The Cops Caring for Cops Fundraiser has started.

The Palm Beach County Association of Chiefs of Police is “adopting” or supporting 20 police officers who were significantly impacted by Hurricane Milton, which made landfall Oct. 9. The affected officers work in the Treasure Island area, just north of St. Pete Beach, and were in some of the most impacted areas. They were selected because Palm Beach County agencies sent officers and other resources to them immediately following the storm and saw firsthand the devastation suffered by the Treasure Island police.

"As we assist these other communities, we think about how lucky we were to be spared by Mother Nature during this hurricane season," said Gulf Stream Police Chief Richard Jones, who also is president of the county chiefs association. "We also know that if our communities would have been impacted, these brave and honorable men and women from Treasure Island would have deployed here to help and support our needs."

The chiefs association has partnered with a foundation that will assist it in supporting these officers by acting as the receiver and distributor of the funds. This process will allow 100% of the money raised to go directly to those in need. The foundation's name is Treasure Island Police Association or TIPA and any checks should be made payable to that foundation.

All donations should be delivered to the Gulf Stream Police Department or Town Hall no later than Dec. 2 so that the chiefs can hand-deliver the funds to the foundation in time for the holidays.

"I would like to kick this off immediately and have it wrapped up by Dec. 2 so we can make sure these officers and their families are able to have the Christmas they deserve," Jones said.

By Steve Plunkett

A third person has drowned in the ocean off South County in a deadly week of rough seas, and another person drowned on the same day in the ocean further to the north.

A teenager ventured into the water early Sunday with his mother and a sibling at Gulfstream Park, according to Gulf Stream Police Chief Richard Jones, whose officers were the first responders on the scene.

The teen’s family was at the park, which is just north of the Gulf Stream town limits, shortly after sunrise and before lifeguards started their day. A 911 call was placed around 7 a.m., Jones said.

One of the siblings was able to make it back to shore. Gulf Stream police Sgt. Bernard O’Donnell rescued the mother but could not save the other child.

Rescuers recovered the teen's body and officials closed the park about  midday, a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy said. Lifeguards had been warning about rip currents and high surf.

“Always swim near a lifeguard, heed all lifeguard warnings. Have a safe beach day!” they urge on their website.

The Sheriff’s Office, which took over the case, had not identified the child.

At least one PBSO boat and helicopter were involved. At least a dozen sheriff’s deputies, as well as officers from Gulf Stream and Ocean Ridge, ultimately responded.

The drowning in the third in seven days to have occurred in a 2-mile stretch from just north of the Boynton Inlet south to Gulf Stream.

“It’s crazy all this unfolded in what — one week?” Chief Jones said.

Farther up the barrier island, in Palm Beach just north of Lake Worth Road, yet another person drowned Sunday after going into the Atlantic while his fiancee sunbathed on a lounge chair about 150 feet away.

Palm Beach police said the victim was a 57-year-old New Yorker on vacation at the Tideline Palm Beach Ocean Resort and Spa, 2842 S. Ocean Blvd. The Tideline is part of an unguarded beach and did not have any flags flying, police said.

However, "The Four Seasons (2800 S. Ocean Blvd.) did have red flags up indicating that swimming conditions were hazardous," Officer Joseph Palladino wrote in his report.

Earlier last week, on Wednesday, a man who had just arrived in Ocean Ridge from Niagara Falls, Canada, drowned near Colonial Ridge Club at 5500 Old Ocean Blvd.

A 911 call alerted Ocean Ridge police shortly after noon, and Sgt. Gary Roy responded to the scene. The drowning victim was identified as Gerald W. Julian, 50.

Roy said seas were 4 to 6 feet and that Julian was 100 to 150 yards offshore. Police Chief Scott McClure said the coast was under rip current warnings that day.

McClure, who spent 10 years on the town of Palm Beach's police marine unit, called it tragic.

"If you lived here your whole life, you know (what to do). You don't fight it, you swim parallel (to the rip current) till you get out of it," McClure said.

Four days before that drowning, a Lake Worth Beach man drowned after being pulled from the water near the Boynton Inlet about 1/4 mile north of the non-lifeguard-protected area.

"Security officers and medics from a nearby estate rescued the male from rough surf and rip currents, administering CPR until Palm Beach County Fire Rescue arrived," according to the county sheriff's office.

That victim was identified as Maximilian Sdowski, 34.

John Pacenti contributed to this report.

Unofficial results

SOURCE: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office

By Rich Pollack

In a hotly contested race for Florida House District 91, which encompasses all of Highland Beach and Boca Raton as well as unincorporated areas west of the city, incumbent Peggy Gossett-Seidman was able to hold on to her seat, derailing the heavily funded efforts of political newcomer Jay Shooster to serve in Tallahassee.  

Republican Gossett-Seidman, who narrowly won the seat two years ago as part of a red wave that swept the county, secured almost 55% of the more than 95,000 votes cast this time while Shooster, an attorney, received 45%.  

Gossett-Seidman attributed her victory to her success in the Capitol during the last two years and to “hard work and knocking on doors.”

“I think voters understood that I was working for them to fulfill the needs of the community,” she said. “Our success was also greatly due to the wide swath of friends and colleagues who know me from having lived here so long.”

Shooster, 34, who lives west of Boca Raton, far outspent Gossett-Seidman, 71, a former Highland Beach town commissioner who worked as a sportswriter and publicist. Shooster raised almost $1.1 million and spent about $953,000, more than four times the $232,000 Gossett-Seidman spent while raising just over $338,000.

House District 91, once a Democratic stronghold, shifted to the right in 2022 following redistricting that added more conservative-leaning coastal neighborhoods. Democrats, who hoped to take back the seat, make up about 32% of the registered voters in the district, while Republicans account for 35%.

Gossett-Seidman said that once she returns to Tallahassee her focus will be on finishing work on the safe waterways act — which encompasses sampling of waterways — and on addressing condo recertification issues and HOA issues while at the same time addressing overall homeowner’s insurance issues.

During her campaign Gossett-Seidman touted her success in bringing $10.3 million in state appropriations back to Boca Raton and Highland Beach.

Andrea Virgin, chief executive of The Center for Arts and Innovation, listens intently with (l-r) Brian Hickey, the group's attorney; Derek Bellin, its development officer; and board member Glenn Kaufman on Nov. 4 as the City Council considers ending a deal to lease land at Mizner Park for a new performing arts center. Council members instead gave the group time to come up with a plan to raise adequate funds and will reconvene Jan. 7  to gauge their progress. Tim Stepien/Coastal Star

By Mary Hladky

The Boca Raton City Council has moved back from the brink, giving the Center for Arts and Innovation until Jan. 7 to come up with a revised fundraising schedule that the city can accept.

TCAI officials angered city leaders in October when they said that they had fallen far short of meeting city-imposed fundraising requirements, a failure that could have allowed the city to terminate a 2022 project development agreement and the lease of city land at Mizner Park to TCAI.

Council members and City Manager George Brown criticized TCAI officials for not divulging information that they must have had for months. They scheduled a special Nov. 4 meeting to consider killing the deal.

