Related: Deadly disease taking a bite out of St. Augustine lawns

By Steve Plunkett

Town Hall’s lawn is dying, a victim of the sugarcane mosaic virus, which can be transferred from one lot to another on the wheels of a landscaper’s mower.

“It’s a menace,” said Anthony Beltran, Gulf Stream’s public works director. “If your grass is moist when they cut the grass, it sticks to that mower. And if they don’t blow it off really well and then treat the mower with some sort of a water-alcohol solution and let it dry, it’ll transfer from that yard to the next yard.”

The disease can also be spread from shoes that have walked on infected lawns.

Town staff contacted some lawn management companies to get informal bids for fixing Town Hall’s grass, only to find that it would cost $5,000 to $10,000 more than the $15,000 threshold that calls for Town Commission approval.

Almost 13,000 square feet of sod needs to be replaced, Town Manager Greg Dunham told commissioners at their Jan. 12 meeting.

The virus, which is spread by aphids and is also known as lethal viral necrosis, kills only the popular Floratam variety of St. Augustine grass. Two other varieties, Palmetto and CitraBlue, can harbor the virus but are not killed by it and are used as replacements, Beltran said.

The treatment, he said, “is to remove all the Floratam that’s been infected, treat the ground, which they saturate, wait a couple of days then lay the sod, and then treat it with a herbicide.”

“You can’t kill it,” Beltran said. “There’s nothing that’s going to kill it, nothing. There’s no type of pesticide, herbicide, anything that’s going to kill the virus. It’s a virus. ... And the only way of eliminating it is by removing what they’re used to growing in and expanding in, which is Floratam grass.”

Mayor Scott Morgan worried that the virus might be transmitted to The Little Club next door, but Beltran said the golf course has Zoysia grass, which is immune to the disease.

Commissioner Joan Orthwein was also concerned.

“Is this something that the residents should know about? Because who cuts this grass cuts a lot of people in town,” she said.

“Every time I’ve seen them cut here, they do blow off their equipment,” said Beltran. “Question is, do they do it everywhere else they go? I don’t know. I’m not with them.”

Commissioners voted to let Dunham spend up to $25,000 to replace Town Hall’s affected sod and decided Morgan should include a warning in his annual mayor’s letter to residents.

Commissioners also approved on second reading an ordinance adding further protections to the town’s beloved Australian pines.

“This is in response to some work on A1A that damaged the root structure of a number of Australian pines,” Assistant Town Attorney Trey Nazzaro said, speaking of a construction project.

Anyone doing work within 25 feet of the trees will have to follow industry standards provided by the town’s arborist to get a building permit.

“We have to protect the Australian pines. They’re historic, we preserve them and we have to have something in place to assist the town as it enforces renovations done near the Australian pines to protect their health,” Morgan said.

A lawn with St. Augustine grass shows brown patches that have succumbed to lethal viral necrosis. The grass can be distinguished by its wide, boat-shaped leaves. Photo provided

By John Hughes

If you are among the many coastal residents whose lawns sprout St. Augustine grass, you might have painfully learned that it’s not easy being green in Palm Beach County.

Lethal viral necrosis, a disease first found here about a decade ago, has earned its ugly name, turning verdant lawns dingy, then dead.

Horticulture experts who are on the hunt for a remedy say that any lawn where St. Augustine grass has rooted is vulnerable to LVN.

“Parts of southern Palm Beach County are heavily impacted,” says John Roberts, Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension agent. He says the county is “ground zero” because here is where the disease first appeared, although it has recently been found in other counties.

Roberts was one of the speakers appearing in a Miami-Dade and Palm Beach County extension webinar in December that devoted two full hours to concerns about LVN.

St. Augustine grass was the most common grazing fodder when Palm Beach County was home to large cattle pastures, which are mostly gone now. LVN is a legacy of that era.

Is your lawn St. Augustine grass? One way to find out is to examine the leaf blades. St. Augustine is distinguished by broader leaves up to ¾ inch wide and forming what has been called a boat shape.

There are several varieties of St. Augustine grass. At least two — Palmetto and CitraBlue — have shown resistance to LVN. But Floratam, to which LVN is fatal, is the most prevalent of the cultivars in Palm Beach County.

How do you stop LVN? You don’t. LVN is spread through contact when infected sap gets spread — from mower blades, from soles of shoes. … Essentially, any object or particle that can carry an LVN germ is your lawn’s enemy. Sort of the horticultural world’s COVID-19, minus the social distancing.

The prognosis for LVN is as bleak as its name. An infected lawn will be dead in about three to five years, Roberts says.

Has LVN infected your lawn? If there’s a discolored spot in the lawn, take a worm’s eye view and look for any anomalous yellowing in the leaf grains. In particular, Roberts says to look for a “mosaic-type” pattern of broken yellow lines.

If you don’t trust your eyes, see the report at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, available here: www.edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/PP313.

Concerned lawn owners might also send grass samples to the Rapid Turf Diagnostic Service at the University of Florida ($75 per sample).

“A lot of people get emotionally tied up to their lawns,” Roberts says. “They like coming here, oftentimes from other parts of the country, and having a nice green lawn all throughout the year. It’s very distressing to come in and see that it’s brown and only going to get increasingly brown. …”

Sometimes landscapers are scapegoats for that distress — caught between LVN and clients who simply want the grass to be greener on their side.

