By Willie Howard

    A Boca Raton-based environmental consulting firm has taken over monitoring sea turtle nests on South Palm Beach, ending decades of monitoring by Robert Schonfeld, also known as the “turtle man.”
    Schonfeld started monitoring sea turtles along the five-eighths-mile stretch of beach in South Palm Beach in 1993.
    Working with other volunteers, such as Mary Lacorazza-Genova, he marked nests to protect the turtle eggs and provided data on the number of and type of nests as well as false crawls — those times when female turtles crawl up the beach but don’t lay eggs.
    The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, which regulates sea turtle monitoring on beaches, recently updated its permit requirements and did not renew Schonfeld’s permit for 2017.  Schonfeld, 81, sold his South Palm Beach condominium two years ago and moved to Boynton Beach, four miles from the oceanfront.
    “I had a good run,” he said. “For 25 years, I enjoyed the work I did on the beach very much. But it’s in good hands now.”
    Town Manager Bob Vitas said the Town Council plans to honor Schonfeld for his service.
    Consulting firm D.B. Ecological Services, which monitors sea turtles on Delray Beach and the town of Palm Beach (under contracts with those municipalities related to permits for beach widening), agreed to pick up daily sea turtle monitoring on South Palm Beach at no charge beginning March 1, the start of the sea turtle nesting season.
    “We just picked it up because it needed to be done and we didn’t want to see a hole in the data,” company President Christine Perretta said.
    Meghan Koperski, an FWC biologist who oversees marine turtle permitting, said the November 2016 update of permit requirements was not meant to screen out volunteers.
    Volunteers monitor more than half of Florida’s sea turtle nesting beaches, Koperski said.
     “We have far more volunteers throughout the state than we do paid contractors,” Koperski said. “We greatly value all individuals who are contributing sea turtle nesting survey data, both volunteers and paid contractors.”
Dan Moffett contributed to this story.

By Steve Plunkett
    
    Gulf Stream Town Hall version 2.0 is on its way.
    A 24-foot-wide by 29-foot-deep addition on the west side of the building will provide new offices for the town manager and Gulf Stream’s staff attorney as well as additional space for storage.
    Architect Mark Marsh gave town commissioners a courtesy preview of the plan at their May 12 meeting. The Architectural Review and Planning Board, which had the final say, approved it May 22.
    “It’s going to be a very simple addition. It reflects the symmetry, the balance, the materials of the existing facility,” Marsh said.
    Town Manager Greg Dunham, who took over William Thrasher’s position May 1, will move into the northern half of the addition, while staff attorney Trey Nazzaro will occupy the southern half. Both offices have room for storage.
    “Even though in this age of internet … it’s a fallacy [that computers reduce paper records]. There’s more paperwork, more storage required,” Marsh said.
    Town Clerk Rita Taylor will relocate to Thrasher’s old office, and her space will become a conference room/library.
    “Contractors, subcontractors that want to review plans, they come in [to a space that’s] not really geared to any review of documents or research,” said Marsh, who regularly brings proposals to Town Hall. “Having a conference room of some kind is going to be a huge asset.”
    Marsh’s clients were pleased.
    “I think it looks good,” Commissioner Joan Orthwein said.
    Mayor Scott Morgan said: “It’s not only a good addition, but it’s a better use of space. I particularly like the way you’ve blended the outside elevation with the existing building so it looks like a natural, an original part of the building.”

    Two south county coastal cities continue to see rising numbers of drug overdoses along with increasing fatalities.
In Boynton Beach, police responded to 398 overdoses in 2016 resulting in 35 deaths.
    As of May 22, Boynton Beach police responded to 240 drug overdoses with 25 fatalities this year. If the overdose pace continues, the city will see 2017 overdoses eclipse last year’s number in late August.
    Delray Beach also has an escalating problem with overdoses. Many occur in its central core, between the interstate and the Intracoastal Waterway, according to police data.
    City police responded to 690 drug overdoses in 2016 with 65 of them fatal. As of May 18, police responded to 289 overdoses with 26 deaths this year. If the overdose pace continues, Delray Beach will see 2017 drug overdoses pass last year’s total in late November.
    As more powerful synthetic drugs are mixed with heroin, police in both cities don’t expect the overdose numbers to decrease.

Delray Beach

By Jane Smith

    Two Delray Beach city attorneys unveiled their consultant’s study of group homes to a rapt audience in mid-May at the Palm Beach County Sober Homes Task Force meeting.
    The study calls for mandatory certification of group homes and a distance requirement of 660 feet between them to avoid a clustering of the homes in a neighborhood. If both can’t be met, then the group home operator would have to apply for a special permit from the city to open for business.
    “The time is right for this,” said Terrill Pyburn, a special attorney hired by Delray Beach. “We now have data from the Task Force and all of the arrests. … It’s not just people crying wolf.”
    The State Attorney’s Task Force was formed in July. Its law enforcement subgroup has arrested about 30 treatment center and sober home operators on patient brokering charges.
    Delray Beach, called the “recovery capital of America” in 2007, has been fighting that branding for years.
    In 2012, it settled a federal discrimination lawsuit filed by the Caron Foundation. Caron wanted to open a recovery residence in an oceanfront mansion, but the city’s rules at the time denied it. Under the settlement, Caron was able to open the seaside sober home.
    “The goal of the zoning regulations as they are being drafted is to protect residents of sober homes from abuse, mistreatment, exploitation, theft and fraud — and to ensure the support needed to achieve long-term sobriety,” Mayor Cary Glickstein said in an email.  “The proposed regulations are being drafted to save lives.”
    Plans call for the group homes ordinance to be reviewed this month by a city board, then onto the City Commission in late July or early August.
    In January, Delray Beach commissioners hired a longtime planner, Daniel Lauber from the Chicago area, to study group homes in the city.
    His 57-page study was finished in early May. He found the city had many more than its share of group homes.
    City planning staff identified 183 sober homes, said Tim Stillings, planning director. “We have a list of all those properties which have applied for reasonable accommodations,” he said. “All are sober homes.”
    A sober home is a type of group home where residents are protected by federal discrimination laws when they live together as a family and maintain sobriety.
    Lauber also recommended mandatory certification for group homes in Delray Beach. For sober homes, the state recognizes the Florida Association of Recovery Residences as the certifying body.
    The consultant also helped Prescott, Arizona, draft its group homes ordinances with an 800-foot buffer between the group homes.
    The ordinance was twice investigated for violating the Fair Housing Act by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. One complaint was dropped in 2015 and the other forwarded to the Justice Department. In February, the Prescott city attorney said he had received a letter saying the Justice Department dropped its investigation, according to news reports.

    At the Task Force meeting, moderator Al Johnson, assistant chief state attorney, said, “I wish the Prescott investigation had resulted in a court case. We need that to convince the state Health and Human Services Department in 2018 that certification of sober homes should be mandatory.”
    Delray Beach City Attorney Max Lohman replied, “The biggest win as a municipal attorney is Justice saying it is closing the investigation.”
    But attorney James Green, who represented the Caron Foundation, said, “A sober home operator is not required to exhaust administrative remedies by filing a HUD complaint first.
    “The distance requirements generally do not pass judicial muster under the Fair Housing Act. If you want to live in a predominantly sober home neighborhood, you have the right to do it.”
    Green said Delray Beach already has the tools to regulate group homes: “Fair application of its zoning codes.”