But at that meeting, all the council members said they wanted to give TCAI more time to find a solution and backed away from their earlier demand that the center make up an $18.8 million shortfall by Jan. 7.

“We have to allow you to find your footing again,” said Deputy Mayor Yvette Drucker, adding, “Whatever you come back with has to work for both parties.”

“I think it is the right thing to do to give grace,” said council member Andy Thomson.

Council member Fran Nachlas warned that the council wants full disclosure. “There has to be so much more transparency,” she said.

 The council will consider what TCAI submits at its Jan. 13 meeting.

In explaining why they did not meet the fundraising deadline, TCAI officials said they now realize that donors don’t want to be pushed and often need five to seven years to finalize donation commitments.

TCAI needed to raise $50.8 million by Oct. 22, but donations totaled only $32 million. Cash on hand was about $8 million, well below the $12.8 million it had one year ago when the center surpassed its $25.4 million fundraising target by $1 million for that year. In other words, the group collected a net $5.6 million from donors in the last 12 months and had $4.8 million less on hand.

The new cultural arts complex would be built on city-owned land in at the north end of Mizner Park. As now envisioned, the existing amphitheater would be demolished and its function incorporated into a main venue that would be fronted by a large piazza, an education and innovation building, a covered public hall, an elevated building with 360-degree views of the city, and a restaurant and lounge.

TCAI must raise the entire amount needed to build the complex, but the cost is not yet known. City officials want to know that by Dec. 31.

A county employee uses a gas-powered blower to clear leaves and twigs from a path in Gulfstream Park. BELOW RIGHT: Jim Reynolds, with his wife, Susan Beil, says the noise is ‘like an explosion of sound.’ Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Noisy yet practical leaf movers lose favor in sea of complaints

By John Pacenti

Susan Beil says she feels she has a superpower. Every time she sits to relax on the front porch of her Delray Beach home, the roar of a gas leaf blower somewhere, somehow pierces her serenity — almost like magic.

“They’re a wonderful thing, but I think we should either have them all work on one day, or we should consider having noise-reduction leaf blowers,” said Beil, who lives in the Seagate neighborhood between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean.

“I understand that’s very expensive, and it’s a hardship for the people who are working in agriculture, but they are very noisy.”

Jim Reynolds — Beil’s husband — put it this way: “It’s like an explosion of sound the minute we sit on the porch.”

Municipalities throughout Florida and the nation are grappling with the roar of the gas-powered leaf blower. The number of communities banning them is growing, including Palm Beach, Miami Beach, Key Biscayne, Naples and South Miami.

In Winter Park, near Orlando, residents next year will vote on the topic in response to state lawmakers’ attempts this year to pass a law prohibiting cities, towns and villages from regulating the noisy beasts.

Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed $100,000 allocated to this year’s budget to study leaf blowers. That veto also nixed a provision meant to handcuff municipalities by keeping them from regulating the machines.

No imminent restrictions
The gas-powered leaf blower remains ubiquitous in neighborhoods that run along State Road A1A.

On a random Tuesday, Oct. 15 to be exact, a lot of leaf blowers were in action — dozens — as a Coastal Star reporter ducked in and out of neighborhoods. For more than 30 minutes, someone working at Gulfstream Park blew dirt on and off the paths.

There’s been a lot of hot air expelled on what to do by both residents and elected officials, but not so much action.

Delray Beach Mayor Tom Carney said when he was knocking on doors during his campaign that 50% of the time the complaint he heard was about leaf-blower noise — especially on the barrier island.

“We haven’t looked at the issue yet because we’ve been too busy doing other matters, but there certainly is a strong feeling out there,” said Carney, who took office in March.

He said going electric in such a large city could be financially burdensome for the landscape companies.

“Maybe they should only be allowed to use them on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You know, give people some relief,” he said. “I hear them on Saturdays at 8 o’clock in the morning.

They are intrusive, yes. So, I think there’s a real sense that something needs to be done.”

Manalapan and Ocean Ridge will respond to individual noise complaints.

In Manalapan, Mayor John Deese says he hasn’t heard any complaints from residents on the topic.

In Ocean Ridge, Betty Bingham, 90, a former town commissioner, asked the commission at its Oct. 7 meeting if there was a way to write citations that carried no monetary fines, to get leaf blower users to be “civil.”

“I thought the idea of these blowers was to blow weeds into a central place where people could pick them up and put them in a barrel to put out for pickup. Instead, they seem to be to blow, make a lot of noise, a lot of fumes, throw the leaves into the street or under the hedges [or] into the next-door neighbor’s yard,” she said.

In Gulf Stream, officials have batted around the issue for years but never enacted a restriction.

Joan Orthwein, a former Gulf Stream mayor and current town commissioner, said the town first discussed a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers about a decade ago.

“We reached out to the lawn services, and at the end of the day, they just said they’d have to eliminate Gulf Stream,” she said.

The issue came up again in 2021 when Town Manager Greg Dunham surveyed what neighboring communities do about the issue, but the commission decided not to enact restrictions.

In Highland Beach, resident Barbara Nestle has lobbied her town’s leaders to no avail to ban the gas-powered blowers — after all, the town has a Tranquility Drive.

“In Highland Beach, all you hear is leaf blowers. You don’t even hear the ocean anymore,” she said. “And the noise is disgusting. It’s a disturbance, and it’s also unhealthy — especially for the mind.”

A gas-powered leaf blower clears a path at Gulfstream Park just north of Gulf Stream. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

The impact on work crews
A Harvard study on short- and long-term exposure found noise pollution can lead to an increased risk of heart-related problems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says loud noise can damage hearing over time.

This is all bad news for the actual users, many of them immigrants who work for landscaping companies.

Andres Pascual, though, looked perplexed when stopped from his leaf blowing at the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary in Boca Raton when asked if he ever thought about how the noise or gas fumes might be harmful to his health. He wore no mask or ear plugs.

For him it was a simple equation: “If the blower is like strong, like powerful, then it makes the job more easier,” said Pascual, who said he works for the city of Boca Raton.

Billy Blackman, owner of Able Tree Service in Boynton Beach, said he went electric for chain saws, trimmers and other equipment and it has saved his company money.

“It’s because we don’t buy gas,” Blackman said, before adding an important caveat.

“We just buy gas for our big big backpack blowers. Yeah, they’re aggravating, and I hate them, and I know that all the neighbors hate them, but all our other stuff is battery-powered,” he said.

Blackman said there is no battery-powered leaf blower that equals the power of the backpack leaf blower. “They make the medium-sized, but they don’t make the giant one,” he said. “At the end of the job, when you’re tired, it takes 15 minutes. You blow everything off and you are going home.”

To blow or not to blow
The issue of banning leaf blowers is strangely polarizing and weirdly political. A post seeking comment on the Facebook group Delray Raw drew so many nasty replies that moderators had to take it down. Apparently, some have the attitude that meddlesome lawmakers will have to pry the gas leaf blowers from their cold dead hands.