“We’re caught in the middle a lot of the time,” says Tyler Reiter, director of Florida Image Landscaping, who is believed to be the first to identify LVN in Palm Beach County. “Often, it’s unfair. People point fingers. They think landscapers transfer it. Well, landscapers might transfer it, but they don’t mean to. It’s like COVID. Nobody’s trying to transmit COVID. …”

Reiter says roughly 30% of his clients are coastal, from Hypoluxo Island to Gulf Stream and Highland Beach.

“I do see a lot of LVN throughout Delray and Boca — however, none that are my customers,” he says.

A couple of years ago Reiter moved into the West Lake community — designed to have about 4,500 homes. He found LVN in his neighborhood and thinks that eventually every lawn will need to be resodded with an LVN-resistant species. Currently, lawn owners could expect to pay about $2 per square foot.

“Homeowners associations are superspreaders,” Reiter says.

He is often called in as a consultant when the grass starts to fade.

“I talk about LVN every week,” Reiter says. “I empathize with people.”

The mayor is head of the Town Council, which has five members who serve staggered three-year terms.

By Anne Geggis

A technical glitch that set off sticker shock for hundreds of Delray Beach water customers prompted the City Commission to move to forgive bills out of whack with those customers’ average water usage.

City staff said the glitch — some resulting in bills thousands of dollars more than water customers’ normal bills — was due to a technical problem on a vendor’s part that will take three months to fully repair.

About 2% of the city’s 20,000 water customers — 488 accounts — received erroneous bills in November and December, according to city staff. It’s because the city’s automatic meter reader has stopped working on about 30% of the water accounts throughout the city, staff explained.

“It’s been recently determined that a number of the encoders had actually malfunctioned,” City Manager Terrence Moore said at the Jan. 4 commission meeting.

If the meter couldn’t be manually read, the glitch prompted estimates for some water customers’ water usage, he explained.

“That’s resulted in some customers, not the majority, but some customers having to experience higher-than-expected bills,” Moore said.

Mayor Shelly Petrolia said she’s gotten an earful from city residents, including one who received a $5,700 water bill.

“I’m a little upset because I’m the one who gets blamed for this and I have absolutely no knowledge of it,” Petrolia said, noting that water billing problems have occurred in the past.

Staff is available to talk to any customers who have concerns that they were overbilled, Moore said. The City Commission unanimously agreed that affected customers will be billed based on the average usage for the past 12 months.

Resident Evelyn Dobson said that she was one of those people who got a $1,000 water bill, quite a bit more than her usual bill of $100 to $120.

“I was royally upset,” Dobson said, before praising the commission’s decision to average out recent, higher-than-normal bills.

The glitch was because radio devices in each meter that transmit the information from individual meters to the city have increasingly started to fail, city staff said. And, luckily, it happened within the 10-year warranty with the city vendor, Badger Meter. Talks with the Milwaukee company have started. And repairs are in the offing.

“So this was just a fluke on behalf of Badger and there’s nothing we can really do to prevent this sort of thing?” Commissioner Rob Long asked.

Moore responded that the initial focus is to get the repairs squared away.

An answer as to the total amount billed in error was not available from city staff.

But Petrolia said she thinks the problem is more than just a technical glitch — and that more erroneous utility billing would be brought to the city’s attention sooner rather than later.

“There’s no responsibility and no accountability,” she said, recalling that the same problem emerged in 2020, when there were reports of $100,000 water bills.

At the Jan. 16 commission meeting, Petrolia proposed moving the utility billing out of the city Finance Department’s purview and back to the Water Utilities Department, where it was before. But none of her colleagues offered support for the idea.

Bright hues on the way — North Federal Highway is getting more colorful: The first mural to go up along that thoroughfare received approval from the City Commission.

Four sides of the old gas station at 302 NE Sixth Avenue will be enlivened with the Cubist-inspired art of Craig McInnis of West Palm Beach as the station is transformed into the Subculture Coffee shop.

But it didn’t happen before some controversy.

The Downtown Development Authority had nixed the design, while the Public Art Advisory Board had approved it.

Restaurateur Rodney Mayo, who’s opening the coffee shop, said he’s unapologetic about eschewing pineapples and flamingos for this mural.

“I personally hate it when people say they don’t like a piece of art,” Mayo said. “It’s not for you to like — it’s a piece of art.”

Mayor Shelly Petrolia was concerned mainly about how it appeared the painting started before the approvals came in.

The proposal passed 3-2, with Petrolia and Vice Mayor Ryan Boylston voting “no.”

Gauff, city win  — The U.S. Open victory of Delray Beach’s homegrown tennis prodigy Coco Gauff means that the city is scoring a $60,000 refurbishment of the Pompey Park tennis courts.

Gauff, 19, who was born in Atlanta but grew up mainly in Delray Beach, picked the park to benefit from a grant that the U.S. Tennis Association distributes to the winner’s choice.

Pompey Park, 1101 NW Second St., is also where the famed Williams sisters trained.

The grant will pay for court resurfacing, new chain link fencing, new awnings and a general sprucing up.

Planning and Zoning Board chairwoman dies — Julen Blankenship’s service to the city was saluted from the dais at the commission’s Jan. 16 meeting. She had served on the

Planning and Zoning Board for five years and been reappointed in November.

“It’s a tremendous loss to our city and our community,” Commissioner Rob Long said, recalling how she always came “super-prepared.”

Commissioner Adam Frankel said that Blankenship, who was in her 50s, had received a cancer diagnosis in December.

“Delray is definitely a better place because of Julen,” he said.

— Anne Geggis

By Anne Geggis

If Manalapan property owner Billy Joel gifted town commissioners concert tickets — as the piano man did for commissioners years ago — accepting them wouldn’t be a problem, Town Attorney Keith Davis explained to a Town Commission filled with new faces.