Boynton Beach

By Jane Smith

    The proposed group homes ordinance in Boynton Beach passed its first hurdle in late May when the city’s Planning and Development Board unanimously approved it.
    That approval put in place a “zoning in progress” situation, ending the city’s legally questionable moratorium on group home applications and banning new applications while the new rule is considered.
    At the May 23 meeting, the city’s Planning and Zoning director handed out updates to the board members.
    “We’re up against the moratorium deadline” of June 4, said Mike Rumpf, the director.
    David Katz, the board chairman, asked, “Why not do another moratorium of three or six months?”
    Rumpf said it wouldn’t work, “given the subject matter.”
    The City Commission will have its first reading of the ordinance on June 20, followed by the second reading and a public hearing on July 18, Rumpf said.
    The big changes in the ordinance are: mandatory certification for a new group home unless it has a charter from a nationally recognized group; existing group homes will have until Oct. 1, 2018, to become certified; a 300-foot distance requirement between the group homes; and new parking regulations for the entire neighborhood that require at least one space per bedroom.
    Vehicles must be parked in the driveway, if the home has one. The city bans using the front lawns to provide extra parking.
    Group homes provide housing for people with a range of disabilities. They can include homes for blind people and for drug and alcohol abusers.
    The issue came to the forefront in the past few years as the number of sober homes grew in residential neighborhoods.
 Sober homes are a type of group home where more than three unrelated people live together as a family and are protected by federal anti-discrimination laws as long as the residents maintain their sobriety.
    In Palm Beach County, rogue sober home operators have given the business a bad reputation with patient brokering charges and illegal marketing ploys.
    “We want to preserve the neighborhood character for all,” Rumpf said.
Sober homes want to be in neighborhoods to help their patients re-engage with the community, he said.
    Boynton Beach has 50 sober homes and another 14 assisted living facilities, all operating as group homes, Rumpf said.
    Of those, seven are certified by the Florida Association of Recovery Residences, the only certification recognized by the state. John Lehman, CEO/chairman of the association, said another 11 Boynton Beach sober homes had applied for certification.
DCF licenses substance abuse treatment centers statewide where addicts first go for inpatient rehab.
Boynton Beach may see court challenges to its distance requirement. Rumpf said 300 feet was included to prevent clustering of the group homes and creating an institutional-like setting.
But some anti-discrimination attorneys disagree.
“Most courts ruled that separation requirements are not legal under the Fair Housing Act,” said James Green, a West Palm Beach lawyer who has successfully sued local cities for housing discrimination against substance abusers.
    Boynton Beach also wants to collect annual business tax receipts from the property owner who rents the home and from the group home operator.

By Steve Plunkett
    
    A proposed three-story garage that Place Au Soleil feared would bring unwelcome noise and light will instead be a concrete reminder of good-neighborliness.
    Eleventh-hour negotiations between Gulf Stream and Gunther Volvo resulted in a series of concessions just before Delray Beach’s Site Plan Review and Appearance Board gave the project its final OK.
    Four members of the public commented at the May 10 SPRAB meeting — Gulf Stream Mayor Scott Morgan, Place Au Soleil Homeowners Association President Chet Snavely, resident Julio Martinez and Ann Bennett, a Place Au Soleil resident and vice president of the town’s Civic Association. All were in favor.
    “I figure that we are going to be looking at this garage for the next 50 to 100 years, so it was important to us that we get a project that was digestible. I think, I hope that we’ve gotten to that point,” Snavely said.
    How the car dealership will control lights on the garage’s upper level, where its employees will park, led to the breakthrough of using motion sensors. Gunther lawyer Matthew Scott said it was too soon to say whether such devices would do the job.
    “We just had an aha moment about motion sensors today,” he told the review board.
    If the sensors will not work or if Delray Beach police do not approve the idea, Gunther will turn off half of the top-level lights at 9 p.m. and the remainder at 10. Delray Beach code would have allowed the lights to stay on until 11.
    Morgan, who called Gunther’s efforts “very reasonable,” sent a letter to town residents detailing changes the dealership would make. Among them:
    • Adding black honeycomb grilles to openings in the walls to cut noise and light, and recessing interior lights in the ceilings.
    • Moving the site for offloading vehicles from the east side of the property, next to Place Au Soleil, to the south side and restricting offloading to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays. (“There will be no weekend delivery and it will not be at night,” Scott told the board.)
    • Adding a dense tree line to the 20 existing oaks on the east property line.
    • Making the perimeter berm higher and adding a wall on top, effectively making a 10-foot sound barrier.
    • Buying new car washing equipment designed to minimize noise and putting it inside the garage to make it even quieter.
    • Relocating the trash bin from the east side to the south side.
    • Not installing a public-address system outdoors.
    Review board member Linda Purdo-Enochs complimented both sides “for working together and finding a happy medium.”
    Gunther will also plant three more sabal palms at the southeast corner of the garage to screen it from the Delray Preserve apartment complex.
    The dealership’s current showroom is showing signs of age, Scott said. “It’s not exciting. It’s not fresh,” he said.
    Volvo is rebranding itself to get away from a historical emphasis on safety and become cool, Scott said. Gunther’s dated furniture inside will be replaced with a modern, warm, Scandinavian design.
    Under Delray Beach’s comprehensive plan, auto dealerships are “specifically directed” to the east side of Federal Highway north of Delray Preserve, city senior planner Amy Alvarez said. The garage, which will be 65 feet away from Place Au Soleil at its closest, could have been 10 feet away and met code, Scott said.
    Fort Lauderdale-based Gunther paid AutoNation $13.5 million in 2012 for the Volvo and neighboring Volkswagen dealerships.
Snavely said letters he and the HOA overnighted to Joseph “Jay” Gunther Jr. and Joseph Gunther III were game changers. The older Gunther emailed back that he wanted “to work with you folks. You are our neighbors,” Snavely said.
    Relations between the car lot and Gulf Stream were less cordial in the months leading to the garage-showroom’s OK.
    As recently as mid-April, Snavely said the dealership was intransigent. “Volvo was not interested in spending any money for any redesign,” he said.

Related Story: As overdose numbers soar, cities seek sober home regulation

By Mary Hladky

    Previous efforts to crack down on unscrupulous drug treatment centers and sober homes have largely languished in the Florida Legislature.
    But that changed in the session that ended in May, when significant legislation was passed that cracked down on some of the worst practices of the addiction treatment industry, empowered the state Department of Children and Families to regulate treatment centers, and imposed stiff penalties for possession of fentanyl, an opioid painkiller.
    The skyrocketing death toll arising from the opioid crisis focused legislative attention on the problems. Gov. Rick Scott declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency last month.
    Deaths in Palm Beach County jumped from 305 in 2015 to 592 last year, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office. Delray Beach, the reputed epicenter of the crisis in the county, had 77 overdoses in April, with six resulting in death, city police said last month. That was up from 57 in April 2016.
    Another important factor was the work of the Sober Homes Task Force, launched last year with $275,000 in state funding by State Attorney Dave Aronberg to investigate allegations of fraud and abuse and propose solutions.
    The task force and a grand jury issued reports on the vast scope of the problems and recommended new legislation. They found rampant deceptive marketing, insurance fraud, patient brokering, sexual abuse and forced labor.
    Chief Assistant State Attorney Al Johnson, who heads the task force, traveled frequently to Tallahassee to press legislators to take action. Although he could not lobby, Aronberg joined him for the final week of the legislative session.
    “We did better than we hoped,” Johnson said. “It was a barnburner.”
    Speaking of wide-ranging legislation introduced by state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, and state Rep. Bill Hager, R-Boca Raton, Johnson said, “We didn’t know it would pass until the day before the session ended. I’ve got more gray hairs than I used to have.”

Industry recognizes issue
    While there was some opposition to the bills, which were consolidated under Hager’s version, Johnson said the addiction treatment industry generally knew that better regulation is needed.
    “The problem is so severe that the industry realizes it will implode if corrective action isn’t taken against these bad actors,” he said. “If we don’t get a handle on the bad actors and bad practices in the industry, parents will stop sending their children to Florida for treatment.”
    Most of the young addicts treated in Florida come from out of state, and word is spreading that there are problems here.
    Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey issued a warning in April, after receiving many reports of state residents being recruited to “so-called” treatment centers in Florida, Arizona and California. She urged anyone receiving an unsolicited referral to out-of-state centers to be wary.
    John Lehman, CEO of the Florida Association of Recovery Residences, a nonprofit that oversees voluntary certification of sober homes for DCF, praised Aronberg and Johnson for their efforts.
    “All credit for successfully accomplishing that push at the last hour goes to Aronberg and Johnson,” he said. “They did a phenomenal job.”
    Delray Beach Mayor Cary Glickstein said legislation alone won’t solve all the problems. Yet “the new law, if adopted by the governor, represents more effective tools in how we combat exploitation and abuses of vulnerable people within a wholly unregulated industry that has thus far produced little tangible evidence of success while it enjoys impunity and huge profits predicated on human suffering, “ he said in an email.
    Provisions of the Clemens/Hager legislation 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 DCF to regulate treatment centers. DCF will draft rules on administrative and clinical standards by January, and licensing fees will be increased substantially to help pay for the increased regulation. Effective July 1.
    Other notable new laws include:
    • Creating tough penalties for possession of fentanyl, a painkiller as much as 100 times more potent than morphine, and similar substances. Heroin is often cut with fentanyl, making it far more deadly. The substances are added to the list of drugs that can result in murder charges for the dealer if the buyer dies. Effective Oct. 1.
    • Enhancing collection of overdose data by allowing emergency medical personnel to report overdoses to the Florida Department of Health. The law also requires hospital emergency departments to establish over-dose policies. Effective Oct. 1.
    • Limiting the initial amount of opioids prescribed to a five-day supply. Prescriptions filled for controlled substances must be entered in a state prescription drug monitoring database by the end of the next business day. Effective July 1.

