BOCA RATON — Diane Gates Benedetto took her place in heaven on Feb. 26, less than two months shy of her 100th birthday. Diane was born in West Palm Beach on April 20, 1916, to Harley D. Gates and Harriette P. Gates, both early pioneers in Boca Raton.
    She was raised on a plantation on Palmetto Park Road where they grew bananas, tangerines, guava and other fruit. The plantation was named Palmetto Park Plantation by her father. Palmetto Park Road was named after the family’s plantation.
    She and her brother, Harley, had many adventures living in a bungalow called Morada Bonita, at 741 E. Palmetto Park Road near the Intracoastal Waterway in Boca Raton. She even had a pet raccoon named Petey.   
    Diane was married to Joseph Benedetto in the late 1940s. She was a burlesque dancer and performed as a headliner for more than 27 years. She traveled all over the world performing.
    The Benedettos owned Chez Joey restaurant on Federal Highway in Boca Raton for many years. They also owned the Eagle Cab Co.
    Diane lived in Miami from 1945 until she returned to Boca Raton in 1971. She lived in her home in Boca Raton for more than 45 years. She would often be seen walking her dogs throughout the neighborhood.
    She loved working in her garden, potting her orchids, oil painting, tending to her pond and spending hours reading, writing letters and keeping in touch with her friends. She was also an excellent artist, often seen about town painting the ocean and palm trees.  She had a special place in her heart for her many dogs, cats, frogs and critters that crossed her path in life.  
    Diane was an active contributing member of the Boca Raton Historical Society for many years. The photographs and archives she donated are vital to research about Boca Raton’s past.
    Her recorded memories and charming drawings help paint a picture of the tropical paradise that was Boca Raton 100 years ago. (Some of those memoirs can be seen on the Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum’s website, Spanish River Papers, October 1975.)  
    She is a major feature of the museum’s 2000 documentary, The History of Boca Raton, on view at the museum. In later years, she also wrote children’s books for the Boca Raton Children’s Museum and appeared in several local plays in Boca Raton.   
    At 93, she moved to Miami, where she resided with her daughter for three years. She then moved to the Swankridge Care Center in Homestead, where she received excellent care and was loved by many. At the time of her death, five generations of family were at her side.
    She is deeply mourned and will be missed by her family and friends.
    Diane is survived by her daughter, Dianne Chapek of Miami; stepdaughter, Kathleen Edmonds of Lake Park, Ga.; stepsons, Patrick Benedetto of Lake Placid and Frank Benedetto of Jacksonville; seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren.

— Obituary submitted by the family

By Steve Plunkett

    Boca Raton will add left-turn lanes on eastbound Palmetto Park Road at Mizner Boulevard and Northeast/Southeast Fifth Avenue and buy a train detection system so it can better time traffic signals at the Palmetto Park crossing.
    The turn lanes, which were taken out six years ago, should be operational by November, City Manager Leif Ahnell said.
    “Something we talked about back in 2010 when we put the islands in to slow down traffic, we’re here now to tell you that that was effective,” consultant Jim Sumislaski of Kimley, Horn and Associates told the City Council at its June 13 workshop. Indeed, the islands were too effective, he said, and contribute to current traffic congestion.
    The relatively quick improvements were among a slew of recommendations from Sumislaski and a second consultant, Diana Rivas of Calvin, Giordano and Associates, to reduce traffic congestion.
    Mayor Susan Haynie said the discussion on longer-term projects was just a jumping-off point.
    “We’ll have lots of conversations about these improvements,” she said.
    Sumislaski, who lives in Boca Raton, said the bridge on Palmetto Park Road opens on the half-hour and causes an eight-minute delay each time. It takes two cycles at the Fifth Avenue signal to clear traffic, he said.
    It should take 6.5 minutes to drive the 3.1 miles from Interstate 95 to A1A for a vehicle going 30 mph and encountering no red lights, no train holdups and no bridge opening, Sumislaski said.
    He theorized that with seven traffic signals on the route, 11 minutes would be a good time, and then had his staff test his theory.
    In 20 trips from noon to 5 p.m. May 25, the average time was 13.2 minutes, he said. Only one trip was held up by a train and only one by the bridge, he said. He recommended earlier detection of trains and changing signals to clear east-west traffic.
    Council member Scott Singer was enthusiastic when he heard such a system has a minimal cost.
    “I’m ready to make a motion now to amend our budget to approve $100,000. I mean that,” Singer said.
But Ahnell said he could order the equipment without changing the budget or having an official motion.
    Sumislaski also recommended changing the signal’s cycle at Palmetto Park Road and A1A.
    “I’ve been stopped waiting to make a left-hand turn to go northbound on A1A waiting for the cars to come around that circle [in South Beach Park]. Sometimes I get stymied and there’s a long line of cars,” he said.
    He also said Boca Raton should hire a full-time traffic monitoring operator, study making Federal Highway and Dixie Highway a pair of one-way roads and look at widening Palmetto Park Road to six lanes from I-95 to Dixie.
    “We’ve looked at that over the years. The time might be right for that,” Haynie said.
    Longer term, Sumislaski said the city could make a traffic bypass route on Second Street through the City Hall campus.
    Rivas was following up from a Calvin, Giordano presentation in March that offered four options for the intersection at Palmetto Park Road and Fifth Avenue.
    “From that meeting, we came [up] with a combination of [two] alternatives turned into one hybrid [alternative],” she said.
    The solution calls for left-turn lanes on Palmetto Park east- and westbound, the addition of buffered bike lanes on Fifth Avenue, and right-of-way acquisition and sidewalk connectivity on the northeast corner. Adding the turn lanes might cost $200,000, Rivas said. Buying the land on the corner might be $1 million to $2 million, she said.
    Rivas also recommended the city extend the bike lanes along Northeast Fifth Avenue all the way to U.S. 1 and enforce the existing valet agreement at the Trattoria Romano restaurant.

From fishing queens and charter boats

to tackle and trophies, Delray show reels in

history in a catchy way

Fishing around Delray Beach was portrayed in an alluring way to motorists who spotted this billboard.
The Wueppers, Smiths and others on Delray Beach in 1917.

Delray Beach Historical Society
Young Ray Priest of Delray Beach

receives a fishing trophy in this photo.

Old spear guns and a mounted dolphin (mahi mahi) are part of the ‘Fish Tales!’ exhibit

through December at the Delray Beach Historical Society.

Willie Howard/The Coastal Star

By Willie Howard

    The Delray Beach Historical Society has plunged into a subject that has tied families together in this waterfront community together for more than 100 years: fishing.
    The Fish Tales! history exhibit opened with a kickoff party June 17 and will remain on display through the end of December at the historical society’s campus in downtown Delray Beach.
    “The response from the public has been spectacular,” said Howard Ellingsworth, historical society president and co-chairman of the exhibit, noting that more than 80 families and individuals contributed items to the exhibit.
    “This is all about telling the story of where we came from that I think will have broad interest and appeal,” Ellingsworth said.
At the exhibit, visitors will find more than 1,000 fishing-related photos and more than 200 objects — memorabilia that show how intertwined fishing and diving were, and still are, with daily life in this oceanfront city.
    Visitors also get a glimpse into the happy years following World War II, when bathing beauties competed for the title of “fishing queen” and charter boats helped popularize fishing for sailfish, kingfish, dolphin, wahoo and other ocean fish along the coast of southern Palm Beach County.
    Ellingsworth said his father told him of the days when Delray Beach merchants would close their doors and go fishing during bluefish runs.
    “The bluefish run was so massive that it looked like an enormous dark mass moving through,” said Ellingsworth, whose late father was Ken Ellingsworth, a former vice mayor and longtime executive director of the city’s Chamber of Commerce. “Almost the entire town would shut down, and all would go down to the beach to catch bluefish.”