But doing it within the dictates of the law is not as simple as saying “thank you,” he added.

That little dose of honesty was one of many for-instances Davis covered during a Jan. 23 workshop on the new life that five commissioners are about to embark on.

One newly minted commissioner, David Knobel, gave Davis high marks for keeping things interesting.

“I was expecting this to be very boring, but he did a great job,” said Knobel, who was sworn in to replace Commissioner Kristin Rosen, representing Point Manalapan, in December.

The commission’s ranks thinned to two sitting members after four commissioners and the mayor opted to resign instead of meeting new state requirements for disclosing personal wealth.

Not all the replacement appointments are official yet.

At January’s workshop, Elliot Bonner was seated, fully sworn in to replace Richard Granara. So was Orla Imbesi, who is filling the seat once occupied by Chauncey Johnstone.

Sometime in the next few months, a vote is expected on Vice Mayor John Deese’s slide into former Mayor Stewart Satter’s chair, as is Cindy McMackin’s appointment to move into Deese’s seat. Dwight Kulwin will be representing the ocean district that Aileen Carlucci once filled and is expected to be sworn in along with McMackin soon.

Got that?

Davis had a lot for the new commissioners — at least four who have never served on an elected board before — to remember as he briefed them for more than an hour. He covered the functions of the town staff, the town charter’s requirements and, perhaps most intricate, the new standards that they must meet when it comes to everyday activities such as sending emails, accepting gifts, chatting with each other and even commenting on social media posts.

Being active on social media is fine, they heard. But it should not be about town business unless certain precautions are taken, Davis said. And posting online when they are making public decisions should not be done without thinking about it, because they might be creating a public record subject to a request, Davis said.

“Social media is really the challenge these days,” Davis said. “There are elected officials who ... want to reach out to their constituents through that.”

Imbesi said she’s not one of those: “I share with my close friends and children, so I can see all my grandkids.”

She would definitely fill out a form in order to legally accept those Joel tickets, too.

“Then, I think he had just moved in and thought it would be a nice thing to do,” Imbesi said.

However, she expects serving will be its own reward.

“I don’t think there’s going to be anybody wanting to gift me for anything,” she said.

After no one filed in November to run for a seat up for election this year on the South Palm Beach Town Council, and still no candidate stepped forward when a special second filing period took place in January, it’s now up to the council to appoint someone to the seat.

The council passed a resolution that it would formally accept applications for the seat vacated by the resignation of Council member Robert Gottlieb until Feb. 12. It plans to interview applicants at its Feb. 13 meeting and expects to appoint the new member the same day.

As of Jan. 24, Town Clerk Yude Davenport reported three residents had applied: Elvadianne Culbertson, who resides in the Southgate building; Dr. Jennifer Lesh, of Palm Beach Villas; and Arnelle Ossendryver, also of Southgate.  

The council appeared set to make the appointment continue through March 2026; no town election will take place March 19 because no one qualified to run for Gottlieb’s seat or to challenge Council member Raymond McMillan, who thus won another term automatically.  

Gottlieb, who had served on the council for 18 years, announced his resignation at the council’s December meeting.

He cited a combination of factors including his health as well as Form 6, which requires elected officials to make a detailed list of their financials, which is then made public.

— Brian Biggane

No word on grant status — While Town Manager Bill Thrasher made no report at the Town Council’s Jan. 25 meeting about the town’s application for a $14 million grant to improve its sea walls and drainage system, that didn’t bother former Alderwoman Sue Thaler.

“It was well explained clearly at the last meeting that we haven’t gotten the grant and we haven’t not gotten the grant,” said Thaler, who attended the meeting as a member of the public. “As far as I know, we’re still in contention for this grant.”

— Steve Plunkett

By Anne Geggis

In response to Delray Beach residents’ complaints about how the downtown vibe is disrupting their lives, a proposal is advancing to add four new police officers to the area’s current team of 10.

The City Commission, meeting Jan. 23 as the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment  Agency, appeared mostly in agreement when discussing the addition of $640,000 to the agency’s budget to put more police downtown. The actual vote will come at the next CRA meeting, scheduled for Feb. 27, said Commissioner Adam Frankel, the CRA chairman.

It would be the first expansion of downtown police personnel in 10 years, Frankel said. That dates back nearly to a time when he said the city was still known as “Dull-Ray.”

“If you look at 10 years ago versus today, there’s a big difference in the number of people who live downtown, come downtown,” Frankel said.

But Arlen Dominek, a downtown resident who led a parade of neighbors complaining about club and street noise at a Jan. 18 City Commission meeting, doesn’t think there’s much of a mandate from city leadership to quiet the hubbub that’s disrupting the peace and enjoyment of their homes.

While some residents think the added police might help with disturbances attributed to panhandlers and others on the streets, Dominek doesn’t expect the new personnel will address the traffic issues he and his neighbors find most vexing.

“There’s someone who zips down the avenue at 12:45” every night, said Dominek, who came to the city as an IT worker for a health care software company in 1997. “This has been an ongoing pet peeve of mine for a very long time. I don’t think the City Commission has any real conviction to see that its noise ordinance is enforced.”

Claudia Willis, a resident of the downtown’s Marina Historic District for 40 years, says the vaunted “vibe” of the area is giving her a headache.

“Particularly bothersome are the motorcycles that gun it and the cars that seem to be drag racing on Federal Highway at night,” she said.

She said she really doesn’t want to see taxpayers’ money going to fix the problem, though, and is unconvinced that more police will make a difference.