A similar post on the website Nextdoor for Boca Raton got the same vitriol among the 96 comments. Some residents mocked those who said that the gas-powered leaf blowers were too loud and that maybe they could be banned on the weekends. They asked what’s next, banning crying babies. Another responded, “Be less sensitive.”

Beil in Delray Beach gets it. “It’s a first-world problem,” she said.

But it is a problem. Others in the Boca Raton Nextdoor thread who responded did have babies whom leaf blowers had awakened.

Advocates of restricting the gas-powered devices say the leaf blowers are like torture for the noise-adverse, such as those on the autism spectrum. And so many people work from home — go ahead, try your Zoom call with a gas-powered leaf blower at 75 decibels next door.

Besides health concerns, there is damage to the environment. Let’s just say the gas-powered leaf blower is the unfiltered Camel cigarette of its day when it comes to pollution.

A report by the Public Interest Network found in 2020 that in Florida alone, gas-powered lawn and garden equipment contributed 2.6 million tons of carbon dioxide, second only to California. Lawn equipment in Palm Beach County emitted nearly 310,000 tons that year, sixth most of any county in the nation and the most of any in Florida. That’s the equivalent of total annual emissions from 68,239 cars.

Florida ranked first among all states for fine particulate emissions — and in nitrogen oxide emissions — from lawn and garden equipment.

“There’s so many actions that are going to have to be taken to reach various stated climate goals of various municipalities, this one seems pretty easy to do,” said Aaron DeMayo, chair of the city of Miami’s Climate Resilience Committee and a proponent of his city banning gas-powered leaf blowers in favor of electric.

“We have the technology. It’s not expensive. It works,” he said.

Other stuff is loud, too
Could gas-powered leaf blowers be a scapegoat, an easy target when it comes to noise pollution?

Besides leaf blowers, there is plenty of noise from crews working on homes under construction or undergoing renovations. Noise emanates from other lawn equipment used by landscaping companies and from loud municipal projects — a drilling company was observed boring into a Boca Raton street.

“What’s more annoying is the construction over there — that’s what’s annoying,” Arnie Schwartz said, pointing to a house while walking in his Boca Raton Spanish River Land neighborhood.

Here is a fact, Jack: There is little consensus on what to do or whether to do anything.

Boca Raton Spanish River Land resident Nick Wagner was working in his front yard, which had been transformed into a butterfly garden. Gulf fritillaries danced above his cassia and milkweed. Wagner wants the gas-powered leaf blowers banned.

“I think it’s really invasive,” he said. “It’s too much to be honest. I don’t think it’s fair, and you don’t necessarily even have to use them. They just insist on doing it.”

Meanwhile on Tranquility Drive in Highland Beach, Alisa Musa was walking her dogs and taking a que será, será attitude.

“I am not a complainer. They got to keep it clean,” she said.

Schwartz said banning leaf blowers or forcing landscapers to go electric just isn’t realistic.

“Certain things sound good, but you can’t put them in action,” he said. “So what happens is that if you get rid of them, what are you going to do with all the leaves? Rake them? I haven’t seen anybody with a rake out here in 20 years.”

The proposed center would include open space that provides entertainment opportunities. Rendering provided

Council to consider terminating deal

By Mary Hladky

The Center for Arts and Innovation has fallen far short of meeting its fundraising requirements, stunning Boca Raton officials and imperiling city support for the ambitious cultural arts center planned for Mizner Park.

As a result, the City Council, sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency, will meet on Nov. 4 to consider terminating a 2022 project development agreement and the lease of city land to TCAI.

A fast-moving series of events that led to this point started on Oct. 21 when TCAI chief executive Andrea Virgin angered and frustrated council members and City Manager George

Brown when she told them that she would not raise the required amount by the next day’s deadline.

The center needed to raise about $50.8 million but donations totaled only $32 million. Furthermore, the amount of cash on hand stood at about $8 million, below the $12.8 million the center had one year ago when it issued its first fundraising report, which showed the center had met fundraising targets for that year.

Some council members accused Virgin of withholding information she must have had months earlier even as she led them to believe that all was well.

Their concerns were elevated when they learned Virgin had paused fundraising in September, an apparent sign that she knew she would not meet the targets.

“I was quite frankly shocked” by the shortfall, said Mayor Scott Singer.

“I am a little disappointed,” said Deputy Mayor Yvette Drucker. “To me the most important thing is, give me the facts, give me the truth. … When that fails, it becomes a real challenge to support a project.”

Council member Fran Nachlas faulted Virgin for not alerting the council much earlier and for meeting with her only two times in the last two years. “I feel I am being kept in the dark,” she said.

But the harshest critique came from Brown, who, while serving as deputy city manager, negotiated with center officials for two years to hammer out an agreement that allowed

TCAI to be built on city-owned land at the north end of Mizner Park.

That deal gave the center three years to raise 75% of the project’s hard construction costs and required its officials to also raise money for reserve and endowment funds and to meet other deadlines.

Brown said he met with center officials in early October and was not told of a likely funding shortfall.

“It was frankly very disturbing to me the way this has gone down, finding out really at the very last minute that the funding was not there,” Brown said. “It seems to me that the center must have known the funds would not be met many months before now.

“I am just disturbed by a lack of accountability, a lack of transparency, a lack of forthrightness and in this circumstance a lack of humility.”

Chief executive explains
In an interview with The Coastal Star, Virgin denied withholding information. “We gave the city information as soon as it was available to us,” she said.

She also denied making unequivocal promises that the fundraising target would be met, saying she told council members in September that she was “cautiously optimistic” about that.

In explaining to the council why fundraising has slowed, Virgin said she and other center officials have learned that donors “don’t appreciate being rushed into commitment,” and that pushing them reduces their trust and prompts them to lower their donation amounts.

“They want to give when they are ready,” she said, later adding, “We can’t control how donors make their decisions.”

Had she understood at the outset that donors can need five to seven years to finalize donation commitments, Virgin said she would have tried to negotiate a deal with the city allowing for that.

“This is not a setback and this is not a result of anyone’s missteps,” she said. “It is merely a reflection on what we have learned from our donors.”

Since center officials have not met the donation requirements, the city could terminate its deal with TCAI. But council members stopped short of that, instead giving Virgin until Jan. 7 to raise the money.

Council members also conditionally approved project plans that have been revised since TCAI selected renowned architectural firm Renzo Piano Building Workshop to create a final design. Had they not done so by Oct. 22, both the city and TCAI had the right to terminate the project development agreement and the lease of Mizner Park land.

Some potential donors wanted the project plans approved before they made a commitment. The approval also would allow TCAI to move ahead with project planning.

Council members relented a bit on demanding that Virgin tell them immediately the actual cost of building TCAI and submitting a budget. The most recent budget estimate was $140 million, but that was made well before Renzo Piano started work on a new design. Virgin was told to do so by Dec. 31.

Since then, however, TCAI rejected the extension to Jan. 7 to raise the money, saying in an Oct. 25 letter that it will not sign an agreement “that it knows cannot be achieved.”