Task Force will continue
    The work of the Sober Homes Task Force will continue for at least another year, provided a $300,000 appropriation by lawmakers to fund it is not vetoed by the governor. Scott, angered that lawmakers ignored some of his top legislative priorities, was considering a state budget veto last month.
    FARR, however, was not so fortunate. Lehman had requested $275,000, but the Legislature appropriated only $100,000. Even that amount is uncertain with the possibility of a budget veto.
    That comes after the Legislature last year appropriated no money for FARR’s operations, leaving Lehman to subsist on donations and loans.
    At the end of May, Lehman was scrambling to come up with additional money. “We’re hopeful that we can raise the $175,000 and the governor won’t veto our $100,000,” he said.

County pilot funded
    The Legislature also appropriated $500,000 for the county’s Opioid Abuse Pilot Program launched early this year.
    The concept is to offer people who overdose support services after they leave the emergency room. People treated at JFK Medical Center in Atlantis can volunteer to enter the program. They are treated with Suboxone, a drug that curbs withdrawal symptoms. After release, they are visited at home, administered tapering doses of the drug and offered counseling.
    As of May 30, Scott had not made a decision on the state budget and had not signed the drug-related legislation into law, although it is widely believed he will do so.
    Although those pushing for stricter regulation of the addiction treatment industry are well pleased with their victories in the Legislature, they agree there is more work to be done.
    Plans for additional proposed legislation are in the very early stages, but the Sober Homes Task Force again will have a leading role.
    One priority, Johnson said, is getting more funding for FARR. “It is important FARR be adequately funded,” he said.
    The task force also will be active in helping DCF create rules to regulate treatment centers.
    DCF funding may become an issue. The agency was given a huge mandate, but increased funding is limited to the revenue from higher licensing fees.
    “The success of the DCF legislation will depend on adequate funding,” Johnson said. “If you don’t have full-time employees to do the job, all the laws and rules are meaningless.”

Are sober homes commerce?
    One matter under consideration is whether sober homes are commercial businesses, and therefore not exempt from mandatory regulation. The Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act recognize addiction as a disability, which has made it difficult for government to regulate sober homes.
    “We need to get rid of the flophouses,” Johnson said.
    The task force also is looking at whether it is possible to provide rent subsidies. Health insurance pays for substance abuse treatment, but does not cover the sober homes that provide beds to those getting treatment.
    This is a difficult issue because the task force does not want open-ended subsidies that would create cycles of relapse, Johnson said.
    Another matter drawing task force attention is the prohibition against working at or owning a drug rehab facility if the person has a prior felony drug conviction. People who want to help addicts many times are former addicts who have insight into how to break the cycle of drug use, he said.
    “There is more we can do,” Johnson said. “We are not going to prosecute our way out of this.”
    Jane Smith contributed to this story.

By Dan Moffett

    The landlords of Manalapan’s Plaza del Mar hoped to be knocking down buildings to make way for a new Publix by now.
    They’re not, for two reasons: The supermarket chain’s architects haven’t been able to design a sign that is tasteful enough to satisfy the taste-conscious town commissioners. And a lawsuit against the project filed by Lantana resident Barbara Federico is still wending its way through the courts.
    Matt Buehler, retail vice president with plaza landlord Kitson & Partners, says demolition won’t begin until the two obstacles are removed.
    “People don’t realize this is a $10 million project,” Buehler said. “We can’t risk it.”
    Buehler and Publix have been trying to sell town commissioners on a sign design for six months now — a design that is far more understated than the familiar green-and-white logo that marks hundreds of the company’s storefronts throughout the Southeast.
    The latest failure came during the May 15 town meeting, when commissioners rejected a white-and-black, non-illuminated version they criticized as discordant with Manalapan’s unique sense of itself.
    Two newly seated commissioners, promoted from the town’s architectural board in March, led the opposition.
    “The discussions I participated in at ArCom, we focused on the fitness, charm, the compatibility with the overall ambiance of the town,” Commissioner Jack Doyle said. “While this sign may be perfectly nice and utilitarian, it does not in my view add to the overall character and ambiance of the town.”
    “Six months later, we’re still where we were,” Commissioner Hank Siemon said, asserting that Publix has ignored design suggestions from town officials. “Personally, I think we should look at the Eau sign and use that as a template. That’s a beautiful sign.”
    Across the street from the plaza, the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa has a metal sign with raised lettering that casts shadows when softly illuminated. Doyle said the Eau’s design is “classy and speaks to the character of the town.”
    Buehler said the town had given him a list of seven design requests at the last meeting on signage, and Publix had addressed all seven. Mayor Keith Waters agreed but said the commission is “a house divided.”
    Waters told Buehler to bring back a revised version of the white-and-black sign, along with an Eau-inspired design, to the town’s June 13 meeting and the commission will choose between the two.
    “We will approve one or the other. You have the commitment of the town,” the mayor said. “I don’t want to continue kicking this can down the road.”
    Meanwhile, town officials are hopeful a ruling on the Federico lawsuit will come this month. Federico, who lives about 500 feet from the plaza, objects to the size of the store, claiming it is too large for the space.
    Her suit also alleges the town did not follow its own rules in approving building plans for the supermarket.
    “It is inappropriate for the community and incompatible with the area,” she says.
    Town Attorney Keith Davis has said the plaza plan complies with the town’s code and commissioners acted lawfully in approving it.
    Though demolition is on hold, officials believe work still can begin this summer and the Publix can open early next year.

By Dan Moffett

    The prospect of lower rates and improved customer relations was enough to persuade Hypoluxo council members to end a decades-old relationship with Manalapan and switch to Boynton Beach for water services.
    On May 17, the Town Council unanimously approved a plan to negotiate an early end to the current contract with Manalapan and work out the final details of a deal to join Boynton’s fast-growing utility system.
    “We heard proposals from both of the competing water utilities, and they were pretty clear to understand,”  Mayor Michael Brown said. “I think, without a doubt, Boynton Beach’s offer was much more beneficial to the town of Hypoluxo.”
    Boynton has offered in-city rates to Hypoluxo, the same prices that Boynton residents are paying. The roughly 550 Hypoluxo customers who get their water from Manalapan can expect an immediate 25 percent decrease in their bills, Boynton officials have said.
    “Our rates are low because we have great economies of scale,” said Colin Groff, Boynton’s utilities director.
    With more than 110,000 customers, Boynton’s system is about 12 times larger than Manalapan’s. “We just can’t compete with what they’re offering,” said Linda Stumpf, the Manalapan town manager.
    Boynton also provides automated billing and meter reading to its customers, services Manalapan doesn’t have.
    Still to be resolved are  Hypoluxo’s buyout terms with Manalapan. The contract between the two municipalities is scheduled to expire in 2020. Boynton officials have told Hypoluxo they will cover some of the town’s costs to get out of the Manalapan agreement. Brown said he hopes the switch can be completed by this summer.
    “We’ll move as quickly as we can to get council’s approval,” Brown said. “It could be 30 days, it could be 60 days, it just depends how quickly we move through the process.”
    With Hypoluxo’s exit, Manalapan’s utility loses a significant cash stream — roughly $1.3 million in revenue — that could affect its operation over the long term. Stumpf said the town is exploring other options for the utility.