Frankel said noise is just one facet he sees improving with more police dedicated to downtown. He recalled an evening in October spent dining at an outdoor table. Within the space of 30 minutes, he said a stranger aggressively approached him demanding money, another passer-by took the drink from his restaurant table and he witnessed what he believed was a drug deal in progress.

By Steve Plunkett

The Town Council filled its fifth seat on Jan. 25, turning to a resident who tried but failed to qualify to run for mayor.

The council chose Keith Black, the only person to send in a letter of interest in serving as an alderman, to fill the seat vacated by almost 12-year veteran Sue Thaler at the end of December. Black is the council’s third recent addition, with Mayor Ted R. Gross and Alderman Jeff Duncan being appointed in December.

Council members hesitated in making Black’s appointment because Black was not in attendance — even though they had appointed Duncan in absentia at the previous meeting. Town Attorney Keith Davis assured them they could go ahead.

“Unlike most raffles, you don’t have to be present to win,” Davis said. “He does have to be here to be sworn in.”

Duncan, already appointed, took his oath of office at the January meeting.

Black had planned to run for the mayor’s position but complained at the December council meeting that the county supervisor of elections rejected five of the 23 signatures he had collected to support his candidacy. Mayoral candidates in Briny Breezes must have 20 signatures.

To show that Black had not been singled out, Alderwoman Kathy Gross held up the petition she signed supporting her husband’s run. Her signature also was rejected.

“So I want you to know it’s not” the town clerk’s fault. “It is through the supervisor of elections that this happened. There was no underlying anything going on. I just wanted to let you know that,” she said.

Ted Gross took an opportunity at the January meeting to deliver his first speech as mayor.

He focused on the power of home rule and recalled that before the state Legislature granted it to municipalities, “if we wanted to do something, like we wanted to put up a stop sign for instance … we would have to get state permission.”

He also displayed a pie chart showing that almost half of Florida’s 411 towns and cities have fewer than 5,000 residents, Briny Breezes included.

“We can be influential,” Gross said.

An instance of that came up at the meeting. Davis told the council that Briny Breezes back in October was the first municipality in the state to pass a resolution opposing the Form 6 requirement mandating elected town officials make a more detailed disclosure of their personal wealth. The resolution also authorized Town Manager Bill Thrasher to spend up to $5,000 to challenge the new state requirement.

Davis advised the council that the influential Miami-based law firm Weiss Serota was preparing a lawsuit seeking a judge’s declaration that the requirement is unconstitutional and invalid.

“I can’t tell you if it’s going to be a winner or a loser. I don’t know,” Davis said.

The law firm wants its clients to pay $10,000 each to be part of the lawsuit, he said. So far most of the plaintiffs are cities and towns in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Briny officials asked Davis to bring a Weiss Serota lawyer to their February meeting. They hope they can get a reduced legal fee if they participate.

Elected officials had to resign by Dec. 31 to avoid making their net worth, income and other personal financial details public.

Thrasher has said Form 6 prompted Thaler and previous Mayor Gene Adams and Council President Christina Adams to resign their seats.

By Steve Plunkett

Town commissioners took less than three minutes to fill an empty seat on their own dais and two domino-like vacancies on the Architectural Review and Planning Board.

For the Town Commission spot, which Paul Lyons Jr. vacated in December, Mayor Scott Morgan looked to the ARPB “as we typically do,” he said at the commission’s Jan. 12 meeting.

Morgan said the three most experienced ARPB members declined his invitations, and Michael Greene, the newest, agreed.

Commissioners endorsed Morgan’s recommendation, and he moved swiftly to fill the new ARPB vacancy — with Lyons. Lyons joined the advisory panel for its Jan. 25 meeting, reuniting with former Commissioner Thom Smith, who resigned from the commission in November and was appointed to the ARPB in December.

Several times in the past year commissioners have sent back to the ARPB site plans that the panel had approved, complaining that the proposed homes had too much “massing” for the parcel or did not fit in with the given neighborhood.

They also tasked the board with suggesting ways to amend the town’s design manual to solve the massing issue. Smith and Lyons both chaired the planning board before becoming commissioners, as did Morgan.

Lyons’ appointment caused a wrinkle in filling the last seat, for an alternate ARPB member. Lyons’ daughter, Olivia, was next in line of those who had submitted letters of interest.

“But I’ve spoken to her, and because of Mr. Lyons’ being appointed, she has stepped back,” Morgan said.

Morgan said Lyons will stay on the ARPB to help resolve the massing issue and then will resign, making room for his daughter to be appointed.

Next to be considered was Brian Coulter, who lives on the Intracoastal Waterway around the corner from Commissioner Joan Orthwein.

“I think he’ll do a great job. (He’s) into the real estate world, too,” Orthwein said.

Coulter was a managing partner at one of the largest mixed-use development firms in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area for more than 35 years. He attended his first planning board meeting as an alternate member on Jan. 25.

Greene and his wife, Betsy, live on the west side of North Ocean Boulevard and have three adult children. He moved his investment firm, AE Industrial Partners LP, to Boca Raton in 2014. He joined the ARPB as an alternate member in July 2022 and became a full board member in November.

Gulf Stream Police Chief Richard Jones is the new president of the Palm Beach County Association of Chiefs of Police. Circuit Judge James Martz, a former police officer and prosecutor, presided over Jones’ swearing-in on Jan. 18 in West Palm Beach. Beside Jones (center) are (l-r) Capt. John Haseley, Town Manager Greg Dunham, Martz and Mayor Scott Morgan. Photo provided

By Mary Thurwachter

Lantana officials aren’t certain of the age of the sea wall at Bicentennial Park, but they do know the last time repairs were made there was at least 20 years ago, and a restoration is due.