Instead, TCAI proposed renegotiating the development agreement to revise fundraising deadlines and said it would submit its detailed proposal by Nov. 25.

But in an Oct. 28 letter to council members, Brown said that they had rejected the renegotiation during their previous meeting.

He also said that TCAI now is not in compliance with the fundraising deadline and that the council’s approval of the design plans no longer is in effect.

A TCAI official has since said that the organization wants to discuss new revisions to the development agreement on Nov. 4.

While all these matters that could doom the deal are expected to be revisited at that meeting, one possible project roadblock raised in September has been put to rest for now.

The council at the time delayed its vote on the new project design until a consultant was hired to evaluate the project’s feasibility.

The preliminary report by CBRE, a global real estate services and investment company, identified the same concerns raised by city staff about matters such as whether it was possible to build an underground parking garage at a reasonable cost in that location and the adequacy of a canopy over an outdoor piazza.

Yet the report concluded the project design “is an impactful and thoughtful concept package” and that the council can approve it, with any problems addressed before construction begins.

As now envisioned, the existing amphitheater would be demolished and its function incorporated into a main venue that would be fronted by the large piazza, an education and innovation building, a covered public hall, an elevated building with 360-degree views of the city, and a restaurant and lounge.

Supporters speak up
The missed fundraising deadline did not appear to dampen the enthusiasm of project supporters who urged the council on Oct. 21 to stay the course so that TCAI becomes reality.

Those asking for continued city support included state Rep. Mike Caruso, R-West Palm Beach; state Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton; Irvin Lippman, executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art; Kelly Smallridge, president and CEO of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County; and former Boca Raton Deputy Mayor Andrea O’Rourke.

“Today I ask you to be bold, to take the actions necessary to get this project done,” Caruso said.

“I want to make this happen,” Polsky said.

O’Rourke asked the council to “show the center some grace … please don’t let this golden opportunity slip away.”

Despite the criticisms and hurdles, Virgin has never wavered from voicing optimism that any problems can be resolved and TCAI will be built.

“Our commitment to finding a solution remains unwavering,” she told the council, adding, “I am confident as ever that all this can be accomplished.”

But she also has left open the door to moving ahead without city land or support.

“This project will happen,” she told The Coastal Star. “There is no doubt about that. It is not contingent on this agreement with the city of Boca Raton.”

Road and drainage construction along A1A creates a traffic nightmare during work hours. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Major construction and long daytime delays on State Road A1A, already frustrating local motorists, are certain to shock returning seasonal residents unaware of the extensive resurfacing and widening project on the coastal highway.

A yearlong, $8.3 million Florida Department of Transportation road project that began in July is causing traffic delays, and leaders in Highland Beach — where the bulk of the work is ongoing — fear the backups will get worse with more traffic on the road.

“We feel like it is going to be a busy season,” said Town Manager Marshall Labadie. “As much as we’ve been communicating, I’m afraid our seasonal residents aren’t aware of the disruptions the construction will cause to their daily travels.”

To try to make residents more aware, the town has stepped up its communication efforts.

“We’re sending emails every week telling residents to plan accordingly as their travel plans will be disrupted,” Labadie said.

The 3.35-mile-long project, from just south of Linton Boulevard in Delray Beach to the Highland Beach border with Boca Raton, includes road resurfacing, the creation of 5-foot bike lanes on either side of A1A and drainage improvements on the swales.

The project is expected to be finished by summer. Contractors are permitted to operate from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and as a result have been working on some Saturdays.

Crews using solar-powered “automated flagger assistance devices” — traffic lights on wheels — as well as traditional walkie-talkie flagmen and women, have been shepherding traffic into one lane while work continues on drainage improvements and widening.

Navigating State Road A1A is challenging for pedestrians and bicyclists — not to mention motorists — during construction in Highland Beach. On Oct. 25, this southbound backup stretched for blocks as drivers waited to traverse a section of A1A that had been reduced to a single lane. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Working generally from north to south — currently between Linton Boulevard and the 3300 block of South Ocean Boulevard — crews have begun laying the groundwork for widening A1A to accommodate bike lanes.

At the same time, an infiltrated rock system is being placed under grassy areas to improve drainage and reduce flooding.

Drainage improvements are also being made through the central part of town and those are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

As the work has progressed, the impact on traffic has increased.

“It’s more of a problem now than it was during the beginning phases of the project because the heavy lifting is the more disruptive part of the project,” Labadie said.

Residents like Deborah Muller, who lives in the north end of Highland Beach, agree.

“It was manageable during the summer. Now it’s absolutely insane,” she said.

Town leaders and some local residents are looking forward to having construction completed just south of Linton Boulevard, where plans call for almost tripling the length of the left-turn lane for northbound cars heading west over the bridge, from 75 feet to about 200 feet.

FDOT expects initial milling and resurfacing work in that area to begin in December and continue through early 2025. The final pavement and striping will take place in the project’s last phase during the summer of 2025, weather permitting and subject to unforeseen circumstances.

The expansion of the northbound turn lane onto Linton Boulevard means fewer cars will block traffic heading north through the intersection, town representatives say.

“That area has historically been a huge bottleneck,” Labadie said. “As painful as it’s going to be, we’re glad they’re working on it.”

Muller and other residents say they have complained regularly about northbound traffic backups of more than a half-mile from the light at Linton Boulevard and A1A.

“It’s hard to get in and out of your driveway,” she said, adding that often northbound motorists fail to stop when they see a car trying to pull out or turn in. “Now I have to be aggressive.”

Muller said that if people were more considerate, traffic would flow a little better.

She says she is sometimes frustrated by what she says is rudeness, and believes that fixing the intersection will improve traffic.

“It will definitely be better, especially if you’re making a left onto Linton Boulevard,” she said.

Delray Beach will start imposing fines Nov. 1 for previously unenforced infractions like taking your dog to the beach, or setting your trash out at the curb on the wrong day. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

New citation plan will generate fines for multitude of offenses

By Hannah Spence

Starting in November, Delray Beach is giving out new citations — with fines attached — for many minor violations of city rules.

Potential offenders include litterers, places making too much noise and people bringing dogs to the city’s beach.

The new civil citations are more like parking tickets and less harsh than arresting someone, which was pretty much the only recourse previously available (and something officials refrained from doing). Some residents still are not happy — especially those whose pets love the beach.

“I think it would be a better idea to have a specific beach that is a dog beach, like they do in other cities,” said Marlene Goldstein, who regularly takes her chocolate lab, Tucker, to run on the edges of the water.

The new citations cover dozens of other infractions as well, such as skateboarding (stay off Atlantic Avenue sidewalks between State Road A1A and Interstate 95), roadside markers along residential rights-of-way (pyramid-shaped markers are bad, but dome-shaped ones are fine), and even more that are related to pets (dogs aren’t allowed in public buildings or places of business without owners’ permission).

There are rules for garbage and trash, abandoned property, fire safety, mobile food trucks, vehicle parking and storage, and so much more.

Goldstein said she allows Tucker to run on the beach unleashed because “he runs like a maniac and chases birds, and I can’t hold him when he does that.”