By Steve Plunkett
    
    A new potential for heavy growth on Federal Highway at the Woolbright Road and Ocean Avenue intersections has the barrier island-based Florida Coalition for Preservation sounding the alarms.
    Boynton Beach has changed its comprehensive plan, future land use map, zoning and all its land development regulations to permit much denser growth than before at the bases of the bridges to the island, said Kristine de Haseth, the coalition’s executive director.
    All four quadrants at Woolbright and Federal are zoned “multiuse high,” which allows buildings up to 150 feet tall with 80 units per acre. By comparison, she told Gulf Stream town commissioners at their May meeting, Gulf Stream’s single-family neighborhoods have about 1.5 units per acre.
    “So 80 units per acre is quite a difference,” de Haseth said.
    The situation is more congested at Ocean Avenue, which is part of a “transportation overlay district” that gets a 25 percent bonus on density.
    “So rather than having 80 units per acre, they could have 100 units per acre,” de Haseth said. “Now we’re talking real urbanization. … Those are the type of numbers you see in Fort Lauderdale and Miami.”
    A new developer recently bought Las Ventanas apartments for $109 million. “He could add an additional five stories to the five-story buildings that he has. And he could also increase his density, which is now 33, up to 80,” de Haseth said.
    The same thing could happen at the foot of the Woolbright Road bridge, where the “functioning obsolescent” Bermuda Cay rental development and neighboring, 60-year-old Snug Harbor Gardens Villas are probably the next parcels to be redeveloped, de Haseth said.
    “That doesn’t mean that is what will happen. But that is what Boynton has said their 20-year planning operation is moving toward, and that’s what they would like to see there,” she said.
    Architect Mark Marsh, at the Gulf Stream meeting for another issue, shared de Haseth’s pessimistic outlook. “What’s ahead is pretty scary,” said Marsh, who lives in Ocean Ridge.
    De Haseth said the main concern is access to the barrier island for emergency vehicles. Boynton Beach fire-rescue’s Station 1 across the Ocean Avenue bridge responds to the northern end of Ocean Ridge, while Station 4 across Woolbright covers the southern end of Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes.
    “So it’s one thing to have increased traffic; it’s one thing to have increased foot traffic over your bridge maybe not being respectful to your dunes or your beaches. It’s one thing to have petty crime that increases because of increased density and pressures from the west to the east,” de Haseth said. “It’s another thing if you have a heart attack, God forbid, and the fire-EMT station can’t get to you, and then furthermore, it can’t get back to the other side.”
    De Haseth said the coalition will pursue three initiatives to unite the island from Manalapan to Delray Beach: a unified fire-EMT department, a contiguous license plate recognition system and a barrier island traffic study.
    The idea of a unified fire-EMT department won’t gain traction until the municipalities do the second phase of a study and determine how much it will cost, she said.
    “There’s been talk of putting a heliport on top of St. Andrew’s [beachside club]; there’s been a bunch of different, really interesting ideas that are out of the box,” de Haseth said.
    The license plate recognition program was dealt a blow when Briny Breezes ended its fire-rescue agreement with Ocean Ridge, which had planned to put cameras at the town’s south border, she said.
    Delray Beach has instituted a program, Ocean Ridge is budgeting for it and Manalapan has had one for years, she said. Briny Breezes’ town marshal, Chris Yannuzzi of the Boynton Beach Police Department, told the Briny council several months ago that he would explore the feasibility of tying into Boynton Beach’s tag-recognition system.
    “It has to be a continuity with all the municipalities, not just one or two,” de Haseth said.
    And with Ocean Ridge talking about making some streets one-way and Briny Breezes taking ownership of its section of Old Ocean Boulevard, the island towns should undertake a comprehensive traffic study, she said.
    “I think there has to be a realization that each of these municipalities — whatever one does affects the other obviously,” de Haseth said.
    De Haseth made a similar presentation in Ocean Ridge.
    She also said the coalition will sponsor lunches for barrier island mayors and town managers at least once a quarter “to get everybody together outside the League of Cities … and just sit down and talk about what is happening in their municipalities. Chances are it’s happening in the one right next door.”

By Dan Moffett

    Ocean Ridge is 86 years old, essentially built-out and with a population that has stayed largely stable through the past two decades.
    But this doesn’t mean the town can avoid growing pains.
    Town commissioners are finding that out as they begin to put together the budget for fiscal 2018.
    Increased traffic to the beach from across the bridge has brought calls for more police presence and road improvements. A surge in home renovation and new construction has exposed a need for more administrative staffing. More police, more building and more office activity are bringing complaints about the town’s outdated computer systems.
    These were some of the problems the Town Commission confronted at its first budget workshop on May 22. It will be July until commissioners get hard numbers on taxable values from the county Property Appraiser’s Office and make detailed decisions on spending and property tax rates.
    Until then, here are some of the issues commissioners are considering:
    • Adding two police officers to help deal with growing numbers of beachgoers from outside the town. Police Chief Hal Hutchins told commissioners it will cost roughly $156,000 in salaries and benefits for the two hires. Hutchins said the department also needs another dispatcher, at a cost of about $47,000.
    The chief said it would take about $27,500 to provide Tasers for all his officers and $50,000 to equip them with body cameras. “I’m bringing up everything you’ve asked for,” Hutchins told commissioners.
    • Town Manager Jamie Titcomb is proposing to add a full-time position to the administrative staff to handle increasing requests for building permits and do code inspections. Revenues from permits are on track to double from five years ago to about $400,000 annually. Titcomb said the increasing revenue warrants overhauling the staff to add a full-time building inspector and a part-time clerk. He said providing services in-house, rather than hiring outside contractors, would be more efficient and less costly. With some reassignments of existing staff, the overhaul could cost around $200,000.
    “The intent is to enhance service and get you more bang for the buck,” Titcomb said.
    • Both Titcomb and Hutchins said the town needs to upgrade its information technology systems. Titcomb told commissioners that last year the administration’s accounting software crashed, zapping data and complicating what was a torturous budget process that dragged on for five months. Titcomb said the town had to hire a specialist to retrieve the lost data. The cost of new software and upgrading the system is undetermined.
    Hutchins said his officers need to upgrade laptops, operating systems and office computers. He recommended spending $27,000 annually for three years to bring the department up to speed.
    • Town Clerk Tracey Stevens told commissioners the town is receiving about $9,000 a month from the penny sales tax increase that voters approved in November. The law requires that the money be spent on infrastructure, which is generally defined as installed devices or constructed improvements that are designed to last at least five years.
    Commissioner Steve Coz has proposed using the money for traffic calming devices, and Commissioner Don MaGruder suggested using it to rebuild the Woolbright Road detention/retention pond.

By Steve Plunkett

    Ocean Ridge officials have an outside attorney standing by to defend them in case former Vice Mayor Richard Lucibella makes good on his threat to sue the town for alleged police brutality.
    Lucibella’s lawyer, Marc Shiner, said fellow West Palm Beach attorney Andrea Amigo represents the town “in anticipation of litigation that has not been filed.”
    Lucibella, 63, is charged with battery on a police officer and resisting the officer with violence, both felonies, as well as a misdemeanor count of using a firearm while under the influence of alcohol. He has pleaded not guilty; his trial is set to begin July 21.
    Shiner scheduled depositions on June 7 of Police Chief Hal Hutchins, Town Commissioner Steve Coz and Town Manager Jamie Titcomb. The next day he plans to question police Lt. Richard Jones, who handled the department’s internal investigation of Lucibella’s arrest, and current Vice Mayor Jim Bonfiglio.
    Shiner also asked Circuit Judge Charles Burton to bar Amigo from attending the depositions because she is a “nonparty” attorney in the case. A hearing was scheduled for June 2.
    Amigo’s firm was retained by Ocean Ridge’s insurance company, Town Attorney Glen Torcivia said. Amigo, whose legal specialties include government agency liability, declined to talk about Lucibella.
    “We cannot discuss potential litigation,” she said.
    At the commission’s May 22 budget workshop, Bonfiglio spoke of setting aside money for “the Lucibella matter—that’s not pending yet but I know it’s threatened.”
    Shiner has also scheduled depositions for July 11 of Kim Hutchins, the chief’s wife, Mayor Geoff Pugh and police Sgt. William Hallahan, now retired. He will depose arresting officers Nubia Plesnik and Richard Emeri the following day. Hallahan, Plesnik and Emeri went to Lucibella’s oceanfront home Oct. 22 after neighbors reported hearing gunfire. They confiscated a .40-caliber handgun and found five spent shell casings on the backyard patio.
    With Lucibella was one of the officers’ supervisors, Lt. Steven Wohlfiel. Both men were “obviously intoxicated,” the police said.
    During the arrest, Lucibella was pinned to the patio pavers and suffered injuries to his face and ribs. Shiner has said the police overreacted.
    Officers later determined the confiscated handgun belonged to Wohlfiel, who was fired for his role in the incident Jan. 4.  
    Wohlfiel is appealing his dismissal. His position has not been filled.
    Lucibella resigned his vice mayor and town commissioner positions Dec. 7.
    Burton has set aside four weeks for the trial.
Rich Pollack contributed to this story.