To that end, the Town Council, at its meetings on Jan. 8 and 22, accepted grants from Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection to get the sea wall hardening project underway.

While officials don’t know exactly how much the project will cost, they expect it will be a multimillion-dollar endeavor.

“We won’t really know the extent of this until we get into it,” said Eddie Crockett, public services director. “We have applied for as many grants as possible” — two to date. “There will be some overlap because the sea wall extends from the property next to the fishing tour company over to the complex west of Bicentennial Park.” 

One of the DEP grants is for $200,000, with the town putting up a matching $200,000. The second one has the state and town each contributing $900,000.

The latter grant covers rehabilitating the entire 2,100 feet of sea wall directly adjacent to high-density, multi-family housing, commercial structures and a major roadway. The other grant covers only the Bicentennial Park portion of the sea wall.

In both cases, the town will pay its share from available reserves.

Before any work can begin, an engineering study will need to be done. On Jan. 22, the council voted to pay its engineering company, Baxter & Woodman, Inc., $131,934 to tackle that job.

Crockett said water has frequently breached the sea wall.

“The primary concern is the walkway, which has been undermined,” he said. “The repairs will likely entail a rebuild of the walkway and extending the height of the sea wall.”

Possible reasons for the damage, he said, “are sea level rise and coastal impact.”

The council also accepted a grant agreement with the state DEP for improvements to Maddock Park on West Drew Street, which is home to the town’s dog park. In this case, the $150,000 project will be paid for with $112,500 from the state and $37,500 from the town’s reserves.

Stormwater utility fee considered — Because the Town Council is considering a non-property tax assessment for stormwater utility fees, council members voted on Jan. 8 to adopt a resolution making county officials aware of their plan.

“The only thing recommended for adoption is to make the property appraiser and tax collector officially aware of our intent,” Town Manager Brian Raducci said. “No related fees are being considered at this time.”

In his report for December, Raducci wrote that the town will soon issue a request for qualifications for a contractor to review the current and future operating and capital costs to deliver stormwater services.

The contractor would then determine how to allocate that cost to determine a potential stormwater utility fee for the council’s consideration later this year, to be included in the next budget.

Future of Kmart property — The council has scheduled a special workshop for 5:30 p.m. Feb. 13 in the council chambers to discuss conceptual plans for the former Kmart property at 1001 S. Dixie Highway.

An earlier proposal from another developer was denied by the council in August 2022.

Last July, Integra Investments paid $14.85 million for the strip mall where Kmart was located, with plans to turn a portion of the property into affordable housing.

New truck for the Police Department — Police Chief Sean Scheller says the newly purchased 2024 Toyota Tundra Crew Max SR5 came with a $49,059 price tag. “We’re using extra ARPA money,” he explained to the Town Council, referring to the American Rescue Plan Act. “We have to use it or lose it.” The vehicle came from Alan Jay Fleet Sales in Sebring.

— Mary Thurwachter

Annika Kielland with her whippet, Bodhi, at home on Hypoluxo Island. She was first attracted to the house’s outside, ‘which is like a Balinese tropical jungle.’ Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Annika Kielland’s job history runs the gamut, from waitress and bartender to Home Shopping Network saleswoman to transformational teacher, healer and guide. But no role has been more intriguing than the three or four times a year she leads groups on spiritual adventures to places like India, Bali and, every October, to the Mount Everest base camp in Nepal.

“It’s where everyone gets tested,” said Kielland, 52, who is about to mark 10 years as a resident of Hypoluxo Island. “It’s 18,000 feet, and you get headaches just getting there.”

The adventure consists of flying to Katmandu, connecting to the Everest region, then hiking nine days with stops to adjust to the rise in elevation. Sometimes adventurers remain to take on the ascent to the 29,031-foot summit, the highest point on Earth. Others take a helicopter or walk back. It takes about three days to hike down.

“It’s mind-blowing,” Kielland said. “It takes a huge toll on the body. It really depletes you of energy. Some people choose to fly back in a helicopter, but the mountain isn’t done with you. You see the Himalayas from a different perspective, and you see life from a different perspective on the way down.

“So, if you just want to have a mad adventure, I’m your woman.”

— Brian Biggane

Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I was born in Sweden to a Norwegian family and on my first birthday we crossed the North Sea to Oslo. My dad was a merchant engineer. I went to school in England, traveled for two years and then went to University of Manchester. It’s a gritty, hardworking town, but there was a lot of art there.
I’m an absolute Viking; I’ve traveled to over 48 countries. I have no fear and I love exploring. I grew up in the Lake District in the north of England with a lot of parks, which gave me a love of nature and the mountains, just being outside as much as possible.
I studied communication, literature, social studies, psychology, film studies, American studies, drama, sociology. Every year you could pick nine things. My major was media studies, film and television, and I also did film study, which led to me having a production company for 20 years.

Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: I’ve had every job under the sun: waitress, bartender, aerobics teacher, nightclub bouncer, cattle herder. When I came to America I produced music videos with a TV production company, and I’m still writer, producer and director for Loudmouth TV. That was health and wellness products for retail, and I also sell fitness stuff on Home Shopping Network. They like the accent and I know what I’m talking about.
Now I see myself as a transformational teacher, healer and guide. So, that’s deep, deep spiritual work, helping people reconnect with themselves. I do healing work with energy healing, certify people, and teach yoga and meditation. I also make jewelry and have a nonprofit, so that’s nine different jobs. I do whatever I feel like doing in the moment.

Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: The biggest thing is do something that brings you joy. If you’re going to work, do something that sparks you up. So do a ton of work experience, get mentors in the field you want. And be humble, admit when you don’t know what you’re doing. But it’s important to do something that lights you up. That keeps the flame going.

Q: How did you choose to make your home on Hypoluxo Island?
A: I saw the outside of the house, which is like a Balinese tropical jungle, and felt I’d never be inside here. The island is a hidden gem: It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, people are super friendly. This is my 10th year here. I was in Highland Beach for a while, doing sea turtle conservation, but this is my sanctuary. I came to Florida because of the ocean and the gold thing in the sky that never shines in England. I started in Miami, then Deerfield Beach, Highland Beach, Delray Beach and now here.

Q: What is your favorite part about living on Hypoluxo?
A: Walking to the beach every day, two miles round trip, and the people I meet who are absolute characters. I say hello to everybody, the ladies, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and seeing the lifeguards and people who clean the beach. The guys fishing off the bridge, Nancy at Publix. I wave to everybody, which is very English, and they all wave back. I say good morning and it’s really a community. A real little oasis.

Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I’m reading two at once. One is American Veda, by Philip Goldberg. It’s about how Eastern mysticism came to the West, and was spread by Emerson, Thoreau, Walt Whitman and even the Beatles in the ’60s. It came from the trades in the East in the late 1800s. It’s where we know meditation, karma, yoga, all these things have become part of our culture.
Also Stolen Focus, by Johann Hari. It’s about how we’re unable to concentrate now because of electronics. How Google and the like have changed us, made it harder to focus, and it’s really important for kids. That helps with how I’m working with people, throwing you back into yourself as opposed to looking into the magic rectangle.

Q: What music do you listen to when you want to relax? When you want to be inspired?
A: My range is like my bloody jobs. Classical music, Tibetan yoga music if I’m reading or studying. Pink Floyd because I grew up with it and my brother passed it on. Reggae makes you feel like sunshine; when I was in Miami, I produced a lot of reggae videos. I teach to Pink Floyd and always put on Dark Side of the Moon.

Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: My mother, Anne, for kindness and sense of humor. She’s really open-hearted and is absolutely out of her mind in a funny way. When I went to Nepal she watched the dogs and the neighbors said she went to every open house, thinking it was a neighborly gathering. Also my female friends mentor me. I studied with a man, Kute Blackson, a transformational coach from England, who I trained with when I went to Bali. But everybody you meet has a message for you. Just talk to people, you never know what’s going to happen.

Q: If your life story were a movie, who would play you?
A: It has to be someone who isn’t afraid to ride motorbikes and jump out of airplanes, like a female James Bond. Cate Blanchett is good. She’s complex, does every different role.

Q: Is there something people don’t know about you, but might like to?
A: I drove 18,000 miles in nine months solo with the two dogs after the pandemic. Visited every national park and ended up living on a houseboat in Sausalito for six weeks, which is my other happy place. I hope to go back this summer to write; I’m writing four books. But when I got home my house had flooded the day before, so I wasn’t supposed to leave.

By Tao Woolfe

Boynton Beach city commissioners sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency’s governing board pulled the plug last month on a creative proposal that would have transformed the historic Magnuson House into a restaurant.

“This is really hard, really difficult to discuss,” said Commissioner Aimee Kelley, one of three commissioners on the dais at the CRA’s Jan. 18 board meeting. “We were really excited and wanted to see it happen.”

She was speaking of the proposal of restaurateur Anthony Barber, who owns Troy’s Barbeque restaurants in Boynton Beach and West Palm Beach.

Barber had hoped to turn the Oscar Magnuson House, 211 E. Ocean Ave., into a 3,000-square-foot, full-service American-style restaurant consisting of the historic home and five shipping containers that would have been moved onto the property.

The project seemed to be going well until November, when Barber told the CRA board that he and his partner, Rodney Mayo, were having trouble securing the necessary funds to make it happen.

The CRA board gave Barber and Mayo a 30-day extension to get the site plan application submitted, but when the board met on Jan. 11, the members said they had not heard from Barber — by phone, email, or in person — since the November meeting.

Commissioners unanimously agreed, 3-0, to place Barber’s proposal “in default.”

The board did give Barber one statutorily provided last chance to get his financing and paperwork together by the CRA’s Feb. 13 meeting or forfeit the deal.

“We had a very detailed discussion in November,” Vice Mayor Thomas Turkin said. “The purchaser had said, ‘Hold my feet to the fire,’ so that’s what we’re doing.”

In June 2023, the CRA granted the partners a six-month extension to submit a site plan application. Barber said at the time he had submitted two site plans to the city, but they were rejected for being incomplete. At the November meeting, Barber told the CRA board that he might have to ask the city to remove the property’s historic designation — and its attendant restrictions — to make the project more acceptable to lenders.

He said costs had been escalating and banks were generally less optimistic about funding new developments.

“The cost is not the cost we originally projected,” Barber said in November. “We have owner financing of $800,000, but the [construction] cost now is looking like $1.2 million.”

Making matters worse, Barber said, the cost of borrowing money has escalated.

Barber wanted to renovate the two-story Magnuson House, built in 1919, for inside dining. The shipping containers would be used for the kitchen area, walk-in food storage, restrooms, an artisan bar, and a rotisserie grilling area.

The CRA bought the property for $850,000 in 2007, intending to use it for CRA office space, but sold it for $255,000 in 2016 to a restaurant developer after its plans changed.

The CRA took back the property two years later when the restaurant project fell through after the developer realized how expensive it would be to bring the house up to code for a commercial operation.