She acknowledged that some dogs shouldn’t be on the beach, but she said that she is mindful, taking Tucker north or south of where people are swimming, so he doesn’t get near anybody.

“I’m only OK with Tucker because I know he’s not going to run into anybody,” said Goldstein.

But being mindful doesn’t cut it, as far as city rules are concerned. Under the new citation program, approved by city commissioners in March, bringing a dog on the beach carries a fine of $100 for an uncontested violation and $175 for a contested violation. The maximum fine in any category is $500. Contested violations will be heard in Palm Beach County Court.

The citations will be issued by code enforcement officers — police, code inspectors, fire inspectors and building inspectors.

It’s not about the money, City Commissioner Rob Long said.

“At the end of the day, we are not trying to use this to generate revenue on the backs of hardworking citizens. It’s just to change behavior,” Long said. “It just gives us an efficient way to hold people accountable for these problems that are tricky to enforce but have an impact on the quality of life of our residents.”

Before the citation program, the potential enforcement mechanism was harsh, says former Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia, who was in office when the new program was approved.

“Even though we could have arrested somebody because they were breaking the law, nobody really wants to do that,” Petrolia said. Absent making arrests, that left the city only with options like warning violators or putting up signs alerting people to prohibited activities, she said.

“Now it’s going to be something in line with what the penalty should be.”

Petrolia said the city adjusted the rules because of complaints to her office, commissioners and police, mostly about excessive noise. She said near-downtown residents were being disturbed in their sleep by commotion coming from eateries such as The O.G. and Tin Roof.

According to the city’s Code of Ordinances, there will be ramifications for any person who makes, continues or causes “unreasonably loud” noise, such as from dogs or birds, loading and unloading, construction and vibration. Citations may be issued to “continued or repeated violations,” the city’s website says.

“I don’t think that people are out there to break the rules. I think that it’s more of an issue that the rules were not in a way that they could follow,” Petrolia said. “Now we have the ability to be able to show them when [the noise volume] is too high. And, if they continue to break [the rules], then they will get cited.”

While the rule against allowing dogs on the beach is a pet peeve of Goldstein, Petrolia said Goldstein’s desire to have a specific beach for dogs is not feasible in Delray Beach.

“We had that conversation with the commission years ago, determining whether or not we could section off a certain part of the beach and make it into a dog beach,” she said. “The problem with Delray Beach is we have one mile of beach that serves everybody, and it is a very popular beach. We determined that the beach is just not long enough to be everything to everyone.”

Petrolia encouraged people to be empathetic to others by remembering that not everyone is a dog lover. “People can be very wary of dogs. Also, the average beachgoer may have dogs as well, but chooses not to bring them down. They don’t want to have fecal matter or urine in the sand in which their kids are playing and digging.”

Although the offenses included in the program were already illegal, the rules can now be more strictly enforced.

“We want to make sure that people are following the rules of our city and not taking advantage,” Petrolia said. “We don’t want to do things that are an overreach, but we want to make sure that there will be no dogs on the beach for people that are expecting that.”

Some residents agree with the new program, such as Heidi Rabinowitz who has lived in Delray Beach on and off for about nine years.

“I think it’s a good idea to do something that’s a little gentler than actually being in legal trouble,” Rabinowitz said.
Rabinowitz said she is glad to have some control exerted over littering and that it will not only keep places looking better, but be better for wildlife.

“I’ve sometimes gone to the beach and picked up litter myself because it’s so much that I can’t relax,” she said. “It’s also unhealthy for animals who live there.”

Larry Barszewski contributed to this story.

Harold Vanderbilt moved from Palm Beach and in 1930 built Eastover, along with its massive sea wall, that still stands today in Manalapan. Photo provided

By John Pacenti

Manalapan is known for waterfront homes, the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa and its ability to somehow, some way, maintain a small beachside town feel despite all the luxury.

Manalapan’s place in Palm Beach County history is sacrosanct, pivotal in the development of the Lake Worth area, once infamous for the 1955 murders of Judge Curtis

Chillingworth and his wife, Marjorie, and, of course, its American royal heritage of the Vanderbilt family.

But its ultimate roots lie in New Jersey. There is a town in the Garden State that took the Lenape Indian name of Manalapan, which means either “good land to settle upon,” “good bread” or “covered swamp with edible roots,” depending on the translation. Developers from the town landed in South Florida.

Florida towns named for other places are not unusual. Delray Beach is named after the Detroit neighborhood of Delray. Riviera Beach was named for the famed European vacation spot. Golf, the small village west of Boynton Beach, took its name from Golf, Illinois, home of the Western Golf Association.

On the other hand, Highland Beach shares its name with a Maryland community but it’s a coincidence rather than a historical tie.

Finding the truth about Manalapan’s New Jersey ties takes some sleuthing.

A good place to start is Eliot Kleinberg, the retired Palm Beach Post reporter who is a walking encyclopedia on Florida history — though he modestly says he “just worked the clips.” Asked through text messages if Manalapan was founded by railroad executive Harold Stirling Vanderbilt or the people of New Jersey, he gives a very Kleinberg answer: “Both right.”

Harvey Oyer III’s great-grandparents built the first home in the Manalapan portion of Hypoluxo Island in 1873. Photo provided

The next stop is Harvey Oyer III. He is a fifth-generation Floridian, former chairman of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County, and a man who turned his love of local history into a series of educational children’s books.

“My great-grandparents settled on and owned what was known as Hypoluxo Island, the southern half of which is now part of the town of Manalapan,” Oyer said. “So, we were the first people to ever build a house in what is today Manalapan, and that was in 1873.”

Kleinberg, in a 2021 story for The Coastal Star on the 90th anniversary of Manalapan, said the town started as part of a large coconut grove homesteaded by pioneer George H.K. Charter in 1882. Charter sold his 2½-mile stretch of property for $7,500 to Elnathan Field and a group of investors.

Manalapan stretches for 2.65 miles between the Boynton Inlet and Ocean Avenue and includes the southern third of Hypoluxo Island. Google Map image

And this is where New Jersey enters the picture.

Oyer said the person who knows about the New Jersey connection is real estate agent Michelle Donahue, whose hobby is local history. Oyer couldn’t be more right.

“In about 1892, this guy Field, as well as quite a few other people, created a company known as Hypoluxo Beach Corporation,” Donahue said. Hypoluxo was the original name for Lake Worth.

The group included Field and four others from New Jersey who named the area after Manalapan Township, New Jersey, founded in 1848, Donahue said. They transported lumber by train from the area to Stuart and then by boat from there, she added.

The wood was used to build a fishing hotel and Field’s home, which stood until early 2000 around the properties now at 1780 and 1790 on State Road A1A, Donahue said.

“It is a fascinating connection, I think for them coming down here, naming it Manalapan,” said Donahue, who lives on Hypoluxo Island in Lantana. “And they floated the name Manalapan around because a lot of that area was just more likely to be referred to as either Lantana Beach or Hypoluxo Beach.”

Field’s group called its resort Manalapan Estates, but the name didn’t get formalized until Vanderbilt and his crew took on the name when the town was incorporated in June 1931.