Clyde Smith, Norma (Miller) Brown, Henrietta (Wuepper) Frieberg, John “Dude” Miller Sr.

and Bob Miller on Delray Beach in the early 1930s.

Delray Beach Historical Society

    John Miller, who co-chairs the exhibit with Ellingsworth, said his father, the late John “Dude” Miller, spent most of his boyhood fishing and especially liked to catch snook at the old Atlantic Avenue Bridge.
    The elder Miller spent so much time fishing at the bridge, in fact, that the bridge tender would let him raise and lower the bridge when he wanted to take a break.
    Miller’s grandfather, Albert Miller, was a former Delray Beach mayor and barbershop owner who did a lot of fishing (mostly along the beach in rowboats). He owned a tackle shop on Atlantic Avenue and called together a group of men in 1947 to start the Delray Beach Boating and Sportsmen’s Club.
    Today, Miller owns two boats and enjoys fishing for snook and reef fish, often with his two sons in tow — an example of the families who have fished around Delray Beach for multiple generations.
    Miller said the Fish Tales! exhibit should help raise awareness about Delray Beach’s history because so many people are interested in fishing.
    “We’ll have people at the historical society who didn’t even know the historical society existed,” Miller said.
    Winnie Edwards, the historical society’s executive director, said the fishing history exhibit should be “a binding experience” for the many families who enjoy fishing in and around Delray Beach.
    “I think it will bring people together,” said Edwards, whose father, Roy Diggans, fished from the beach “almost every day of his life.”
    Although the exhibit focuses on fishing around Delray Beach, it includes stories, photos, tackle and trophy fish from Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach.
    A second phase of Fish Tales! will be announced at the historical society’s annual autumn harvest dinner, set for Oct. 20.
Fishing skills workshops, environmental education and fishing stories told by the anglers are expected to be part of the fall lineup.

Ron London and his wife, Leona, sit in the garden of the Abbey Delray community

where they live. Ron London has had two kidney transplants and is active

with the Kidney Association of South Florida.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Lona O'Connor

    When Ron London found out that both his kidneys had failed, his knowledge was scant.
    “I knew I had a pair of kidneys, and that’s about it,” said London, 81, a retired businessman from Philadelphia who now lives in Delray Beach with his wife, Leona.
     They educated themselves on kidneys, health, nutrition and medical procedures. Now they are using what they learned to help others as volunteers for the Kidney Association of South Florida, an education and support group made up of kidney disease patients and their families.
    One day in a doctor’s waiting room, Ron London saw a brochure for the kidney association. “I thought, why not?” said London. “I’ll be better off the more I know.”
    The Londons started as volunteers and later became board members of their local chapter.
    They have lost count of how many dialysis centers they have visited, talking to nephrologists, social workers and patients — and always leaving brochures.
    “I have a list of every nephrologist and dialysis center in South Florida,” Ron said.
    Leona London shares cooking and health information with wives and other caregivers. She also watches out for the caregivers’ health and welfare.
    “The caregiver needs support too,” she said.
    Besides providing information and support to kidney patients and their families, the kidney association helps with the sometimes overwhelming expenses of kidney patients not covered by insurance.
     “We found one man who had lost his job, his wife and his house,” said Leona London. “He was living in his car.”
    Janice Symonette, past president of the Kidney Association of South Florida, is a big fan of the Londons.
    “They’re diligent workers, they’re giving people,” said Symonette, of Palm Beach Gardens, who got her kidney transplant 20 years ago. “Ron has raised so much money in his community.”
    The Kidney Association of South Florida, a nonprofit group formed seven years ago, runs monthly support groups and sponsors an annual fundraising walk.

Organ failure a surprise
    London is not sure why his kidneys failed. He had no history of high blood pressure or diabetes.
    Physically active all his life, including rowing in a one-man scull until recently, London made his living in the wholesale meat business, which included lifting 100-pound cases.
    He dates his problem to a serious auto accident 25 years ago, from which he developed a herniated disk in his back. He was given anti-inflammatory drugs for the pain.
    “I don’t know how you’re still standing,” London’s doctor said after examining him.
    A blood test showed a high level of protein, and shortly thereafter he got the news that both kidneys had failed. He went on dialysis, the long and uncomfortable process of mechanically cleaning the blood. Healthy kidneys process waste from the body; without them, the blood must be flushed to keep the patient alive.
    London began dialysis and joined a waiting list for a kidney transplant. One working kidney is all a person needs.
    “Every day waiting was like a month,” he recalled. That was 10 years ago. Soon after, he got his first transplanted kidney, which lasted 2½ years, then failed. His second transplant has been working now for five years and counting. He was getting dialysis for long stretches before and between the two transplants.
    London visits a nephrologist who checks his blood every four months. He will take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life and must be careful to avoid infections. He remains active and healthy.
    He only recently gave up his beloved 16-foot single rowing shell because he no longer has easy access to water. So he has switched to walking as a daily activity.
    Because of medical confidentiality, the Londons know only that Ron’s kidney donor was a 51-year-old man who was shot to death. So London had no one he could formally thank, but he often thinks about his donor. “That kidney is keeping the memory of someone alive,” he said.

Lona O’Connor has a lifelong interest in health and healthy living. Send column ideas to Lona13@bellsouth.net.

A group of felines greets visitors near the entrance of the cat sanctuary.

(L-R) Ariel Milrad, Ulla Oest, Thomas Raabe and Benilda Milrad at God’s Creatures

Great and Small Sanctuary in rural Lake Worth.

Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Arden Moore

    Entering her retirement years in 2004, Ulla Oest enjoyed the financial security of having savings in the bank and a home with a paid-off mortgage.
    But then she learned of a cat sanctuary in Lake Worth that was about to be closed, with the dozens of cats residing on this five-acre property facing eviction — or worse, euthanasia. Feeling a strong desire to help, she persuaded her husband, Ronald, to sell their home in Pompano Beach and take out a mortgage to obtain what she calls God’s Creatures Great and Small Sanctuary in rural Lake Worth near U.S. 441.  
    A dozen years later, Oest, now 75, and her husband, who just turned 80, lack the same financial security, but feel blessed and enriched as they live on the property.
    “When I heard that 150 cats were about to lose their lives, I had to do something,” Oest says. “This is my Mount Everest mission. We applied the $390,000 from the sale of our place in Pompano Beach toward this property that cost $600,000. So yes, now at our ages, we have a mortgage again.”  
    Born in 1941 in Nazi Germany, Oest spent her first four years living in bomb shelters to keep safe. When her father, a firefighter, befriended a Jewish neighbor, he was deemed a traitor to the “fatherland” and shipped to the Russian front. He survived the war, but struggled to get jobs to feed his family.  
    “He was 20 pounds underweight with his ribs showing and then he managed to reach out to an uncle living in New Jersey, and in 1954, that uncle sponsored us to come to the United States,” recalls Oest.
    She did not speak a word of English when she stepped onto American soil, but by age 19, she had obtained American citizenship and felt pride for her adopted nation.
    “I love America and, for the first time in my life, I was not hungry anymore,” says Oest, who worked as a telephone operator, a gymnastics teacher and at other jobs throughout her life.
    Being saved — and saving others — has become Oest’s lifelong mantra.
    In 1989, she and her husband adopted a 10-year-old orphan from the Philippines. Their daughter, Benilda Milrad, is now married, with two children, Noah and Ariel, and lives in Coral Springs.
    The mother-daughter connection between Ulla and Benilda has been strong and solid since that adoption day.  
    “She is my miracle, my absolute joy,” describes Oest. “A Fallopian tube burst when I was seven weeks pregnant and I was never able to give birth. We were able to later on adopt Benilda and she has been such a blessing in so many ways.”
    For a dozen years, Oest has quietly championed the cause of strays and feral cats living safely at her animal sanctuary. Currently, there are about 60 cats on the property. Sitting on the table next to her is Morris, a big-headed orange tabby rescued from living under a car. Morris is missing some teeth and drools, but Oest loves his sweet disposition.  
    There is Bunny, a cat who spent her first four months of life trapped in a crate; Seummilla, a laid-back cat with a crippled tail; and Sidney, a handsome, all-black cat named in honor of actor Sidney Poitier.  
    Assisting the Oests in the care of the cats is Thomas Raabe, who lives on the property, and their daughter, who ensures the sanctuary’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit status remains current.
    “I do not have email or use the internet, but my daughter does those duties and Thomas is a good cook and a nice, kind man,” says Oest. “We cannot afford to pay him, but we provide him with free rent and utilities. We are fortunate.”
    The sanctuary features many feeding stations and enclosures with a special type of nylon netting to keep the cats from wandering outside the property. Oest transports cats in need of vaccinations, spaying, neutering and other medical attention to the Animal Medical Clinic of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach.  
    “Oh, yes, she has been bringing cats here for care for about 12 years,” notes Lisa Anselmo, the main receptionist. “Ulla is a nice person and any time her cats need help, like dental problems, abscesses or anything else, she comes here.”
    Oest candidly acknowledges that money is tight, but she has never regretted her decision to leave a paid-for home to run this cat sanctuary.  
    “I had a very hard childhood and then I lost my baby seven weeks into my pregnancy,” she says. “But I have a T-shirt that features the words, ‘Pursuing a dream heals a broken heart.’ This sanctuary, caring for these cats, has done much to heal my heart as has adopting our daughter. I feel lucky to pursue my purpose in life.”