Barber’s plan seemed more economically feasible. Although he would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore the house, he theoretically would have been able to avoid more costly commercial upgrades by placing the kitchen and other operations in stand-alone shipping containers — a first in Boynton Beach.

Barber offered to pay the city $240,000 for the property, but that was offset by his intent to seek $50,000 in a CRA commercial improvement grant and another $200,000 in tax incentives.

Rather than make the deal more complicated, commissioners suggested just conveying the property to Barber with deed restrictions — including that it always be a restaurant — and a requirement for specific design features requested by the city.

The house was built around 1919, according to the city historic preservation records.

Hurricane Alley lease extended for a year
The CRA board granted a one-year extension on the lease of the building at 529 E. Ocean Ave. to allow the popular Hurricane Alley restaurant to continue doing business.

A new home is planned for Hurricane Alley adjacent to The Pierce, a proposed mixed-use development that has been sidelined by a lawsuit over the CRA’s street abandonments for the project.

By Jane Musgrave

SOUTH PALM BEACH — When Robert Kellogg was hired as manager of South Palm Beach in 2019, Mayor Bonnie Fischer said she got more than a wise administrator. She got a comedy sidekick.

During normally staid meetings, the two would banter back and forth. “What would you do if I did that?” she remembered asking Kellogg when he was defending an elderly condominium owner who faced code enforcement charges. “I’d throw the book at you,” Mr. Kellogg shot back.

“It was so light. It was very fun,” said Fischer. “I’ve never been like that with anyone in my life. Neither one of us knew where it came from.”
Mr. Kellogg — who was raised near Akron, Ohio, and spent his career administering small towns in Ohio and coastal Florida — died Jan. 12 in a hospital near his hometown. He was 70.

Jacqueline Kellogg said her husband of 37 years had succumbed to COPD and emphysema, brought on by a lifetime of smoking.

True to his wishes, his family and friends wore Ohio State University shirts and hats to his funeral. “He wanted it to be a celebration of his life, not for people to come to mourn,” his wife said. Though a graduate of Kent State, he was buried in an OSU jersey and his casket was draped in scarlet and gray, the colors of his beloved Buckeyes.

During the 17 years he worked in Florida, which included prior stops in Sewall’s Point and Hillsboro Beach, he would travel back to Ohio on weekends for Buckeye home games.

An avid traveler, he and his wife visited all 50 states and many countries in Europe. On his 70th birthday, he took his wife, three children and their families on a cruise to Mexico. Even with his time running out, he continued making travel plans, Jacqueline Kellogg said. Shortly before his death, he suggested to his two sons that they all go to this year’s Super Bowl.

His work in South Palm Beach was initially consumed by the coronavirus pandemic. During the initial phase, he established a testing site in the Town Hall parking lot and helped shepherd the town of 1,400 residents through the crisis.

He also laid the groundwork for a new Town Hall, Fischer said. When he left in May, he asked her to invite him to the grand opening of the building that is still in the planning stages. “It saddens me that he wouldn’t see it accomplished,” she said.

Although committed to his job in South Palm Beach, he never lived there. He commuted to work from his home in Palm City. He also had a long-distance marriage. His wife remained in Ohio, where she worked as an executive with Columbia Gas, and they traveled to be together on weekends.

“It was different, but it worked for us,” she said.

Town employees lauded Mr. Kellogg for both his work ethic and his sense of humor. “He was kind, intelligent and funny, which made him the perfect sounding board,” one wrote in an online tribute. “He always knew the right thing to say.”

Jacqueline Kellogg said her husband was drawn to small towns. “He liked to be close to the people of the town and the employees,” she said.

When Mr. Kellogg decided to step down, he initially offered to stay through November, Fischer said. In retrospect, she said, she’s glad he didn’t. He got extra time to spend with his family and to travel. “At least he had some semblance of retirement.”

In addition to his wife, Mr. Kellogg is survived by three children, Kory (Susan) Kellogg of Plano, Texas; Kelli (Jeremy) Welch of Haslet, Texas; and Carter Kellogg of Palm City, who is named after Jimmy Carter, his father’s favorite president. He is also survived by three grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, a sister and a brother. He was preceded in death by a sister.

A moment of silence was observed in Mr. Kellogg’s honor at the town’s Jan. 16 council meeting.

By Ron Hayes

LANTANA — When Gerson Fabe arrived at The Carlisle Palm Beach in 2014, he brought all the things an elderly gentleman entering an assisted living facility in Lantana would bring.

But he brought hundreds of poems, too.

And when he died at 102 on Jan. 20, he left hundreds more behind, along with all the friends who had looked forward to a poem a day for nearly 10 years.

“Any poem that deals in some way with age everybody loves, because they see themselves as the poem unfurls,” he told The Coastal Star in a 2017 profile.

My stamina and I
Are no longer speaking.
My left knee joint
Is loudly creaking
But I’m glad to be here.
— The Lament of Old Age, by Gerson Fabe

“My father started writing poetry regularly in 1996, after the death of his wife, Joan,” Mr. Fabe’s daughter, Sondra, said. “She was the love of his life.”

At The Carlisle, Mr. Fabe began sharing his daily poems, leaving copies in the dining room at breakfast. Eventually, residents asked for them, and a small breakfast group formed, five or six friends sharing a table.

“People would give him boxes of paper to print the poems on,” said Bobbi Horwich, who came to The Carlisle three years ago and soon joined Mr. Fabe’s breakfast club. “There was nobody like Gerson, his poetry, his sweetness. I can’t imagine anybody here that didn’t like him or wasn’t touched by one of his poems. They ranged from humor to love and how important friendship was. I don’t know who can fill that empty chair.”

