Taiwan in 1924, Dr. Liu trained in Japan at the Tokyo Jikei Kai Medical School.
    He was in Japan during World War II and following the war was able to find one of the few jobs available, working as a technician at a U.S. Army microbiology lab in Tokyo.
    He wrote his first research paper while working in the lab, but one of the Army officers removed his name and took credit for the work.
    He wrote his second paper on his own time and was able to get credit for the work.
    Encouraged to move to the United States to continue his research by those who believed he had a bright future in the field, Dr. Liu landed an internship in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he would endure anti-Asian sentiment. There he encountered patients who refused to be seen by him, his daughter said.
    He would later do his residency at the University of Kentucky Medical School and, also armed with a Ph.D., became a tenured professor there, continuing his research and teaching microbiology classes.
    Internationally recognized for his scientific work, Dr. Liu lectured all over the world and continued to travel for enjoyment after his retirement.
    “He had an interesting perspective on life because he had lived in three different cultures,” his daughter said.
    Dr. Liu is survived by his wife of 58 years, Chiameng Judy Liu; his son, Albert Liu; his daughter and her husband, Dr. James Houle; as well as granddaughters, Camille Houle and Lauren Houle.
    A memorial service for Dr. Liu was held on June 17. Contributions in his memory can be made to the Boca Raton Regional Hospital Foundation at brrh.com.

Addison Mizner designed the Boynton Woman’s Club building, which opened 91 years ago.

Woman’s Club members praised the proposed $110,000 sale of the building to the city.

Photo provided

By Jane Smith
    
    The grand old dame will be in good hands with the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency.
    Board members agreed in June to pay $110,000 for the 91-year-old Boynton Woman’s Club building, designed by famed architect Addison Mizner.
    The club will use the money to continue its 40-year-old scholarship program for high school seniors to further the memory of Major Nathan S. Boynton.
    “Our building belongs with the city,” said Pat Waldron, the club’s historic preservationist. “We are delighted an agreement has been made where the site will remain a memorial to Major Boynton, the founding father of the city, and the future leaders of the community will benefit through the scholarship trust.”
    Boynton Beach city commissioners sit as CRA board members. They all were enthusiastic about the deal.
    “Thank you for the opportunity to let us have the building,” said Steven Grant, board chairman.
    “Thanks for taking care of it for us,” said Joe Casello, a board member.
    The agency had the Mizner building appraised in May by Anderson & Carr. That appraisal valued the property at $2.4 million.
    That amount went over well with board member Christina Romelus because the agency is often criticized for selling properties at a loss.
    In 1925, Boynton Woman’s Club members used $35,000 from Boynton’s heirs to construct the two-story building with hardwood floors, French windows and doors, and curved arches. Mizner agreed to donate his plans and supervise the construction as long as quality materials were used and the building’s worth was more than $50,000.
    The next year, the structure opened. It serves as a fine example of the Mediterranean Revival style of architecture with original wrought ironwork. The 16,262-square-foot building sits on the National Register of Historic Places and the city’s register of historic places.
    “It’s a nice piece of property,” said Warren Adams, the city’s historic planner. “It’s better than letting it go to a private owner.”
    The ideal thing is to keep using the building, Adams said, and to keep up with the maintenance.
    “This is a win-win situation for the community and for the club membership,” Michele Walter, the club president, said after the meeting. “The historic building, which was built in 1924-1926, will continue to serve the community while having its historic value and history remain for future generations.”
    The building houses a ballroom, library and dining room and can be rented for both community and private events. The Woman’s Club will continue to hold its monthly luncheons and business meetings from October through May.
    The historic building sits on the eastern side of Federal Highway, just north of Woolbright Road. The agency will close on the building later this summer. Initial plans call for short-term rentals to be done by agency staff and then seeking a professional management company to operate the building.
    The Woman’s Club volunteers will continue to lease the property until the agency takes ownership. They have booked $23,750 worth of events for the rest of the 2017-18 period. Annual operating costs are estimated to be $90,000.