Smoke-free zone signs are in place at Oceanfront Park.

Tom Warnke/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

    Boynton Beach has created a voluntary smoke-free zone at its Oceanfront Park.
    “People will still be able to smoke in designated areas of the park. It’s more of a courtesy thing,” said Mayor Steven Grant. “I want to promote a family-friendly city where respect for others is important.”
    The idea came from an unnamed resident, Grant said.
    The city’s Parks Department purchased portable ashtrays using a Keep Palm Beach County Beautiful grant, said Colin Groff, an assistant city manager. The ashtrays are given to smokers to use in the parking lot and on the boardwalk. That way, butts might not end up on the ground.
    Cigarette filters contain man-made products that take years to break down, according to the PreventCigaretteLitter.org website.
    In early May, the city posted three signs about the voluntary program at Oceanfront Park. Each sign cost $10 to make because Boynton Beach has its own sign shop. The signs read: “Breathe freely. Voluntary smoke free zone. Please smoke in parking lot and on boardwalk.” The no-smoking program is voluntary and won’t be enforced, Groff said.
    Florida does not have an outdoor clean air act that bans smoking in public spaces, said Groff.

By Mary Thurwachter

    Cynthia Cain goes to the beach every day.
    “I’m not much of a sunbather type of girl, but I like to walk along the shore and swim,” the Lantana resident said. “I have six grandchildren 10 and under and I like to take them, too.”
    But by the third weekend in May, Cain wasn’t loving the beach so much. She said she was “totally disgusted with all the seaweed” that was covering the beach. It has been bad for a while, she said, but that weekend, she had seen enough.
    After sending several emails to the Town Council and Town Manager Deborah Manzo asking for the beach to be cleaned of the seaweed, she attended the May 22 town meeting. Mayor Dave Stewart had her complaint added to the agenda for discussion.
    There was discussion, but no action was taken, at least not the kind Cain wanted.
    “Seaweed cannot be removed,” said Stewart. “It’s a Town Council policy.”
    Vice Mayor Lynn Moorhouse added: “I don’t think it’s legal.”
    Seaweed, Moorhouse said, is essential for marine life. It keeps replacement sand on beaches, offers crucial delicacies such as crabs and snails to seabirds, and provides nutrients to plants on dunes.
    And not removing it is what Dan Bates, deputy director of the Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resources Management, recommends, according to Stewart.
    “A month ago, I was on the beach for the Earth Day cleanup and I didn’t see a problem with it,” Stewart said.
    Not complying with what Bates recommends could cost the town millions for beach restoration, council members suggested.
    Council member Ed Shropshire said: “I know it’s not pretty and doesn’t smell good, but it’s part of the environment. In three weeks it’ll be gone, washed back into the sea.”
    Council member Phil Aridas said he wasn’t in favor of moving the seaweed. “You can always kick it aside and lay down your beach blanket.”
    But Cain wasn’t buying it. “Quite honestly, we have the worst beach around,” she said, “and I’m not the only one saying it. The lifeguard hears about it all day.”
    A beach stabilization project has been delayed by a year because project managers don’t have all the easement agreements and government permits they need to begin work.
    In other action, the council:
    • Authorized spending $4,658 from the town’s Law Enforcement Trust fund for enhanced ballistic body armor for the Police Department.
    • Heard a report on the Greater Lantana School Community Education Council from Chairwoman Lyn Tate.
    • Set its first budget workshop for 5:30 p.m. June 12.

By Dan Moffett

    The Briny Breezes Town Council is moving forward with plans to create an administrative position and to hire a part-time manager to fill it before the end of the summer.
    Council President Sue Thaler said she hopes to assemble a volunteer committee of several residents during the June 22 town meeting to help define the job description for the new manager’s position.
    Thaler will provide much of the background information for the committee to consider. She says she is working between 20 and 25 hours a week for the town without pay, handling administrative duties no one else is willing to do. Thaler said she won’t continue doing the work much longer.
    “I’m not going to leave the town in a lurch, but I’m not going to keep doing it on an unpaid basis,” she said. “It’s too time-consuming.”
    Briny Breezes is the only municipality of the 39 in Palm Beach County that does not have some version of a paid administrator. That includes even towns that are smaller than Briny, such as Glen Ridge and Cloud Lake.
    “We needed this a long time ago,” said Alderman Bobby Jurovaty, saying that running the town is much more complicated today than decades ago. “Sue is just doing too much as a volunteer, and it’s not right. We need a professional in that seat helping us.”
    Council members set aside $50,000 in the 2016-17 budget to pay for a combination clerk-manager position. They filled the clerk job in November, hiring Jackie Ermola, but could not find qualified applicants for the part-time manager’s role. The council hopes to use the unspent money set aside last year to hire an experienced manager soon. Thaler said a couple of promising candidates have come forward in recent weeks.
    In other business:
    • Corporate board member Tom Oglesby gave the council a revised version of the Green Sheet, the town’s building permit application and rules, that the corporation has been working on for more than a year.
    Oglesby said the overhauled form is more concise, clearer and updated to include recent changes in flood zone requirements. It also explains what work requires permitting and what doesn’t.
    “It’s not perfect,” Oglesby said, “but it’s a lot better.”
    The town’s Planning and Zoning Board is scheduled to review the new form at 1 p.m. on June 22. Board Chairman Jerry Lower said the panel is prepared to move quickly to advance the form to the council for final approval.
    • The Florida Department of Transportation has rejected the town’s plans for putting a golf cart crossing at A1A and Cordova Avenue.
    FDOT officials told the town it must either turn Cordova into a two-way street or widen sidewalks to earn state approval.
    “Those aren’t our first choices,” Thaler said. “This is not the response we were hoping for.”
    The council is scheduled to hold a workshop at 1 p.m. on June 8 to discuss possible changes to the crossing plans.

Workshop members in Boca Raton take a walking tour of U.S. 1, also known as Federal Highway.