    Arden Moore, founder of www.FourLeggedLife.com, is an animal behavior consultant, editor, author, professional speaker and master certified pet first aid instructor. Each week, she hosts the popular Oh Behave! show on www.PetLifeRadio.com. Learn more by visiting www.fourleggedlife.com.

Emily Stokes of the Reef Environmental Education Foundation measured each of the 655 lionfish

brought in by eight dive teams in the Gold Coast Lionfish Derby.

Morgan Ingegno of Delray Beach and Barbie Amaro of Los Angeles were among the curious

who stopped by the cleaning table to check out the nonnative fish.

Chef Michael Bickford prepares lionfish fried in a beer batter and served with a chipotle lime aioli sauce.

Free samples of lionfish were served after dive teams returned to the Waterstone Resort & Marina in Boca Raton.

Photos by Willie Howard/The Coastal Star

By Willie Howard

    Teams of divers competing in the Gold Coast Lionfish Derby helped rid the reefs around Boca Raton and Pompano Beach of lionfish — an invasive, nonnative fish that steals food from Florida’s native fish and eats their young.  
    Eight four-diver teams used small pole spears to harvest a total of 655 lionfish during the June 18 event. They brought coolers filled with lionfish back to the docks at the Waterstone Resort & Marina in Boca Raton, where the fish  were measured, counted and, eventually, eaten.
    Derby organizers from World of Scuba in Boca Raton awarded cash prizes to the teams with the most, the largest and the smallest lionfish.
    Team Painkillers speared the most lionfish, 153, to win $600. The ZooKeeper team placed a close second, with 149 lionfish, to win $300.
    The Painkillers crew also took the $600 top prize for the largest lionfish — 434 millimeters, about 17 inches. The ZooKeeper team won another $600 by bringing in the smallest lionfish at 82 millimeters, about 3.2 inches.
    Divers said they found many of the lionfish on reefs in 60 to 90 feet of water. Others went to depths over 100 feet in search of larger lionfish.
    Lionfish experts from the Key Largo-based Reef Environmental Education Foundation measured and counted each lionfish brought to the docks — both for the contest and for size data used to track the status of lionfish populations.
    Experienced lionfish divers who know how to avoid the fish’s 18 venomous spines cleaned the lionfish before chefs from the Waterstone dipped the white fillets in beer batter and deep-fried them. Free samples of fried lionfish were served, topped with a chipotle lime aioli sauce.
    Lionfish harvesting events help control populations of the invasive fish, but scientists believe the nonnative reef invaders are here to stay.
    “No one believes eradication will happen,” said Emily Stokes, lionfish program assistant for REEF. “But local control is very effective. Derbies like this make a huge difference.”
    More lionfish derbies are planned this summer in South Florida, including a July 16 event based at 15th Street Fisheries in Fort Lauderdale and another derby set for Aug. 13 at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach.
    For a statewide list of lionfish harvesting competitions, go to www.myfwc.com/lionfish.

The lobster’s carapace must measure more than 3 inches for a lobster to be legal to keep. Egg-bearing lobsters must be released. Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Two-day sport lobster season set for July 27-28
    Sport divers will take the plunge to search for spiny lobster during the two-day sport season July 27-28.
    The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission is again offering divers the opportunity to bag an additional lobster each day of the mini season — if they first document the harvest of at least 50 lionfish.
    For a diver to qualify for the extra lobster, the 50 lionfish must have been harvested between May 14 and July 26 and documented. Lionfish can be brought to checkpoints, or photos can be submitted via email. (For details, go to www.myfwc.com/lionfish and click on “lionfish challenge.”)
    Here’s a quick review of the basic rules for divers planning to search for “bugs” during the two-day sport season:
    • A saltwater fishing license and lobster permit are required except for divers who are Florida residents under 16, over 65 or otherwise exempt.
    • The daily bag limit is 12 lobsters, except in Monroe County and Biscayne National Park, where the sport-season limit is six.
    • A lobster’s carapace, or head section, must measure more than 3 inches to be legal to keep. Egg-bearing lobsters must be released. (Look for the spongy orange mass under the tail.) Divers should measure lobster underwater and bring them back to land intact.
    • Red-and-white dive flags are required by law. Dive flags on boats must measure at least 20 inches by 24 inches, should have stiffeners to keep them unfurled and should be displayed from the highest point on the boat. A float-mounted diver-down buoy should be towed by divers in the water.
    Boaters must stay 300 feet away from dive flags on the open ocean and 100 feet away in inlets, rivers and navigation channels. Those approaching closer should do so at idle speed.
    The regular lobster season opens Aug. 6.

Boat registration discounts take effect this month
   Boating safety legislation approved earlier this year gives recreational boat owners a modest discount on their annual boat registration fee if they have a properly registered emergency satellite beacon, such as an EPIRB or personal locator beacon.
    Satellite beacons transmit the location of boaters in distress, making the job of finding them far simpler for rescuers when the beacons are registered with NOAA. (www.sarsat.noaa.gov/beacon.html)
    Boaters who own more than one boat can receive a registration discount for each boat with a registered EPIRB. Those with a registered PLB can receive a discount for only one boat.
    The discount applies to boats registered between July 7 and June 30, 2017.
    To receive the discount, boat owners should take their NOAA beacon registration certificate to a driver license/motor vehicle service center, such as the one at 501 S. Congress Ave. in Delray Beach.

Lake Worth Lagoon photo contest open to all
    Photographers of all skill levels are invited to participate in the second annual Lake Worth Lagoon photo contest.
    July 15 is the deadline to submit photos for a chance to have images featured in the 2017 Lake Worth Lagoon calendar.
    Photos should show the lagoon’s environmental, recreational and economic value. Images can include landscapes, underwater photos, wildlife and people.
    Photographers can submit up to five digital images.
    The Lake Worth Lagoon is Palm Beach County’s largest estuary, stretching about 20 miles from Ocean Ridge to North Palm Beach.
    For details on the photo contest, go to www.LagoonFest.com and look for “photo contest.” Questions can be emailed to: ERM-LagoonFest@pbcgov.org.