Gerson Fabe was born in Cincinnati on Sept. 28, 1921. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati, but left during World War II to serve as a test pilot.

Among the first fliers to test planes after they had been repaired, he took pride in never having had to ditch a plane during his six years in the U.S. Air Force. After the war, he sold insurance for Connecticut Mutual, where his sales unit led the company for 15 consecutive years.

Lantana Mayor Karen Lythgoe met Mr. Fabe in 2021, when she read a proclamation to the Town Council marking his 100th birthday. They became friends, and she attended his 101st and 102nd birthday parties.

This past Christmas Eve, she was invited to The Carlisle for happy hour.

“I was led to the back room where the breakfast club had a private dining room reserved, and I was invited to stay for dinner.

“Gerson was just out of the hospital. An aide wheeled him in, and he started to eat, when a violinist who had been in the lobby when I arrived came in and asked, ‘What would you like to hear?’ He said Sinatra. ‘Which one?’ My Way. And Gerson sang My Way the whole time. He knew every word.”

He was, after all, a man who loved words.

Memories flit in and out of a fog
That grows denser as we age.
The moment in which they reveal themselves
Is as swift as just turning a page.

— Through the Fog, by Gerson Fabe

“I loved him, but I also respected and admired him,” his daughter said. “He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. He wanted to die in his own home, in his own bed, in his own time, and he did.”

On Friday afternoon, Jan. 26, The Carlisle held a small memorial for him.

In addition to Sondra Fabe, of West Palm Beach, Mr. Fabe is survived by two stepsons, Larry Berlin of Baltimore and Mark Berlin of Jacksonville; a step-grandson, Geoffrey; and a step-granddaughter, Samantha.

Forest Hills Memorial Park in Palm City is in charge of arrangements.

By Steve Plunkett

Halfway through the school year, the private Gulf Stream School would get an A for starting a new preschool but a C-minus or lower on its communication skills with town commissioners.

Patrick Donovan, president of the school’s board of trustees, gave commissioners an update on Jan. 12 of the school’s progress since he announced in September that it was buying the Early Childhood Academy in mainland Delray Beach.

“I am pleased to report that the first half of the year has been a resounding success for the school,” Donovan said.

The Gulf Stream School obtained the necessary license and assumed operations of the preschool on Dec. 13, he said. County property records show the school paid the now-shuttered St. Joseph’s Episcopal School $3 million in October for its preschool at 2515 N. Swinton Ave.

Donovan said the school has also launched a “highly successful” in-house lunch program on its main campus and shaved its average pickup time for parents dropping off and retrieving their children from 20 minutes down to 14.

And he expects the line of cars outside to drop once the school starts running a bus between the Gulf Stream and Delray Beach campuses in the morning and afternoon.

“We feel this would be a great service for the Lake Ida-based families. Just an easy drop-off there; they’ll come over. We’d be able to probably reduce the car line by 20, 30 cars maybe,” Donovan said. “A lot of those families come over individually with one child. Putting them on this bus I think will make it a lot easier for them.”

To ease the traffic even more, Mayor Scott Morgan and Town Manager Greg Dunham had news of their own — they’ve been talking with the town’s consulting engineers to widen Gulfstream Road between Lakeview Drive and at least Old School Road from its current 18-foot width to 20 feet wide.

Dunham said that would make it a little easier for southbound cars to navigate past the line. The work would be part of the town’s Capital Improvement Project, which is scheduled to begin in the Core District in March or April.

“That sounds great,” Donovan said. “And if you need us to change our traffic pattern during some of that construction we’d love to work with you on that.”

Dispute on enrollment cap
Then came time for the town commissioners to consider Donovan’s other goal in attending the meeting: endorsing the development agreement between the school and the town that has let the school enroll 300 students, up from a longtime 250 limit.

Morgan was willing to extend the pact until 2027.

“I think a three-year review on the development agreement would be a wise idea,” he said.

Donovan was not pleased and noted that he would probably not be president of the board in three years and that there might be new commissioners by then. He was hoping to have the 300-student limit become permanent and the issue to be resolved.

The school already has agreed to report to the town each October how many students are enrolled, he said.

“We’re going to interject a lot of new parties to this and I believe it adds a little bit of disruption that I would like to avoid for the next president and the next commission,” he said.

But Morgan told him he would not have been at the meeting if the mayor had not inadvertently discovered that parents had already received a document from the school detailing its new plans.

Commissioner Joan Orthwein supported building a better relationship.

“Unless the mayor had reached out to you, nobody would ever come back with your plan so I think that is my problem, right?” she said. “Because you said you were going to come back. That’s how we left it with you, the commission, and I just think nobody ever came back.”

In the end commissioners approved extending the agreement for the three years.

Before the meeting began, new Commissioner Robert Canfield took his oath of office.

Donovan said the Early Childhood Academy, renamed the Gulf Stream School Delray Beach Academy, will cater to children between 1 and 3 years old and offer a full-time preschool program from 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. The 4-year-olds will remain on the Gulf Stream campus.

The Gulf Stream School had 293 students in 2022-2023 despite enrollment being capped at 250. This year its enrollment is 294.

Commissioners amended the agreement in January 2023 to raise the cap to 300 children after Dr. Gray Smith, the head of school, told them having more students gives the school a “modest” budget surplus instead of a deficit.

Commissioners were going to vote later on making the higher limit permanent but after hearing in September about the Delray Beach preschool purchase decided to wait at least 90 days so Donovan and Smith could develop and share with them more specific plans.