Workshops are set this month for Delray Beach and Boynton Beach.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

    As it stretches 42 miles from Camino Real in Boca Raton to Indiantown Road in Jupiter, U.S. 1 crosses through 14 municipalities.
    In some places along the stretch, you’ll find bike paths and sidewalks, in other places you’ll see sidewalks on only one side.
 You might also find intersections that need better lighting or improved traffic signals.
    Now, the Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Organization is working on a study that will create a blueprint for coordinated improvements along the east Palm Beach County corridor.
    “We’re creating a unified vision, but one that is feasible,” says Valerie Neilson, principal planner and multimodality manager for the organization’s U.S. 1 Multimodal Corridor Study. “We’re trying to create a plan that connects all of the communities.”
    The study, which began in February, is scheduled to wrap up by next spring and will include recommendations on what improvements can be made along the corridor. Once that is completed, the design phase can begin, setting the stage for implementation of the recommendations.
    Since U.S. 1 is a state road and falls under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Transportation, the MPO planners will be working closely with FDOT on the project to coordinate all efforts.
    While there will be a focus on bike paths and sidewalks and the “complete streets” concept, which addresses needs of pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists, the MPO study goes much further and looks at several areas of improvement.
    There’s a public transit element to the study, where teams will be looking at the stops along the way as well as schedules to ensure they’re both meeting the needs of the riders. Data show that U.S. 1 serves about 8,600 bus riders per day, making it the busiest bus route in the county. “We’re looking at how we can improve existing service,” Neilson said.
    The study also could identify bus-stop facilities to upgrade and recommend ways to improve the branding and images of buses along the corridor.
    Safety is a major focus of the study, as planners look for ways to reduce crashes.
    Between 2011 and 2016, there were 12 pedestrian fatalities and three bicycle fatalities along U.S. 1, all at night. The three bicycle fatalities took place in Boca Raton north of Glades Road.
    In that same time frame, there were 321 pedestrian or bicycle-involved crashes, with 82 percent of the bicycle crashes occurring in areas where there are no bike lanes.
    As part of the study, engineers and planners will look at traffic flow to see whether lane reductions might improve safety. They’ll also be looking at signals and speed limits.
    An innovative part of the study will include a health-impact assessment, in which planners will explore issues such as how difficult it is for people without cars to reach grocery stores safely.
    Funding for the $775,000 study is provided by the MPO, a collaborative organization governed by Palm Beach municipal and county elected leaders designed to identify and prioritize transportation projects.  
    As part of the process, the MPO team has been holding meetings with community members, the first of which took place last month in Boca Raton. During that meeting and a walking audit, the team heard from residents and community leaders who offered suggestions to improve safety and mass transit.
    A series of meetings will be held this month for Delray Beach and Boynton Beach residents and community leaders.  A combined workshop, which will include a walking audit, will take place 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 24 at the Boynton Beach Library, 208 Seacrest Blvd.
    In addition, there will be open-studio charrettes for both cities from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 27-28 at the Boynton Beach Clubhouse, 2240 N. Federal Highway.
    A workshop for Hypoluxo and Lantana will be July 22 at a location to be announced.
    The MPO will also have open-studio charrettes July 24-26 at a location to be determined. Workshops are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and open-studio charrettes are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
    For more information, visit www.us1pbcorridorstudy.com.

By Jane Smith

    The long-awaited iPic deal closed on May 16.
    The developer paid $3.6 million to the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency for 1.6 acres between Southeast Fourth and Fifth avenues, just south of Atlantic Avenue.
    When complete in 2020, the iPic complex will boast 497 luxury seats in eight screening rooms with a total of 44,979 square feet and a 42,446-square-foot office building where iPic has agreed to move its corporate headquarters and occupy 20,000 square feet for five years.
    The development also will include 7,847 square feet of retail space and a multilevel garage with 326 spaces, providing 90 public parking spaces.
    The deal, originally signed in December 2013, was controversial because the CRA didn’t notify nearby landowners of its intentions to sell the land. The agency relied on a change in state law that no longer required the notification.
    Over the years, the agreement was amended seven times, with the latest closing set for Jan. 31.
    As part of the closing, iPic was supposed to provide a parking plan for its construction workers and for customers in the 400 block of Atlantic while building its complex. The theater developer provided a draft version of its parking plan. Its development order from a city board called for iPic to use “best efforts” to find the temporary parking spaces for customers until the garage is finished.

James Blumenfeld, co-owner of Meridian Art Experience in Delray Beach’s Pineapple Grove,

displays works mainly from local artists and offers services for collectors.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

    James Blumenfeld and business partner Susan Romaine learned from their first meeting in 2014 that they had a mutual love of art, and their combined efforts since culminated in the Feb. 2 grand opening of Meridian Art Experience in the Pineapple Grove neighborhood of Delray Beach.
    The gallery aims to make the middle-art market affordable and approachable.
    “Our vehicle is to invite people in to experience original artwork,” said Blumenfeld, a St. Louis native who enjoyed great success in the corporate world prior to this venture. “Our tag line is ‘The fine line of living with art.’ Really just to be able to integrate all the different forms of art — anything you happen to love — into an environment that works for you.”
    While it’s been more by happenstance than by design, local artists have played a prominent role in the gallery at 170 NE Second Ave. Romaine, an artist herself, has used her connection in the South Florida community to feature up-and-comers largely ranging from Boca Raton to West Palm Beach.
    “I always had a passion for art,” said Blumenfeld, 54. “It started with becoming an art history major in college, probably even before then. I took art history as a survey course to fulfill a humanities requirement. I didn’t really know what I had stepped into, but I just fell in love with it.
    “It really was the history of the world, with visual arts as your looking glass. That, to me, was attractive. I love history and I just loved the idea of studying history with a visual connection. So that was the beginning of my love of art. I’ve been an admirer and collector of art ever since.”
    A Cardinals fan, Blumenfeld said he also has a passion for baseball. “Most people would never guess by meeting me, with my background and all that, that I’m a big baseball fan.”
    Meridian Art Experience is sponsoring a Delray Beach art walk from 6 to 9 p.m. the first Friday of each month.
— Brian Biggane

    Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How did that influence what you’re doing now?
    A. I grew up in a suburb of St. Louis and went to school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and then moved back and got my MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. I fell in love with art after taking an art history class in college.

    Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
    A. I had my own company for a short time and then went on a corporate track for a good stretch of time. I went to Ralston-Purina, which owned what was then Continental Baking, which was comprised of Hostess and Wonder. I helped develop Mini-Muffins, Brownie Bites, all of that, and that was great fun. I went to Nabisco from there, helped them introduce some Healthy Choice snacks and crackers.
    Then I moved on to Coca-Cola in Atlanta, where I was in the global marketing group and really learned the essence of branding. I was there for several years, traveled the globe and really learned about culture.
    Then, for family reasons, I moved back to the Northeast, up to New York, and went to work for Citibank in the late ’90s, when everybody was doing something in the Internet. I was leading a marketing group to create the virtual bank, which ultimately became Citibank.com.
    Then I went to work for Ameritrade for a while as chief marketing officer. Then the bubble burst, and the people from Ameritrade wanted me to go to Omaha, Neb., to run their marketing, and I said no thanks. … I took a [severance] package from them and ended up starting my own marketing consulting firm in Connecticut.
    My husband joined us a year later and we adopted a son, then decided to move to Central Florida to increase our son’s educational opportunities. He was 6 at the time. At that point I took some time away from the business.
    When I went back I ended up running our nonprofit piece of the business. We’ve done work in the areas of equality, education, autism, etc. I’m very proud of my efforts in that area.
    I’ve introduced a lot of new products along the way, which has been really fun. I did a Super Bowl commercial for Ameritrade.

    Q. What advice do you have for a young person selecting a career today?
    A. I believe people should be sponges; that’s how I’ve operated. You learn from everything, and where there’s an opportunity to take on assignments, there’s an opportunity to learn. And if you do that, it opens up your listening, it changes how you deal with people, if you sort of take that approach.

    Q. How did you choose to make your home in coastal Delray Beach?
    A. The big reason was my son, who will be 15 in July. He’s gifted in math and science and we were looking for the right place for him to move forward in his development. Having my own marketing firm made us fortunate enough to be able to live wherever we wanted.
    The move to Delray also proved to fit nicely with my own move toward the arts scene in Central Florida. One of the things we got involved with in Orlando was the Flying Horse Editions. Flying Horse is a fine-arts studio sponsored by the University of Central Florida; it’s part of their curriculum. They created a program where they had about 25 or 30 families who paid money, and that would fund three or four artists through the course of the year. Then at the end of the season each family got one piece from each of the artists. So you would get three or four pieces, a numbered print. It’s a phenomenal program. They’ve started doing art fairs and all of that, and I was on their board for a while. That was the early engage for me. I was involved with the arts to some degree up in the Northeast, but not the way I got involved in Central Florida.
    I was also one of the members of the patrons committee for the Winter Park Arts Festival.