Manalapan Township, New Jersey, could not be more different. It is about 45 miles south-by-southwest of New York City. It is near the Revolutionary War battlefield Monmouth and is known for its rolling hills and suburbs — not multimillion-dollar homes with beachfront views.

Manalapan, New Jersey, has nearly 39,000 residents as opposed to its sister city’s 419, according to the 2020 census. The average home price in Manalapan, New Jersey, was $775,000. In Manalapan, Florida, a 22-acre property was purchased in 2022 by Oracle founder Larry Ellison for $173 million — a state record — and the average value is $4.2 million.

Barry Jacobson is a committeeman in Manalapan, New Jersey, a position akin to a commissioner.

“I heard some people who moved from Manalapan into Palm Beach County and named it after Manalapan, but I don’t know that for a fact that is a fact,” he said.

Asked to describe his town, Jacobson said it’s a pleasant mix of professionals, some who commute to New York City, and there is even still some farmland left from when agriculture was the main industry. One of the highlights of the year is the Feast of San Gennaro festival in September, he said, honoring the patron saint of Naples, Italy.

Donahue said she wished there was more common knowledge of the history of Palm Beach County’s coastline.

“I’m like, why wasn’t there more written about Manalapan and even Hypoluxo Island for that matter?” she said. “And so, I have, over the years, done extensive research, sitting days and hours at the archives, at the Palm Beach historical society and all this, just to make sure I can get the story right so I can share it.”

Sweet 16! The Coastal Star is growing up. …

Sixteen years ago — November 2008 — our first edition was delivered to homes and condos in the South County coastal area stretching from Manalapan through Delray Beach.

As other print publications stopped reporting on South Palm Beach, Highland Beach and Boca Raton, we added those municipalities to our coverage area.

That’s right. In the middle of what’s now known as the Great Recession, we started a print-first newspaper and expanded its geographic reach at the same time other publications were going out of business or scaling back. Call us crazy, but we’re still here 16 years later and looking toward the future.

We’ve been through hurricanes, the ups and downs of the real estate market and, most significant, a deadly global health pandemic with far-reaching impacts on the supply chain and the U.S. economy. And yet we persisted with the help of our advertising partners and with assistance of PPP loans and media grants during those dark times.

Today the economy is strong and we’re taking advantage by adding sales staff to help us find and support our business partners in the local market. We are also investing more in our editorial staff to improve quality and dependability.

All of us at this newspaper believe our coastal area is enhanced by having residents informed of local news and information. We are the only publication — digital or print — informing them in this way.

It feels unthinkable to let our commitment to community news fade away as we grow older. But our leadership team is growing gray, and at some point others will join me in deciding it’s the right time to shift into retirement.

We’re not all there yet, but are working to figure out our succession plans to help this sweet-16 teenager make it through the exciting promise of coming years.

One way we’re building this safety net is by partnering with the Florida Press Association to provide a tax-free way for readers to contribute to our present and future. Our hope is that as you are doing your year-end financial planning you will consider a donation. You can do this at https://supportfloridajournalism.com/newspaper/the-coastal-star.

If you don’t care about the tax deduction, you can simply send us a check at our office:

The Coastal Star
5114 N. Ocean Blvd.
Ocean Ridge, FL 33435

As we enter November — the month of Thanksgiving — please say thank you to all of the nonprofits featured in this edition’s Philanthropy Season Preview section. Each of these groups provides essential services to individuals in our community who benefit from their efforts. Please consider making a donation or volunteering.

Since it’s too late to offer this sweet-16 newspaper Taylor Swift tickets for its birthday, please consider a financial contribution. We want to be here covering our communities for another 16 years.

Thank you.

— Mary Kate
Leming, Executive Editor

Highland Beach resident John Shoemaker, a Vietnam War veteran, visits the South Florida National Cemetery. He encourages others to visit as Veterans Day approaches. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

John Shoemaker knows that heroes living throughout Highland Beach are hidden in plain sight.

They are the retired brigadier general living a quiet life in the next condo over, the gastroenterologist who served during the Vietnam War, and the parish priest, an Air Force major who served as a chaplain in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They are police officers, firefighters, a homeowners association president, and present and former town commissioners like Shoemaker. He has made it his mission for the past several years to shine a light on veterans throughout the small town by telling their stories on a portion of the town’s website.

“I’m committed to helping to make people aware of the heroes in their midst,” says Shoemaker, himself a Vietnam War veteran. “We have a lot of veterans who live quietly in Highland Beach and it’s important to bring recognition to what they’ve done.”

Some profiled by Shoemaker in the “Veteran Heroes of Highland Beach” section of the website will bristle at being called heroes, since their service was far from front lines.

Still, Shoemaker bestows the title readily, recognizing the sacrifices that come with military service, including being away from family for months on end, living in a foreign country in sometimes harsh circumstances and living a regimented lifestyle.

“No one knows what it’s like until you’ve slept on the floor of the jungle in the pouring rain, or until you’ve been on a ship in such rough weather that you can’t see the bow because of crashing waves, or until you’ve been sitting in a bomber for hours on a mission,” Shoemaker said.

With Veterans Day being celebrated this month, Shoemaker knows that there will be valued recognition of those who served. But he believes that by telling the stories of his neighbors, he has gone beyond the surface and is giving readers deeper insight into who the veterans are and how they served their country.

“I’m bringing meaning and detail that helps readers understand the contributions of our military people,” he said. “These stories reveal who these neighbors are and the magnitude of their sacrifice.”

One of the stories on the website is Shoemaker’s own. In it he tells of his decision to go to college at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and get a degree so he could enlist, rather than be drafted, and attend officer candidate school.

“I wanted to enlist on my own terms, go to officer candidate school, be in the infantry and go to Vietnam,” he said. “I wanted to be close to the action.”

He got his wish and after two years of intense training was sent to Vietnam in 1970. He was 23, married and already a father.

A lieutenant, Shoemaker served as a platoon commander supervising a 23-person infantry squad. Five of the members of the team didn’t make it home, a half-dozen others were wounded.

Shoemaker spent seven months in the Vietnam jungle and rice paddies, coming close to injury or death on his first day in the field when a mine exploded just a few feet away. Two of his team were badly injured and it wasn’t until decades later that a routine MRI revealed shrapnel in his leg.

Shoemaker spent his last five months in Vietnam as a company commander, away from the combat, supervising support for a battalion.

Now 78, Shoemaker focuses on helping veterans through other portions of the town’s veterans website, which he helped create. It includes links to resources they can use.

“My hope is that in reading these stories people will be more respectful of veterans,” he said.

This Veterans Day, he hopes that people will continue to treat veterans they encounter with “polite awareness.”

He is encouraging residents to visit the South Florida National Cemetery, on U.S. 441 south of Lantana Road, with family, especially children. The cemetery is a burial site for those who served in the armed forces and their eligible family members.

“It’s important to maintain a continual awareness and recognition of the contributions of veterans,” Shoemaker said. “It’s necessary for our country to survive.”