Ryan Gutz, left, and Alex Wasserman hold the 90-pound wahoo they caught from their kayaks

off Boynton Beach on the morning of June 12. Wasserman hooked the fish and handed the rod

to Gutz, who fought it for 30 minutes while it towed his kayak. Watch a video

of the wahoo catch at www.thecoastalstar.com.

Photo provided

Kayakers catch 90-pound wahoo off Boynton Beach
    An Iowa man got a back-wrenching introduction to ocean fishing on the morning of June 12, when he and a Palm Beach County chiropractor caught a 90-pound wahoo from kayaks off Boynton Beach.
    Alex Wasserman, a chiropractor with Health-Fit Chiropractic & Sports Medicine in Boca Raton, was fishing with Ryan Gutz, a summer intern in his office from Iowa.
    They were drifting in 110 feet. After putting out a live goggle-eye for bait around 7 a.m., Wasserman said he was holding the rod, explaining to Gutz how the reel worked, when something began taking line — slowly at first, then at a “screaming” pace.
    “I handed the rod to Ryan, who then spent the next 30 minutes getting dragged out to 320 feet,” Wasserman said. “He told me his hands were going numb. I was screaming instructions at him.”
    Wasserman eventually took the rod, worked the wahoo to the surface and gaffed it. They paddled back to the beach for a photo.
    Wasserman said the wahoo weighed 90 pounds. He said it was Gutz’s first time fishing in the Atlantic and his first time in a kayak.

Coming events
    July 9: Basic boating safety class offered by Coast Guard Auxiliary in Boca Raton, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the headquarters building at Spanish River Park, 3939 N. Ocean Blvd. Fee: $35. Register at the door. Bring lunch. Call 391-3600 or email fso-pe@cgauxboca.org.
    July 9: Big Dog, Fat Cat KDW Shootout fishing tournament for kingfish, dolphin, wahoo and snapper, Sailfish Marina, Palm Beach Shores. Captain’s meeting 5:30 to 8 p.m. July 8 at Sailfish Marina. Entry fee $200 per boat through July 5. Call 315-3722 or go to www.bigdogfatcat.org.
    July 23: Coast Guard Auxiliary offers basic boating safety class, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at classroom next to the boat ramps, Harvey E. Oyer Jr. Park, 2010 N. Federal Highway, Boynton Beach. It’s free. Class fees are being covered by a grant from the Perry J. Cohen Foundation. Register at the door. Call 331-2429.
    Aug. 13: Mark Gerretson Memorial Fishing Tournament. Kicks off with captain’s meeting set for 6 p.m. Aug. 11. Weigh-in at Deck 84 restaurant in Delray Beach. Entry fee $200 per boat by Aug. 1 or $225 thereafter. Details: www.mgmft.net.

Tip of the month
    Snook season is closed until Sept. 1.
    But even when snook are in season, they’re largely a catch-and-release fish because of the tight slot size limit.
    Snook caught on Florida’s east coast must be 28 to 32 inches in total length to be legal.
    How snook are handled before they’re released makes a big difference in whether they survive.
    Keep the fight short and keep the snook in the water as much as possible. If you plan to photograph a snook, be sure to have the camera ready and lift the fish from the water for only a few seconds.
    Snap the photo and lower the fish gently back into the water, supporting the fish under the belly.
    To get the accurate weight of a snook (or other fish) to be released, consider buying a snook sling. Developed by the West Palm Beach Fishing Club, snook slings cradle fish and allow them to be lifted from and lowered gently into the water.
    Slings cost $65. They have eyes for attaching a scale and weigh a pound, so they’re easy to use for weighing and releasing fish.
    For more information on snook slings, call the West Palm Beach Fishing Club at 832-6780 or order them online on the “store” section of the club’s website, www.westpalm beachfishingclub.org.

Willie Howard is a freelance writer and licensed boat captain. Reach him at tiowillie@bellsouth.net.

William Romac of Delray Beach shows fine form while catching a football at Palm Beach Sport Camp.

He was one of dozens of kids taking part in non-contact sports games.  
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

The giant spinning tops in downtown West Palm Beach can be ridden, pushed,

pulled or simply used as a bench for an outdoor lunch break.

Photo by VMA studios

(L-R) Sofia Giddings, 6, Riley Melvin, 6, and Paris Woolley, 7 — students at

Trinity Lutheran School summer camp in Delray Beach — enjoy a colorful top

The activity was organized and sponsored by the nonprofit Taste History Culinary Tours

and led by Lori Durante, who described the field trip as ‘old-fashioned fun and play filled with education.᾿

Photo provided

By Janis Fontaine  

    Ask any kid: Spinning around and making yourself dizzy is big fun.  
    Starting this summer, the city of West Palm Beach is offering parents a little help in the game.  
    Los Trompos, an interactive artwork with 20 larger-than-life-size spinning tops, is decorating the great lawn at the West Palm Beach waterfront.  
    The colorful structures can be pushed, pulled, ridden, spun, or simply used as a bench for an al fresco lunch break. Each top has a bench, a central pole and a cover or canopy. Long strands of colorful cords wrap and weave the tops to the bottoms. Each one is a little different.  
    Los Trompos is the work of contemporary Mexican designers Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena, two artists who believe art isn’t art until it’s seen or experienced or reacted to by someone else. Their focus isn’t on the art but how the people interact with it.
The designers also built a social message into the artwork. To truly experience the spinning part, you need help. Friend or stranger, young or old, at least two people are needed to spin a top.

    Mary Pinak, West Palm Beach’s community events manager for the last 26 years, says her favorite part of this exhibition is that it’s multicultural. “I love seeing all ages and all demographics playing together,” she said.  
    Los Trompos is also unique because the city purchased the exhibition and owns the 20 giant tops. It cost about $74,000 plus shipping (which was expensive). It was paid for by the city’s Art in Public Places department.  
    “Now we have an asset,” Pinak said. The city could rent it to another municipality, keep it intact where it is, remove all or part, scatter the tops throughout the city or even sell it.  
    The art installation is open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.  
    Pinak says the waterfront is a prime place to visit on our hot summer days (or evenings) because there is so much to do: Play on the tops, then cool off in the fountains, play a round or two of mini-golf and hit Sloan’s for ice cream.  
    “That’s pretty much a perfect day.”
    Want to add an educational component?   
    Make a day of your visit to Los Trompos in West Palm Beach.
    Include one of these one-of-a-kind venues, which are also in the city:
    South Florida Science Center and Aquarium’s Grossology exhibit.
    It runs through Oct. 10 and it’s all about “The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body.”
    This exhibit educates kids ages 6 to 14 about the gross stuff the body does using exploratory labs, puzzles and games. There is a great play area for younger kids, too.  
    On July 23, the Science Center will host the E4 Life: Green, Health & Wellness Expo, an opportunity to learn about green, healthy living, environmental conservation and the sustainable initiatives that need your support.  
    The center is at 4801 Dreher Trail N., West Palm Beach.  
    Admission: $15 adults, $11 ages 3 to 12, $13 for age 60 and older. Free for members and children younger than 3.
    Info: 832-1988; sfsciencecenter.com.