    Q. What is your favorite part about living in Delray Beach? 
    A. The weather. I don’t like the cold. I’ve lived in St. Louis, New Jersey, and I don’t miss any of that. My favorite part about living in Florida is watching winter on TV. And I believe summer is the best-kept secret in South Florida. We never get as hot as St. Louis. They have 10-, 15-day stretches of 95- to 105-degree weather. That doesn’t happen here. If it gets to 92 that’s a hot day here, and then it rains.

    Q. What book are you reading now?
    A. I’ve just started Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards. It’s all about social engagement. How to work a room, how to be social, how to engage people. It’s fascinating. 

 
    Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
    A. I like country, I like pop, I like rock ’n’ roll, I like my old ’80s music. Any sort of rock, pop, contemporary, country genre. I like the anthem songs as well, especially if I’m trying to be moved or inspired. But I’m generally more moved by the performance than by the music itself. So if I’m at a concert, or if I’m watching TV and somebody is doing a performance, it’s like, wow. So I’m more visual.

    Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
    A. Two. One I wrote in my high school yearbook. It’s from James Thurber and reads, “Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.” That to me is how I wish the world truly operated. The other is something I say all the time, an expression I picked up from a friend in Winter Park: “It’s all good.” Not sure who first said it, but it works for me.

    Q. Have you had mentors in your life?
    A. Professionally I’ve had them in almost every place I’ve worked. Whether it’s a boss or a peer, usually the boss that has helped and guided me through any career situation I might have in front of me, good or bad. Personally, one of my greatest mentors is my husband, Chris Cooney. We’re good for each other that way, in being able to coach each other. And of course, my parents; they did a lot for me. Family means a lot to me.

    Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
    A. I’d love to have Brad Pitt do it, but more realistically it’s probably Stanley Tucci.

By Steve Plunkett

    Town resident Chris O’Hare’s “bad faith conduct” in seeking hundreds of public records may leave him liable for Gulf Stream’s hefty legal bill and even sanctions, a circuit judge has ruled.
    In a case O’Hare filed against the town, Judge Thomas Barkdull III said Gulf Stream did not unjustifiably delay its response to a public records request from O’Hare and his conduct bars the relief he sought, namely the records plus his own attorney’s fees.
    O’Hare’s conduct “was clearly intended to inappropriately manufacture public records requests in order to generate public records litigation and attorney’s fees,” Barkdull wrote in a final judgment May 8.
    What’s more, Barkdull wrote, “Having had the opportunity to observe O’Hare at trial, the court further concludes that O’Hare intended to harass and intimidate the town’s employees to generate litigation and fees with ‘gotcha’ type requests.”
    And, Barkdull wrote, “To that extent, he was successful.”
    In Tallahassee, meanwhile, Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill into law last month giving judges discretion over whether to award attorney’s fees when someone successfully sues a government agency for improperly withholding records. Before, legal fees were automatic.
    “We fully expected it to be signed, actually last year instead of this year,” said former Gulf Stream Vice Mayor Robert Ganger, who testified during the 2016 legislative session on the burdens small towns face. “It was a long haul, but I’m hopeful that people will say that’s the right thing to do.”
    Gulf Stream used its hurricane reserve fund and had to raise taxes 40 percent to pay its legal bills, Ganger told state lawmakers.
    The Florida League of Cities supported the law; open-government advocates opposed it.
    The issue in the O’Hare case was a request he made after Town Hall closed for the day May 14, 2014, for “all records in any way related to any correspondence between Jones-Foster on behalf of the town and Martin O’Boyle and created or received during the period of time from March 1, 2014, through to the moment you receive this request.”
    Jones, Foster, Johnston & Stubbs PA is Town Attorney John “Skip” Randolph’s firm, with about 40 lawyers in its West Palm Beach office.
    Gulf Stream answered O’Hare within two days, saying it was “working on a large number of incoming public records requests” and would use “its very best efforts to respond to you in a reasonable amount of time.”
    The judge noted that O’Hare did not advise the town that he wanted the request handled ahead of 10 other requests he made that day.
    O’Hare filed suit 46 days after he made his request, a day longer than the statutory requirement, asking Barkdull to declare the town was making an “illegal withholding” of the records and seeking attorney fees.
    In January, after a four-day nonjury trial, Robert Sweetapple, Gulf Stream’s outside counsel, told town commissioners the judge sided with them. In Barkdull’s final order, the judge invited Gulf Stream to ask that O’Hare pay its legal bill and also be sanctioned.
    At the same meeting, O’Hare told commissioners he disagreed with the ruling. “So do my attorneys, and of course we’ll appeal that,” he said.
    Before Barkdull’s ruling, a municipality that successfully defended itself against a public records dispute still had to pay its own legal bill.
    O’Hare began asking Gulf Stream for public records in 2013. From late August through December that year, he made more than 400 requests, Sweetapple said. Together, he and fellow resident O’Boyle have filed more than 2,000 requests and dozens of lawsuits.
    The 10 requests O’Hare made May 14, 2014, led to seven lawsuits, Sweetapple said.
    Gulf Stream’s legal bills soared from $3,000 a month to as much as $79,000 a month fighting the lawsuits, the town told Barkdull. It bought new computer programs and a server to handle all the public records requests and hired an attorney full time in Town Hall to help manage the cases.
    O’Hare launched his barrage of public records requests after he experienced what he described as “a series of retaliations” and “fictitious code enforcements” from the town beginning in 2012, Barkdull wrote.
    O’Hare, who lives in Place Au Soleil, also had an “ongoing dispute” with the town regarding him parking his boat on what he understood to be publicly accessible waters in a canal west of Mayor Scott Morgan’s house.

By Jane Smith
    
    With a 15-minute soliloquy, Delray Beach’s mayor cast the deciding vote to keep the Community Redevelopment Agency board independent from the City Commission.
    “The hasty manner in which we got here does not produce an environment in which cooler heads prevail,” Mayor Cary Glickstein said.
    Glickstein said he regretted not hitting the pause button two weeks ago, and that he and his commission colleagues had spent the intervening 14 days talking to residents on both sides of the issue and many in the middle.
    But his support was conditional.
    “Things must change,” he said, starting with the City Commission’s appointment of four members this month to the seven-member CRA board.
    His other conditions include: The CRA will pay for all city-identified projects in its district; the CRA will circulate documents for public land sales over 1 acre to the City Commission and city attorney before developers can submit bids; and the CRA staff will communicate better with city staff and commissioners.
    Glickstein also wants to see the CRA end “the backdoor funding game.” At times, he said, when a project was denied money by the city, the developer went to the CRA. The agency was seen “as an off-the-balance sheet, out-of-public-scrutiny source with a seemingly magical money pot that has been for far too long viewed as  something other than what it is: taxpayer dollars.”
     The mayor followed up a week later with a memo to the CRA leadership detailing the conditions for his support of an independent CRA board.
    At the May 16 commission meeting, nearly 40 people spoke on the CRA. The speakers included downtown business owners, former city staffers, a former mayor, current and former CRA board members and longtime residents. Four current CRA board members, including Chairman Reggie Cox, sat in the front row of the packed commission chambers.
    Vice Mayor Jim Chard, who agreed May 2 to discuss the CRA takeover, supported keeping the independent board two weeks later. Chard pointed out the agency’s many accomplishments, including trees along 12th Street and the Atlantic Grove development on West Atlantic.
    “The issue is communications,” he said. “Better communications will be easier to do than the nuclear option.”
    Deputy Vice Mayor Shirley Johnson also voted to keep the board independent.
    The tumultuous debate over the CRA in the past two weeks brought the city together, Johnson said. “Thirty-two years is not long in the redevelopment world,” she said. “Blight and slum conditions still exist in the Northwest and Southwest neighborhoods.”
     “It’s foolish to think this conversation started two weeks ago,” Commissioner Mitch Katz said. “It started two years ago when then-Commissioner Al Jacquet was outraged that Old School Square expenses were fast-tracked in front of work that was needed in the Northwest/Southwest neighborhoods.”
    Katz supported disbanding the CRA board because he thinks elected officials should be in charge of deciding how taxpayer dollars are spent.
    Commissioner Shelly Petrolia supported the disbanding even though it would be more work for the commission to take over the CRA. “I will bite the bullet,” she said. “I can do it.”  
    In her four years as a commissioner, Petrolia said, “Many CRA decisions did not have the support of the taxpayers.”
    She also said that at a City Commission goal-setting session the previous week, all five commissioners agreed their focus should be on West Atlantic Avenue, not Congress Avenue.
    Nearly one-third of the speakers agreed.
    “I’m mad as hell, the CRA is giving you lip service,” said barrier-island resident Steve Blum. “It has nothing to do with race or historic events. It’s about who do I want to handle my $30 million.”
    Frances Bourque, the principal money-raiser for the Old School Square complex, said, “For the last 30 years I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with the CRA.”
    Bourque, who lives in the Delray Dunes Golf and Country Club, spoke about giving the CRA board members another chance. “There’s humanity in every decision,” she said. “It’s not just about the dollars.”
    Residents of The Set have been waiting, said Cox, who lives in the area. (The Set is the new name for the Northwest and Southwest neighborhoods.) “It’s time to move forward.”