NOMINATE SOMEONE TO BE A COASTAL STAR
Send a note to news@thecoastalstar.com or call 561-337-1553.

Unity of Delray Beach celebrated the blessing of pets in our lives at its 25th annual Blessing of the Animals.

ABOVE: Grace Mackler, 6, poses beside her dogs, Maya, 2, and Bella, 13, after her dogs were blessed.
RIGHT: Josie Willis’ parakeet, Perky, 3, perched inside his traveling cage.
BELOW: For two hours, Charlene Wilkinson blessed dogs (including 13-year-old Matilda), cats and birds in the gazebo of the church.

Each pet left the event with a personalized certificate, a small medal and a goodie bag. Photos of pets who had passed away were submitted to be displayed at the Rainbow Bridge table.

Photos by Rachel O’Hara/The Coastal Star

By Mary Thurwachter

The tail-wagging news keeps getting better for the dog play area at Maddock Park, the top spot for canines in Lantana.

A year ago, the hound-friendly park lapped up $180,000 in new fencing, benches and canine exercise equipment. But there’s more good news on the horizon.

Last month, the Town Council agreed to pay Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. $25,000 to get the ball rolling on the Maddock Park dog shelter project.

The firm will provide permitting and bidder information and construction details. The work includes professional design services for the addition of a pre-engineered bisected rectangular shelter that will provide coverage and access to both dog park sections ­— for large and small animals.

Public Services Director Eddie Crockett says a timeline has not yet been established for the work at the park, 1200 W. Drew St. Money for the project will come from a Florida Department of Environmental Protection matching grant the town received earlier this year. The state will pay $112,500 (75%) and the town will provide $37,500 (25%) as its match.

“The town’s matching funds were included in the FY 2023/24 budget,” Crockett said.

“The dog park is heavily utilized,” Mayor Karen Lythgoe said in support of the shelter. “People love it.”

The board of Crown Colony Club Inc., is compelled to respond to the October article your paper reported regarding the ongoing Ocean Ridge dispute involving “the walk.”

Unfortunately, your article was slanted, favoring the view of the Fayette Drive residents, and dismissive of, if not completely excluding, Crown Colony’s legal position.

We will give you credit in reporting the most telling and accurate comment and affirmative statement made, i.e., “Steis and Rodriguez [Fayette Drive residents] didn’t have a problem for decades with residents of Crown Colony using the walkway.” This admission by these residents confirms the decades-long usage of the walk.

However, to be clear, Crown Colony’s residents never needed the Fayette Drive residents’ permission. Absent from your article was any reference to that certain January 1972, 99-year lease agreement between Michael and Ann Susik and Crown Colony Club Inc., which expressly provides Crown Colony’s members beach access by and through the following property:

“The northerly 25 feet lying and being parallel to the northerly lot line of Lot A, Tropical Park Addition No. 1, per plat thereof recorded in official record book 23, Page 228, of the public records of Palm Beach County, Florida.”

Hence, Crown Colony’s residents have always possessed the absolute legal right to use the walk and the permission or acquiescence of the Fayette Drive residents is not needed.

Thus, the Fayette Drive residents’ signage which suggests the walk is private and solely for the benefit of Fayette Drive is patently false.

This is what should have been reported: The improper, inaccurate signage placed in the walk simply foments further dissent and confuses Crown Colony residents as to their access rights.

What you alluded to in your article in passing, necessitating greater emphasis, is that the Fayette Drive residents are more upset about a collateral dispute involving the Ocean Ridge Yacht Club. Yet they strangely seek to take out their frustrations on Crown Colony by placing signage on the walk that erroneously claims exclusive access for themselves.

Given the attention this issue has received in Ocean Ridge, Crown Colony requests a follow-up article be written reminding your readership of the 50-plus-years’ usage by Crown

Colony of the walk and more importantly, that there exists a 99-year lease agreement with express language bestowing Crown Colony’s residents with usage of the walk for beach access purposes.

Thank you.

Ronald E. Kirn, president,
board of directors, Crown Colony Club Inc.

By Thomas Ambrose

On the shore of Florida’s Gulf Coast, the islands of Captiva, Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach all have very low elevations, rich in sand and no rock outcrops. The area of Gulf Ridge on Sanibel is only 3 feet above sea level and they call it a “ridge.”

Typical of these islands is very shallow water offshore — a mile out from Fort Myers Beach is only some 10 feet deep. During storms, wind can quickly push water ashore as a “sea surge,” so this may be why Fort Myers Beach and other Gulf Coast islands got hit hard by recent hurricanes.

On Google Earth I recently checked ocean water depths off Ocean Ridge to Delray Beach, which range from 100 to 150 feet about a mile offshore.

Island elevations from 2 feet along the Intracoastal Waterway to 23 feet on the coastal ridge in Ocean Ridge should give added protection in a storm. Maybe more important is that islands along the Palm Beach County coast exhibit outcrops of hard, indurated and bedded sedimentary rocks which form a solid foundation for overlying buildings in rising waters.

Across the intracoastal in Boynton Beach, ancient sand dunes and rock ridges rise to some 34 feet in elevation between Seacrest Boulevard and Interstate 95 — something never to be found on the unstable sand island along the Florida Gulf Coast.

Aren’t we lucky!

Thomas Ambrose received a bachelor’s from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s from Rutgers in geology after serving in WWII. As a global oil exploration geologist, he has lived in eight countries (six of them island nations) and visited 128. He has lived in Ocean Ridge since 1991.

By John Pacenti

After a year of drama and turmoil surrounding Delray Beach’s previous fire chief, City Manager Terrence Moore failed to discover the replacement he hired had three internal complaints filed against him that were pending when he resigned as chief of the Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District.

The complaints from the first week of March 2023 centered on a secret affair between Fire Chief Ronald Martin and the fire district’s human resources manager.

Among the allegations, staffers said the HR manager was promoted to leadership roles and that resources were expended so the couple could continue their romance on out-of-town business trips.

Moore was made aware of the complaints by Vice Mayor Juli Casale after Moore picked Martin in September.

“The gentleman’s personal relationship with the woman is not of concern, but in reading these complaints closely you see that there are accusations of abuse of authority and misuse of taxpayer funds,” Casale said in an Oct. 11 email to Moore.

The Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District did not take action to determine the merits of the complaints because Martin resigned on March 17, 2023, the same day that a district report says officials were to meet with him about the accusations.

“I categorically deny every single one of those allegations,” Martin told The Coastal Star on Oct. 21. The HR manager, Colleen Brooks, who is now Martin’s fiancée, was by his side during the interview but did not comment.

Casale told Moore in emails and at the City Commission’s Oct. 15 meeting that the “shocking” failure to properly vet Martin calls into question the city’s hiring practices.

“If you have somebody who’s been employed a long time in a city, they have a record, and we’re not even asking for that in the hiring process,” Casale said at the meeting without mentioning Martin by name.

“So, we hired an individual, and we’re very hopeful that it will turn out to be a great hire, but basically, it will be a matter of luck and not the competency of the process, because the process is flawed,” Casale said.