Safari Nights at the zoo
    As the sun sets, the zoo comes alive. Animals venture out of the cool, shady spots where they weather the heat and humidity of a South Florida day to eat and drink and maybe even take a little bath.
    From now through August, the Palm Beach Zoo will stay open late on Fridays so you can visit when it’s a little cooler and the animals are a little more active.  
    Safari Nights are held from 4:15 to 9 p.m., and each Friday has its own theme with a different family-friendly activity to match. Your Safari Night also features roving animal encounters, keeper talks and training sessions, interactive fountain play, kids games and eco-craft stations, live music and DJ dance parties, plus giveaways and dinner specials at the Tropics Café.
    July’s themes are Dinosaur (July 8), Pajama (July 15), Party for the Planet (July 22), and Winter in July (July 29). Costumes are encouraged.  
    The Palm Beach Zoo is at 1301 Summit Blvd., in West Palm Beach.  
    Admission: $16.50 adults, $12.50 age 3-12, free for younger than age 3 and members.  
    Info: Call 547-9453 or visit www.palmbeachzoo.org.

If You Go
    Los Trompos — The Spinning Tops
    Where: West Palm Beach waterfront, 101 N. Flagler Drive
    When: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily until Aug. 28. Admission: Free.
    Info: 822-1515; wpb.org

    Glow FORE It mini-golf
    When: Noon to 10 p.m.
    What: Mini-golf with glow-in-the-dark balls and obstacles.
    Cost: $2.50 per round.  

Fresh tracks from a nesting sea turtle are seen at sunrise in Ocean Ridge.

Sea turtle monitors Zachary Levitetz and Joan Lorne inspect loggerhead tracks and mark a nest in Gulf Stream.

Sea turtle monitor Staci-Lee Sherwood marks the location of a loggerhead turtle nest on Highland Beach.

Photos by Jerry Lower and  Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Friends of Delray Dog Beach held a demonstration May 7 in hopes of raising awareness

and gaining approval for dogs to be permitted on part of the public beach. The demonstrators gathered

in front of the city’s beachside pavilion.

Among the signs: ‘Surfers, paddleboards, volleyball, sunbathers ... Everyone can use our beach but dog owners.’

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

    Dog owners who fought to have a portion of Delray Beach’s public beach set aside for their four-legged friends appear to have lost their months-long battle.
    Now there may be even more bad news — especially for pooch owners who scoff at the law — as the city begins cracking down on those who violate its no-dogs-on-the-beach ordinance.
    Delray Beach commissioners at a workshop meeting in May shot down a proposal that would have established a six-month pilot program crafted by city staff with input from local pet owners.
    That plan would have set aside a small portion of Atlantic Dunes Park as a dog beach for a few morning hours and a few evening hours on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
    During a lengthy discussion in which 16 dog owners spoke in favor of the proposal and 16 mostly beachside residents spoke against, commissioners were told that many owners are acting in violation of city ordinances and allowing their dogs to run free on the beach.
    Part of the problem, according to Mayor Cary Glickstein, is that the city has been lax in enforcing its no-dogs-on-the-beach policy, a responsibility that currently falls on the shoulders of police officers.  
    “We all look silly not enforcing our laws,” the mayor said. “We also look silly having sworn police officers doing the dog patrol. The solution is educating volunteers and park rangers who may be given authority to write citations.”
    While attorneys are investigating the possibility of changing city ordinances to allow those other than police and code enforcement officers to write civil citations, the police department has already begun implementing a plan to keep dogs off the beach.
    This month, according to a memo Police Chief Jeff Goldman wrote to Glickstein, the police department will begin an educational campaign with fliers, social media and traditional media designed to remind dog owners of the law.
    Beginning in July, violators of the city ordinance will receive a written warning for a first offense and a citation for a second offense. The city’s code enforcement department will assist police on the enforcement side.

Minimal enforcement
    According to the police department, there has been little enforcement of the city ordinance by the department up to now.
    Through the first four months of this year, no citations were written for dogs on the beach, according to police department records. In all of 2015, there were only nine citations issued.  Police issued 30 citations for dogs on the beach in 2014 and 43 in 2013.
    Of all the 82 citations written since 2013, about half were written to individuals with Delray Beach addresses. Four were written to out-of-state residents and the remainder were to South Florida residents living outside of the Delray Beach area.
    Many residents who spoke during May’s commission meeting cited the lack of enforcement as a problem.
    “It’s despicable the number of people who disregard the ordinance,” said resident Steve Blum.
    Several residents spoke about health concerns associated with dogs on the beach, reporting that not all owners clean up after their pets.
    Others said that unleashed dogs have approached them when they were walking on the beach, leading to safety concerns.
    “There are always dogs on the beach,” said resident Alan Schwartz, who added that additional enforcement could lead to more revenue for the city.
    Some, however, including Vice Mayor Al Jacquet and Commissioner Mitch Katz, said that creating a dog beach could actually help reduce the problem.
    “It seems we have a problem enforcing the laws we have on the books,” Jacquet said. “People are already having dogs on the beach. Let’s put it all in one area where we can regulate it.”
    At the same time, however, Jacquet agreed with Commissioner Jordana Jarjura that the city is facing more pressing financial issues that need to be addressed.
    Citing health and safety reasons as well as other priorities facing the city, Jarjura, Glickstein and Commissioner Shelly Petrolia said they were not in favor of creating a dog beach.
    Proponents of the proposal noted that dog beaches work in many other communities, including Boca Raton. However, Glickstein and several others pointed out that those beaches are larger and configured differently than Delray’s public beach.
    “Boca’s beach is twice the size of Delray’s beach,” he said. “Fort Lauderdale’s beach is four times the size.”
Delray Beach resident Harvey Starin, who represented the 1,000-member Friends of Delray Dog Beach, said he does not believe increased enforcement will work.
    “It will make people really angry,” he said. “It’s going to force people to go to Boca or Jupiter.
    “Other people will grin and bear it and be disappointed in City Hall.”

    Our “Village by the Sea” is being placed at risk by Delray Resolution 71-015, unanimously adopted by the City Commission in December.

    The resolution commits the city to a 3,000-mile “urban Appalachian Trail” that connects 15 states along the East Coast of the U.S. for non-motorized travelers. This will require 8- to 10-foot pathways along A1A in Delray Beach and the adjoining barrier island communities.
    City officials told The Coastal Star, shortly after passage, that “sidewalks would be striped to create separate lanes for pedestrians and bicycles” and the passed resolution “will allow us (the city) to get grants.”
    Even though city officials claim the resolution “means nothing,” the clear and unambiguous 3.1-mile route along A1A will extend approximately 6.3 miles between the north and south city limits, from Federal Highway, down George Bush Boulevard to A1A, and southward to Highland Beach, including the 7/10th-mile in front of the new beach pavilion at A1A and Atlantic.
    This new Beach Property Owners Association-supported pavilion will become a grant development-supported casualty. Every transient from Maine to Key West will be able to stop for a rest before dumping trash in our front yards, relieving themselves in our shrubbery, and sleeping on the beach.
    We are of the opinion that the 3,000-mile pathway through all major East Coast urban areas will:
    • Bring thousands of backpackers and transients to warm Florida in season, by bike, foot, thumb or bus, for a hike/bike down our 300 miles of oceanfront. They will bring sleeping bags for beaches and shovels in backpacks for beach-gardens directly along our existing sidewalks.
    • Be directed through the heart of Delray’s beach area along A1A and front doorsteps on George Bush Boulevard.
    • Increase traffic backups at A1A and Linton Boulevard. More pedestrians and bikers mean more activation of pedestrian lights, slowing traffic.
    • Be dangerous to pedestrians and beachgoers, children and elderly as the “shared use” will be confusing.
    • Require sidewalks be widened to create separate lanes for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles.
    • Become another overdevelopment effort to get grant money for the city. Who will pay for the portable toilets and trash barrels?
    • Once “grant” money is accepted, the city will lose control and the grantors’ camel will have his nose under the tent. Soon the pathways will come all the way down A1A.
    • Devalue properties. The “urban” pathway will greatly devalue the beachfront homes, condos, apartments, hotels, and business properties that contribute a significant portion of Delray’s revenues.
    • Risk converting the new pavilion into a rest area for thousands of urban backpacking hikers and bikers, as well as being joined by our very own congregating drug-rehabbers.
    We need an immediate repeal of 71-015. Please contact all commissioners now, before it is too late!