Dispute over naming policy
    The uproar started at the May 2 commission meeting. Commissioners were upset that the CRA board passed a building naming policy while the city is trying to craft one. The naming policy became the tipping point after drawn-out negotiations with the iPic theater owner and the loss of a West Atlantic developer.
    When the mayor asked the city attorney what could be done, Max Lohman replied “little” because the CRA is an independent board. He proposed a “nuclear option” with a resolution dissolving the CRA board and having the city commissioners sit as the CRA members. That’s how a majority of the CRAs in Florida are run, including in Boynton Beach and Boca Raton.
    The CRA covers 20 percent of Delray Beach, from Interstate 95 to the ocean, where property values are the highest. Its current budget is $17 million from city and county tax dollars. With other sources, the agency will have $31.5 million to spend this budget year. The amount includes a $3.1 million line of credit and the $3.6 million land sale to iPic.
    Delray Beach’s redevelopment agency is considered successful. Since its 1985 start, the CRA has created a vibrant downtown and the Pineapple Grove arts district. The agency also won recent awards from the Florida Redevelopment Association for beautifying Federal Highway and offering incentives to Fairfield Inn & Suites Hotel to open on West Atlantic Avenue.
    At the agency’s May 11 meeting, the building naming policy was rescinded without discussion. The board members also evaluated their executive director and gave Jeff Costello a 5 percent raise, with Cox voting no.
    Cox said he talked privately with Costello about his low rating. The evaluation forms show that Cox rated Costello 77 on a 155-point scale over budget, personnel and communication problems. The evaluations were done prior to the latest kerfuffle with the city.

By Dan Moffett

    SOUTH PALM BEACH — Mark Harris worked for 27 years as a paramedic with the Fire Department of New York, and on 9/11 arrived at Ground Zero just as the second airplane hit the tower.
    Years later, after retiring to South Palm Beach, Mr. Harris became a popular lecturer on emergency response and told his audiences how that tragic day taught him about the random nature of life and death.
    He recalled standing in a group of first responders several hundred feet from the second building when it came down. Mr. Harris said he ran to the left. The others ran to the right. He lived. They didn’t.
    Mr. Harris died of cancer on May 13. He was 54.
    Bob Vitas, the South Palm Beach town manager who started many mornings over coffee with Mr. Harris, says the health problems that ultimately claimed his life grew out of the toxic dust and debris that engulfed him as he helped rescue survivors of the attacks.
    “He was a hero in all respects,” Vitas said. “Mark was always giving of himself. Those who heard him speak loved him.”
    Since 2013, Mr. Harris worked as a community relations specialist and fire-rescue liaison with Delray Medical Center. He gave lectures around south county on “Emergencies From A to Z” and “What Happens When You Dial 911.”
    He showed people how to perform CPR and how to detect strokes. He showed people how to save lives, and his experiences at Ground Zero resonated through his work.
    Delray Medical Center CEO Mark Bryan said Mr. Harris was the first fire-rescue liaison the hospital ever had and that he developed the position from scratch, building relationships between first responders and emergency room staff. Bryan said the hospital plans to continue the position and build on the work Mr. Harris did.
    “Mark did an absolutely fabulous job,” Bryan said. “He basically improved the care of patients throughout Delray by getting people to the hospital faster.”
    Mr. Harris served for a time as board director of The Barclay condominium and forged a close friendship with longtime Barclay resident Leonard Cohen.
    “He was more than a neighbor. He was like a son to me,” Cohen said. “He was quite a hero. What he did at 9/11 and what he’s done down here, that’s a true hero.”
    Mr. Harris looked out for those in his adopted hometown. When Town Clerk Maylee De Jesus was sworn in last year as president of the county’s Municipal Clerks Association, he insisted on making a speech to the group to contribute to the moment.
    “He helped the town whenever there were events going on with items such as first-aid kits,” De Jesus said. “He was always willing to help and be part of anything that we needed.”
    Mr. Harris is survived by his wife, Brandi, and four adult children:  Michael, 29, Sabrianna, 28, Jonathan, 27, and Torey, 24.
    Dozens of first responders and hospital staff joined friends and family to honor Mr. Harris during a May 19 service at The Patriot Memorial in Wellington, where other victims and heroes of 9/11 are remembered.
    The family asks that memorial donations go to the University of Miami Hospital’s cancer ward for children, c/o Kymberlee Manni, 1400 NW 12th Ave., Miami, FL 33126.

By Emily J. Minor

    BOCA RATON — John R. Pisapia, a lifelong student of education who loved traveling and learning from leaders in other parts of the world, died May 2 after becoming ill last summer. He was 79.
    Although unable to speak in the last months of his life, Dr. Pisapia — on staff as a professor and department head at Florida Atlantic University for the last 20 years — continued working with his doctoral students through emails and texts, said his stepdaughter, Pamela Baynes.
    “He was a teacher until the end,” she said.
    Born in New Jersey in 1937, the first of six children to his parents, Carmine and Josephine Pisapia, Dr. Pisapia attended Glenville State College in West Virginia on a football scholarship. Later, when he was invited to the Washington Redskins training camp, he was relieved when he was cut, Baynes said.
    The end of football meant he could pursue his real passions: education, leadership and helping students rise to the top.
    Dr. Pisapia earned his master’s degree and a Ph.D. from West Virginia University, and then worked as a teacher, coach, high school principal and eventually as West Virginia superintendent of schools. He later became a tenured professor at WVU, and then moved on to Virginia Commonwealth University.
    In Virginia, he founded the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium, which focused on research and solutions to America’s obstacles to good learning and good teaching.
    “He was very proud of MERC,” Baynes said.
    In 1984, he married Pamela Baynes’ mother, Barbara Romano Pisapia, a special education teacher with whom Dr. Pisapia worked for many years. Although Dr. Pisapia was her stepfather, Baynes said she always considered him a father. After he became ill last summer, she eventually quit her job so she could care for him, she said.
    John and Barbara Pisapia moved to Boca Raton in 1998, coming to Florida so Dr. Pisapia could help set up FAU’s Department of Educational Leadership.
    Besides his grandchildren, his students were his great love, Baynes said. And he used his travel to ground his work on a global level.
    “Whenever he entered the room, he always made sure to do his best to make somebody feel at ease and feel welcome,” said FAU professor Daniel Reyes-Guerra. “He wanted them to know there was an important reason for them to be there.”
    Dr. Pisapia was mesmerized by leaders of other cultures. Before he became ill, he had just visited and studied in South Korea, Japan and Australia. Each year, he took such a summer trip.
    “His whole goal was to learn from those cultures and really immerse himself,” Baynes said. “He would have Chinese students come over and he’d learn from them.”
    Mrs. Pisapia died in 2009, after her retirement from special education enabled her to travel with her husband.
    “He was a remarkable man and a spectacular person,” said his sister, Jo Ann Walsh Harpster, who lives on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
    Dr. Pisapia is also survived by a son and stepson; three grandchildren; another sister, and three brothers.
    A memorial service was held May 11, with memory sharing from many of his FAU colleagues.
    The family asks that any donations be sent to: FAU Foundation (EDU300), FAU Educational Leadership and Research Methodology, ED47, Suite 260, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431.