At the same meeting, Martin was introduced as the new chief.

During his interview with The Coastal Star, Martin said he was unaware of the complaints until the paper asked him about them. They were not brought up when he tendered his resignation or met with the fire district’s attorney and the chairman of its board of commissioners, he said.

Martin said he stepped down because of a cancer scare and that he felt the district could be dissolved in a changing political climate. Martin also spoke about the mental fatigue he experienced in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which made a catastrophic hit on Fort Myers Beach a half-year earlier on Sept. 28, 2022.

When asked if he thought the affair was inappropriate, Martin said, “Between two consenting adults? Absolutely not.” He said the romance was a blessing considering the issues he was dealing with at the time.

Martin said that the district was audited and the audit found no financial wrongdoing in his attending conferences during the period in question.

He also said that Brooks reported to the director of finance, not him. Brooks no longer works for the Fort Myers Beach district.

Yet one of the complaints said that in the months before Ian struck, “Chief Martin had been elevating Mrs. Brooks’ status in the organization, changing her scope of duties, and moving her up to the Senior Leadership Team” — adding that “these changes meant she was now reporting directly to Chief Martin.”

Mayor Tom Carney, reached for comment on Oct. 21, said he had not researched the hiring process or Martin’s past. “It would be irresponsible for me to make a comment until I have all of the facts,” the mayor said.

Commissioner Rob Long said he spoke to Moore about the hiring and was told that the complaints were known and that since the relationship was consensual — as opposed to unwanted advances — it did not dissuade the city manager from hiring Martin. “Terrence said that he knew about it, and it wasn’t something that they ignored,” Long said.

The email traffic among Casale, Moore and Delray Beach Human Resources Manager Duane D’Andrea, however, tells a different story — that Delray Beach didn’t know about the complaints when it hired Martin.

Moore announced Martin’s hiring in one of his weekly information letters in September. Casale on Oct. 8 asked Moore in an email if personnel files and professional references were requested. She said a simple Google search would discover that Martin resigned abruptly.

“This seems like a clear red flag,” Casale wrote to Moore.

When she was told by D’Andrea that the city did not request Martin’s personnel file from the Fort Myers Beach fire district, the vice mayor responded, “Wow. That is Shocking.”
Moore was asked on Oct. 22 whether or not he knew of the complaints. He didn’t answer but provided a statement:

“During the interview process, I had the opportunity to meet with Chief Martin to discuss his employment history and experience. There is no legitimate reason for an unsubstantiated claim or allegation to affect a prospective employee’s future. Martin has no disciplinary actions in his personnel records which might in any way negatively impact his ability to successfully serve in his new role.”

In coming to Delray Beach, Martin is inheriting a department still reeling from the drama surrounding its former chief, Keith Tomey.

Tomey was fired in May for allowing on-duty firefighters to participate in a charity softball game, taking an engine out of service for hours. A firefighter also got hurt during the game and sought worker’s compensation.

Tomey also accused Moore of sexually harassing him. An independent investigation found the allegation could not be substantiated. Tomey has filed suit against the city, saying he was retaliated against for making the complaint against Moore.

Martin worked for the Fort Myers Beach district, in various capacities, since 1992. After his resignation, he took a job with Lee County and then as the chief of fire safety for the Louisiana Office of the State Fire Marshal.

In the email exchanges with Moore and D’Andrea, Casale asked why they felt Martin’s file was “clean” and that the allegations were “unsubstantiated.”

D’Andrea explained under city policy there was a panel that interviewed Martin, who said he left his position at Fort Myers Beach for personal reasons. Background screening included a review of Martin’s driver’s license record, a physical, a drug test and two personal references, D’Andrea told Casale.

Casale, during the Oct. 15 meeting, said the city should consider hiring a headhunter to find candidates for open positions.

Fewer personnel on rescue trucks? — Delray Beach City Manager Terrence Moore warned the City Commission this summer that if a tax rate rollback was in the mix the current staffing on fire-rescue trucks might need to be reduced.

Moore told the commission he found other ways to make its “no new taxes” plan work. But in his Oct. 25 information letter to the commission, he cited a new operational analysis being done by Fire Chief Ronald Martin that may recommend that there should now be two — not three — people staffing rescue trucks.

He said in his memo that two-person trucks are now the national standard as the National Fire Protection Association has found that it would not negatively affect the community’s emergency response force.

Moore said he expects to bring a recommendation to commissioners during the next several months.

While the operational analysis initially was being driven by a new “24 hours on, 72 hours off” fire rescue schedule that starts Oct. 1, 2025, the city may not wait that long for any rescue truck staffing changes. Moore said “direction is also imminent to consider resulting adjustments during the current fiscal year.”

Long challenges $22,154 court-ordered payment — The attorney for Delray Beach Commissioner Rob Long is challenging a final order in the defamation case he filed against Chris Davey, a former chairman of the city's Planning & Zoning Board.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge James Nutt on Oct. 8 ordered that Long pay Davey $22,154 in attorneys’ fees, cost and prejudgment interest.

Attorney David K. Markarian, representing Long, filed a motion for rehearing on Oct. 23, noting Nutt’s comment at the hearing “to the appropriateness and zealousness of the undersigned’s activity in the case.”

Markarian said in the motion that the comment — if determinative — was inaccurate regarding his work and that of his firm, Jeck, Harris, Raynor & Jones.

Long filed his suit against Davey in February 2023 as he ran for office against incumbent Commissioner Julie Casale.

Davey and Long served together on the Planning and Zoning Board. Davey had used social media to say Long was corrupt and a criminal, according to the motion.

Long went on to defeat Casale — who herself was elected again earlier this year and is now vice mayor.

— John Pacenti

Train depot now city’s wellness center — Renovations at the historic Delray Beach Train Depot, which was severely damaged in a 2020 fire, are complete, with a grand reopening and ribbon-cutting set for 10 a.m. Nov. 8 at the station, 80 Depot Ave.

The city-owned station is situated north of Atlantic Avenue on the west side of Interstate 95. It was built in 1927 and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1986.

It will be home to the city’s Health and Wellness Center and Human Resources Department. Trains stopping in Delray Beach now use the Tri-Rail station off Congress Avenue south of Atlantic Avenue.

— Larry Barszewski

Correction: An earlier version of this briefs column incorrectly identified a connection between Delray Beach City Commissioner Rob Long and Chris Davey. The two served together on the city's Planning and Zoning Board. Neither Long nor Davey has served on the Downtown Development Authority governing board.

A man who the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office described as mentally ill was spotted driving recklessly at the Lake Worth Beach parking lot on State Road A1A. After seeing a deputy, the driver fled in his van south to Lantana, where he crashed through the gate at the beach at the end of Ocean Avenue.
His vehicle fell over the wall and partly onto the sand. The sheriff’s office took the man into custody.

ABOVE: The vehicle came to rest in the beach sand. The Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, just over the town line in Manalapan on the south side of Ocean Avenue, is in the background. Provided by Eddie Crockett
BELOW: John Martinache with Zuccala Wrecker Service works to remove the van. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star