John G. Carier, Mike Owen, Frederick Taubert and Evan Morris
Ocean Blvd. residents,
Delray Beach

Editor’s Note:
The Delray Beach commission has agreed to revisit the Greenway resolution at a July meeting.

By Jane Smith

    Property values continue to increase by double-digit percentages in Delray Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency area.
When the county property appraiser released its 2016 taxable value estimates on May 27, the numbers showed a 13.2 percent increase in Delray’s CRA district from 2015. That follows a 12.8 percent increase from 2014.
    The uptick comes mainly from property sales on the bustling Atlantic Avenue, now a popular adult playground for tourists and county residents.
    “It’s been a steady climb,” said Tom Prakas, a restaurant broker who said he placed 30 to 40 restaurants along the avenue. “The sales prices are 10 times what they were trading for 10 years ago. … Everyone wants to be there.”
    He predicts the prices will triple again in 5 years — “if restaurants and retailers continue to do well.”
    But longtime merchants wonder how the character of the street will change when tenants have to pay increased rental rates to go along with the high-priced sales. Even if a tenant has a long-term lease, that business may face an increase in property taxes charged as part of the common area maintenance fees, said Bruce Gimmy, who owns the building for his store, The Trouser Shop & Shorts.
    “I’m concerned about the health of the downtown,” Gimmy said. He predicts some merchants who pay the $100-square-foot rental rates will soon leave and the avenue will turn into a “food court by the sea.”
    During 2015, 13 properties changed hands along the avenue according to the property appraiser.
    The top sales price of $19.5 million raised eyebrows for even the jaded Atlantic Avenue watcher. Two buildings, 326 and 400 E. Atlantic, were sold by the George family to an affiliate of Menin Development, which built the Downtown at the Gardens in Palm Beach Gardens and owns the Regal Cinemas in Royal Palm Beach.
    Menin has since moved its headquarters to Delray Beach. CEO Craig Menin paid $17 million in September for an oceanfront mansion in Delray Beach.
    The Delray Beach commercial buildings straddle the SE Fourth Avenue intersection. On the west side, at 326 E. Atlantic, sits the Green Owl Restaurant. The diner has rented the space for 33 years. County property records show that building as having 7,572 square feet. Tenants on the east side, in the 14,704-square-foot building at 400 E. Atlantic Ave., include Huber Health Mart Drugs and Kilwins Delray Beach.
    The company wanted a higher rental rate for 326 E. Atlantic and offered to move the Green Owl across the street to Southeast Fourth Avenue, behind Huber Drugs. Menin will build out the space to the Green Owl’s specifications. Terms of the lease still need to be worked out, said Dave Gensman, the diner’s owner. The restaurant will close in June and open in November in a slightly smaller space with 20 fewer seats, Gensman said. He will take most of the owl knickknacks — the ones he likes “because they have sentimental value,” he said. “Others may get lost in the move.”
    In its space, Capital One Café, a bank division, will lease 5,840 square feet. Patrons will be able to try new digital banking tools and grab a cup of Peet’s coffee, its partner in the café business.  
    “You have to have corporate backing to remain on the avenue,” said Gensman, “unless you own your building. They are pushing the charm off the street.”
    Real estate broker Jim Knight agrees. “The locals have reached that point. They can’t afford Atlantic Avenue rents,” he said.
    The local businesses that want to remain in Delray Beach will have to move to Pineapple Grove or the new SOFA district, under construction south of Atlantic, Knight said.
    Delray Beach has several programs to keep small retailers and restaurateurs in the city, said Joan Goodrich, economic development director.
    The GEAR program — grow, expand and retain — works with partners at the Downtown Development Authority, Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, West Atlantic Redevelopment Coalition and CRA to find suitable spaces, Goodrich said.
The program has a commercial property database with connections to real estate brokers. Thirty small businesses, including merchants and restaurants, are using the GEAR program, Goodrich said.
    The CRA also offers site development grants to help businesses on West Atlantic modernize their spaces, she said. In addition, the city plans to steer merchants to the Congress Avenue corridor.
    For Gensman, the high-priced sales are a sign of the times. “When buildings are sold for high prices, the new owners have to increase rent,” he said. “Soon Atlantic Avenue will have national tenants only.”

    This is when they come. During these early summer months, the females labor up the sand on primordial missions to find safe locations to bury their eggs. They have been doing this on our shore long before air-conditioning was invented and condos cast shadows on the sand.
    These sea turtles are one of the Earth’s most mysterious and time-honored creatures.
    The giant reptiles have a prehistoric magnetism that draws humans to them. This wouldn’t be a problem if we only wanted to watch and learn. But I have observed adults guiding children down the beach and shining flashlights into the eyes of the nesting turtles. And even more horrifying, I’ve seen them lift children onto the turtles’ backs and take flash photographs as the turtles retreat to the safety of the sea.
    Already this nesting season, I’ve seen photos and videos on social media of turtles rushing back to the sea after what appear to be aborted attempts to nest. In all of these instances there are crowds of people with cellphones surrounding the frightened creatures.
    The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has made a special effort this turtle season to educate the public about the hazards of cellphone photos during a turtle’s attempt to nest. (See story.)
    “Most visitors to the beach don’t realize that any light on the beach at night poses a threat to these threatened and endangered animals. A nesting female may become frightened or disoriented by the lights or a flash photo and return to the ocean without laying eggs,” said Dr. Robbin Trindell, who leads the FWC’s sea turtle management program.
    We need to leave these creatures alone.
    Isn’t it bad enough that pollutants in the water are causing tumors to grow on turtles’ faces and fins? That plastics tossed overboard or washed into our waterways are ingested by these turtles as they forage for food? That their shells are sometimes cracked by boat propellers or that the turtles are entangled in discarded fishing line or nets and left to drown?
    Sadly, those are just some of the additional challenges the adult turtles face.
    For the hatchlings the odds for survival are even more difficult. It’s estimated only one out of 1,000 makes it to adulthood.
    Watching a turtle dig her nest and lay eggs is an amazing experience, but it’s best done as part of an organized, state-sanctioned outing with a group like Gumbo Limbo Nature Center.
    Sea turtles were here long before we were. Let them return to their nesting beaches in peace.


— Mary Kate Leming,
Editor

Susan Oyer stands on Ocean Avenue where her father had a real estate/insurance office.

The plaque honors Charles Pierce, the Barefoot Mailman.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Lucy Lazarony

    Boca Raton Community Middle School teacher Susan Oyer teaches her students to do much more than just crack the books.
    For the past three years, her students have raised money to plant trees in Haiti and dig water wells in Africa.
    Oyer, a descendant of legendary Barefoot Mailman Charlie Pierce and daughter of former Boynton Beach Mayor Harvey E. Oyer Jr., is teaching her students to be global citizens.
    “Social responsibility may not be in the curriculum, but it is an important skill I try to instill every year,” says Oyer, who teaches civics, economics and American history.
    To raise the money to plant trees, Oyer and her seventh- and eighth-graders sold wristbands with tree-friendly slogans that the students came up with like “Just Tree It” and “Grow Green.”  
    Through their Earth Day 2014, 2015 and 2016 projects, Oyer and her students raised $400, $1,500 and $1,400 — enough money to plant 6,200 trees, 3,000 trees in Haiti alone.
    Oyer, who lives in Boynton Beach, and her students choose Haiti as a recipient for so many trees “because Haiti is our neighbor, was listed as a treeless nation by the U.N. in 2000, and Americans help their neighbors when in need. Being a good neighbor and helping Haiti helps us all. Beyond reducing global warming and climate change, the trees improve the quality of life and reduce soil erosion for their people.”
    Last fall, Oyer’s classes joined with students from Boca Middle School’s student government to sell pasta shaped like logos from various colleges to raise money to dig water wells in Africa. That effort raised $1,800.  
    “Water is essential to life. Living in South Florida we are all aware of the importance of a fresh, clean water supply. We are lucky to have the Everglades,” says Oyer, who has been teaching for 18 years. “There is a lot of water in Africa; it is just deep underground.”
    To put all the students’ hard work and money raised into action, Oyer works with Julian Lennon’s foundation.
    “Almost all of the funds have gone to Julian Lennon’s White Feather Foundation,” Oyer says. “I love the transparency of the foundation and the fact no donated money goes to administrative costs. So 100 percent of the funds go exactly where you want them to go and you get updates on the impact of your donations.”
    Oyer, who is also president and founder of the St. George’s Society of Palm Beach (a nonprofit that supports local and English charities promoting positive exchanges between Palm Beach County and England), calls herself “a big environmentalist.”
    “We have a responsibility to our planet. We have a responsibility to future generations to leave this world as great as we found it,” says Oyer. “Someone better step up and make a difference.”
    She says she gets her let’s-do-something-about-this drive from her father, who died in 2010.
    “I had a dad who was a mayor and on city commission and on every possible thing you could be on,” Oyer says. “There’s no being in my family and not making a difference.”
    Making a difference is why Oyer, who declined to share her age, steps into a classroom and teaches.
“The world will be a better place because I went to work (today),” Oyer says. “I’m big on that. That’s why I became a teacher.”

By Dan Moffett

    Developer Gary Cohen and two of his lawyers spent more than an hour trying to persuade the South Palm Beach Town Council to vote on a charter amendment measure that might allow him to build his condo project 5 feet higher on the old Palm Beach Oceanfront Inn site.
    It didn’t work.
    “We would beg of you to make a motion and have a vote,” Mitch Kirschner, an attorney for Cohen’s Paragon Acquisition Group, said during the May 24 town meeting.
    Council members sat silently and then moved on to the next item on the agenda.
    The council’s cold shoulder is because building heights are a “hot-button” issue in South Palm Beach, said Vice Mayor Joe Flagello. Officials remember the angry outcry from residents six years ago when the property’s previous owner, Pjeter Paloka, wanted to build a 14-story condo. Voters responded by overwhelmingly putting strict height limits in the town charter.
    “This is through no fault of your own. It’s with the previous history. We get that. We know you’re not the previous group,” said Flagello, who told Cohen he should understand why the town is “gun shy” about height. “But you do know the history and what has occurred in this town. And it is a very hot-button issue. There are people who are very passionate on both sides of the fence.”
    Flagello told Cohen that he should take the other route that remains available — bypass the council and go directly to the town’s voters and get the petitions needed to put a charter change amendment on the November ballot. To do that, Paragon would need to collect signatures from 15 percent of the town’s registered electorate, roughly between 150 and 200 voters.
    Cohen said afterward he was undecided about what his next step would be. “It’s something we will discuss internally,” he said. He called the prospect for getting petitions “certainly feasible.”
    Paragon has admitted that the original architect for the project miscalculated the height for the six stories with 30 condominiums that would sit above the parking garage, failing to include the 5 feet needed for five floor plates. Cohen has said the building must have 10-foot ceilings to be competitive in the luxury condo marketplace, requiring a minimum height of 65 feet, not 60.
    “We have a problem that makes our project unmarketable in 2016,” Kirschner said.
    Cohen has partnered with DDG, a New York-based real estate investment group, to help sell the project. Prices start at about $2.3 million for a 2,900-square-foot unit with two bedrooms and three baths. The dispute between council members and Paragon also has caused friction with Town Attorney Brad Biggs.
    Councilwoman Stella Gaddy Jordan proposed seeking outside applicants to take over the town’s legal work, saying the council needed more advice and information than Biggs was providing. Councilman Woodrow Gorbach seconded her motion. He said Biggs “can be hard to get a hold of.”
    Flagello was solidly on Biggs’ side: “He has my full confidence.” After first abstaining, Councilman Robert Gottlieb voted with Flagello.
    Mayor Bonnie Fischer, after a couple minutes’ hesitation, rejected Jordan’s motion, which failed 3-2. Fischer said the council was likely to take up the Biggs matter again at the June 28 meeting, however.

Miami Herald columnist and novelist Carl Hiaasen gave students

at Gulf Stream School advice on how best to become a writer.

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

    “The job of a writer is to entertain,” the writer began. “If you can’t tell a story and keep people turning a page, you’re unemployed.”
    And then Carl Hiaasen entertained them.
    For more than an hour, the best-selling novelist and Miami Herald columnist sat on the edge of a stage in the Gulf Stream School, telling tales and dispensing advice to about 100 upper school students.
    “When I was your age,” he recalled, “I used to keep journals. We called them diaries back then, and I would write down stuff that happened every day. Sports and fishing. It taught me every single day to type out a few paragraphs. Your writing gets better.”
    He gave them a peek at how his books are made. He cracked sly jokes and named his own favorite writers. He shared tales from his boyhood, growing up in suburban Fort Lauderdale back in the early ’60s. He told them about the neighborhood bully who terrified him on the way home from school back then.
    And like those witty and preposterous Florida yarns that have put his novels for both adults and kids on best-seller lists, Hiaasen seasoned the entertainment with a serious message, this time about the importance of reading and writing.
    “The internet is all about content,” he reminded the students, “and if you can’t write, you can’t contribute to the content of the internet. You have to know how to communicate, and the best way to learn how to write is to read like crazy. I know a lot of writers, and they were all readers as kids.”
    He began to write at the age of 6, Hiaasen recalled, when he was given a typewriter.
    “A typewriter is a machine that looks a lot like a computer,” he said with a straight face, “and I thought, What job can I get where I get to write every day?”
    And so in time he became a reporter at The Miami Herald, where Christie Evans, a fifth-grade English teacher at the school, was once a colleague. Hiaasen’s visit to the school was a personal favor.
    “Working at newspapers helped me in writing,” he said. “Every day it’s something different, and you have to write fast. You had deadlines, and editors who were brutally honest. There’s no such thing as writer’s block in a newsroom. If you have writer’s block in the newsroom, you’ll get unemployment block.”
    And then he entertained their questions.
    Asking a writer to name his favorite book is like asking a dad which of his kids he loves best, he warned. “But for sentimental reasons, I like Hoot because it’s the first book for kids and I didn’t know if I could do it.”
    What Hiaasen calls his “kid books” have one-word titles — Hoot, Flush, Chomp — to distinguish them from his “grown-up books” — Tourist Season, Basket Case, Bad Monkey — so they won’t be confused.
    “I didn’t want some kid picking them up by accident and reading them,” he said. “Plus the cover artists like shorter titles.”
    His favorite writers? J.D. Salinger. Kurt Vonnegut. Thomas McGuane. Graham Greene. And of course, the late, great Florida storyteller, John D. MacDonald, whose Travis McGee mysteries took place right there in Fort Lauderdale. “That was the first time I’d read a published book where I knew all the streets,” he said.
    And if Hiaasen hadn’t become a writer?
    “I don’t know,” he mused. “At one point I wanted to be a vet, but then I found out you had to take science classes.”
    His old neighborhood in Plantation, out on the edge of the Everglades, inspired Hoot, the Newbery Medal-winning novel about kids who fight to save some burrowing owls from a developer.
    “Now the whole area where I grew up is under concrete and asphalt,” he said. “In real life, we weren’t able to save the owls.”
    The owls are gone, but so is the neighborhood bully who used to make his life a nightmare: “After a while I got to be taller than her and she left me alone after that.”
    The students’ hands were still raised high, questioners begging to be recognized, when Evans stepped forward to announce that time was up. A line formed in front of the stage, and Hiaasen started signing copies of his books.
    Some of the students carried his kid books and a few the grown-up novels. Pierce Silver, 13, a seventh-grader from Boynton Beach, got his copy of Sick Puppy autographed.
    “To Pierce,” Hiaasen wrote, then scrawled his signature and a personal message.
    Like the titles of his grown-up novels, the message was only two words:
    “Keep Reading.”

Carl Hiaasen’s new novel for grown-ups, Razor Girl, will be available Sept. 6.

By Rich Pollack

    Plans to sprinkle license plate recognition cameras throughout the barrier island, derailed more than a year ago when the state refused to allow them on its rights of way, are getting new life thanks to advanced technology.
    Now leaders of police departments in Delray Beach, Highland Beach and Ocean Ridge say they are close to bringing proposals for installation of systems — that can read license plates from as far away as 130 feet from a road’s center — to their respective city or town commissions for approval.
    Delray Beach police Capt. Tom Mitchell said he and representatives from other departments have been looking into alternative solutions to installing cameras on State Road A1A and bridges ever since the fall of 2014 when Florida Department of Transportation officials banned the cameras from state rights of way.
    During a recent national police chiefs conference, Highland Beach Police Chief Craig Hartmann and Delray Beach Police Chief Jeff Goldman discovered a company, L-3 Mobile Vision, that offers cameras able to read tags from beyond the state rights of way.
    Mitchell arranged for company representatives to come down recently to test the cameras.
    “They worked,” he said.
    License plate recognition systems scan tags of passing cars and compare that information to tag numbers in law enforcement databases. If the system spots a tag registered to a stolen vehicle, for example, an alert is sent to a dispatcher who verifies the information and then notifies officers on patrol.
    “It’s like having someone standing on the side of the road writing down tag numbers all the time,” said Ocean Ridge Police Chief Hal Hutchins.
    Mitchell said he is tying up loose ends and hopes to bring a proposal for installation of the system to the City Commission within a couple of months.
    If they’re approved, Delray Beach would install cameras in five locations along the barrier island, including the intersections of A1A at both Atlantic Avenue and Linton Boulevard. Four of the five planned sites, Mitchell said, are on city-owned property.
    He estimates the cost at between $150,000 and $200,000 and said money already has been budgeted for the project.
    Hartmann said the Highland Beach department would share the cost of cameras at Linton Boulevard with Delray and share costs of a server to house the back end of the system. Highland Beach also would place a camera at the south end of the town.
    In Ocean Ridge, Hutchins said he plans to update town commissioners on the status of his research into license plate recognition cameras at a workshop meeting this month and seek a green light to continue moving forward.
    If commissioners approve, Ocean Ridge could have cameras at the northern and southern entrances to the town as well as at the intersections of A1A and both Woolbright Road and Ocean Avenue. Ocean Ridge would also house a server.
    Currently Manalapan has cameras just north of the Boynton Inlet, grandfathered in by the DOT.
    Law enforcement officials say that placing cameras at key intersections — and getting the word out that they’re in use — can not only help in crime prevention but also in solving crimes. The cameras could, for example, help in investigations of thefts of unlocked cars that have plagued barrier island communities recently, by helping police track vehicles used in the crimes.
    “The bottom line is that these cameras are an investigative tool,” Hutchins said.
    Mitchell says the systems can also serve to deter criminals.
    “We want everyone to know we have cameras,” he said.

By Jane Smith

    The legal bills continue to mount in the Atlantic Crossing case while the downtown project remains on hold during federal litigation.
    In mid-May, the developers filed their fourth amended complaint in their federal lawsuit against Delray Beach. They allege they have spent more than $8 million to hire planners, architects, surveyors and lawyers needed for the complex, developed by a partnership between Ohio-based Edwards Cos. and Ocean Ridge resident Carl DeSantis.
    On 9.2 acres at the high-profile corner of Federal Highway and East Atlantic Avenue, Atlantic Crossing will comprise 343 luxury condos and apartments plus 39,394 square feet of restaurants, 37,642 square feet of shops and 83,462 square feet of office space.
    The development team sued Delray Beach in June 2015, claiming the city has not certified its site plan that was approved in November 2013 and affirmed by a previous City Commission in January 2014. Last fall, the lawsuit was moved to federal court.
    In its fourth amended complaint, the development team alleges the current City Commission is using “obstruction tactics” by not certifying the project site plan or approving its final plat and demanding the return of two alleys needed to build the project. All of the items are needed before the project can move forward, both parties agree.
    The developers are asking the court to force the city to certify the site plan, approve the final plat, agree that the project owns the alleys, pay for the court costs and increased development costs because of the delay and extend the development agreement to Sept. 9, 2021.
    In early April, the City Commission rejected a modified site plan for the project that added a driveway and redesigned the valet area into a circular path from a horseshoe-shaped version. The plan also called for improved contrast for the two loading docks and a pedestrian crosswalk moved north in the project to increase its safety.
    The changes, though, were not enough to satisfy two Delray Beach commissioners and the mayor. They want a real street with sidewalks and bike lanes instead of a driveway and extra turning space so that vehicles can leave the underground garage safely.
    In mid-April the City Commission approved a request to ask for the return of the two alleys and followed with a motion to dismiss the developers’ lawsuit. Many of the counts belonged in state court or were not ready to be heard, the city’s motion said.
    The case has an October jury trial date.

Lantana Cub Scout Alex Beardsley holds back a tear while remembering his grandfather,

Ed Beardsley, who served in the Army in Panama. Alex was part of a group

of Delray Beach Scouts that replaced a worn American flag at the intersection of A1A and Atlantic Avenue.

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

More than 150 people honored the nation’s fallen heroes during ceremonies at South Palm Beach Town Hall.

Featured speakers were Florida Sen. Jeff Clemens, Rabbi Leibel Stolik of Chabad of South Palm Beach

and the Rev. Ronald Williams of First Baptist Church of Lantana.

Veronica and Marializ De Jesus, daughters of Town Clerk Maylee De Jesus, entertained the crowd with their baton twirling.

Dan Moffett/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

    New Yorker Allen “Chick” Behringer started coming to Briny Breezes for visits in 2002 and then bought a residence here in 2008.
When he heard about the recent opening on the Town Council created by the resignation of Ira Friedman, Behringer said he also heard a call to public service.
    “I’m retired and living here full-time now,” he said. “Other than doing some travel, I want to do something for the community which I happen to love. I want to keep it as it is. I want to keep it functional.”
    Council members unanimously approved Behringer for Friedman’s open alderman’s seat at the May 26 meeting. A former resident of Oak Beach, Long Island and New York City, Behringer said he worked for “20-some-odd years” in corporate sales and ran a small business that manufactured signs for another 20 years. The council filled another vacancy during the meeting when council members approved Councilwoman Christina Adams as the town’s deputy bookkeeper.
     In other business, Council President Sue Thaler said the Florida Department of Transportation told the town it is willing to approve an A1A golf cart crossing at Marina Drive and Ruthmary Avenue if the Briny Breezes corporation changes the direction of Marina Drive traffic to eastbound.
    “I’m not sure if that’s good news or bad news,” Thaler said.
    Ocean Ridge Police Chief Hal Hutchins, the town marshal, said the direction change would require switching the angle of the parking spaces on Marina. Hutchins said it might be possible to satisfy the state’s condition by making Marina a two-way street that allows east and west flow across A1A. Thaler said the FDOT letter arrived shortly before the meeting, and the Town Council will wait to hear from the corporation before discussing the possible changes.