By Steve Plunkett

Richard Jones is leaving his job as Ocean Ridge’s police chief to take the same post in nearby Gulf Stream.

Gulf Stream town commissioners approved the new hire on Feb. 10. His month-old contract with Ocean Ridge requires him to give up to 90 days’ notice, Jones said.

“I have already started to look for a replacement to fill the position that I am vacating so I can move that process along as quickly as possible,” he said. “I could potentially start sooner depending on what type of replacement I have and what kind of transition we think is necessary.”

Jones, who wore a business suit to the Gulf Stream meeting rather than a uniform, said he would solve the problem of recurrent vacancies in Gulf Stream’s 14-officer police force by building morale and making it “the go-to law enforcement agency in the county.”

“We should be the agency that everyone else is looking to, not only to see what we’re doing operationally and with our vision, but also what we’re doing with our technology and how we treat our staff,” he said.

He would boost morale, he said, “through a method that I believe in — being a worker, not just a police chief.”

“I believe in putting my feet on the ground and doing what I ask my officers to do, to demonstrate to them that I’m with them every step of the way. … It makes them realize that there’s value in their leader and I’m not asking them anything that I’m not willing to do.”

Jones, whose duties in Ocean Ridge include being police chief for Briny Breezes, also said he would be proactive in recruiting and expand Gulf Stream’s searches for potential hires to military veterans and law enforcement agencies beyond the local area.

Commissioners unanimously approved Jones’ hiring.

“We’re delighted to have you and congratulations on your appointment,” Commissioner Thom Smith said.

Mayor Scott Morgan said he spoke with Ocean Ridge Mayor Susan Hurlburt “and while they are sorry to lose him, she could not have been more enthusiastic in her praise of his skill, his vision, his energy, his administrative skills and his ability to take Gulf Stream, as she said, and move our police department legitimately into the 21^st century.”

Ocean Ridge gave Jones a three-year contract on Jan. 9 after he had been its chief more than 16 months. His pay there was $115,763 a year. His salary in Gulf Stream will be negotiated.

Ed Allen, his predecessor in Gulf Stream, announced in early December that he would leave the department on Jan. 31. Allen, who worked in Gulf Stream almost 35 years, was paid $143,771.

Jones started the week by persuading the Ocean Ridge Town Commission on Feb. 6 to approve one-time pay raises and benefits increases for his 15 officers for the rest of the year to attract more officers and retain current ones. Jones made the request after compiling a survey that showed Ocean Ridge’s officers made drastically less in salary, benefits and health insurance than other coastal police forces in Palm Beach County. 

Each officer will get a $7,500 salary bump the rest of the year, a $5,000 lump-sum vehicle reimbursement payment and a 50% health insurance match. Money for the changes will come from $213,186 that was freed up by freezing two vacancies.

Joe Capozzi contributed to this report.

Voters who want to vote by mail in the March 14 election must make a new request for a mail-in ballot because state law was changed.
Vote-by-Mail ballot requests made before the November 2022 general election expired on Dec. 31, according to the Supervisor of Elections Office. A new request will cover mail ballots for the 2023 through 2024 elections. 
The deadline to ask for a mail-in ballot is March 4; the deadline to register to vote is Feb. 13. Early voting will not be offered for the March 14 election.
For more information go to www.votepalmbeach.gov

--Staff report

By John Pacenti and Rich Pollack

Like many a divorce, the fire-rescue split between Highland Beach and Delray Beach is hardly amicable, but it really isn’t about irreconcilable differences. It’s mostly about the money. 
Highland Beach decided it would rather save what its consultants say could be several million dollars a year by having its own fire department, rather than pay Delray Beach Fire Rescue more than $5 million a year to staff the fire station in town and provide the town’s fire-rescue services.
Now Highland Beach officials are balking at paying more than $620,000 in additional charges Delray Beach has demanded without getting more information first. Officials from the two sides met Jan. 24 to try to resolve the dispute.
The current arrangement, which dates back 30 years, is set to expire in May 2024, and Highland Beach is well on its way to establishing its own fire department.

Here’s what Delray Beach says is owed by Highland Beach above the monthly payments the town is making to the city:
• $121,514 for services provided in fiscal year 2021 — due a year ago — for actual expenses that exceeded the city’s original estimates.
• $396,140 billed in November to reconcile actual fiscal year 2022 costs.
• $103,025 in ambulance transport fee reimbursements that the city says it paid in error to the town based on a software error by a third-party billing company.
When Highland Beach asked last year for specific details on how Delray Beach arrived at the fiscal year 2021 charge, Delray Beach told town officials to file a public records request — and then made the town pay for the documents the city provided. 
“Is that any way to treat a partner after 30 years by asking for a formal public records request to obtain information the town rightfully deserves?” Highland Beach Commissioner John Shoemaker told The Coastal Star. “It’s absolutely silly.”
Town Manager Marshall Labadie said at his Town Commission’s Jan. 17 meeting that he didn’t know how best to describe the situation between the two municipalities: surprised, disappointed or shocked. “I don’t know if I have the right adjective at this moment,” he said.
During the Delray Beach City Commission meeting on Jan. 10, Deputy Vice Mayor Juli Casale stated, “We don’t have a great relationship with them right now.”
City Manager Terrence Moore declared that Highland Beach was in breach of contract at the meeting, claiming the city had handed over documents but still was being stiffed on the money owed for 2021.
Since then, The Coastal Star has confirmed the two sides reached a detente where Delray Beach would provide the documents sought by its neighbor — such as a daily roster of employees at the station for each shift and payroll data. The Jan. 24 meeting included Moore and Labadie, along with their finance directors, attorneys and an assistant fire chief.

The bills are ‘true-ups’
So, how is it that Highland Beach has negotiated a contract to pay Delray Beach for fire-rescue services but still gets hit with an additional bill at the end of the year? Welcome to the world of “true-ups.”
A true-up bill comes at the end of each fiscal year, reconciling the difference between the original projected costs on which payments were based and the actual costs for the services provided. 
The disputed items surfaced after the town in May 2021 gave Delray Beach notice that it would be ending its contract with the city in three years.  Highland Beach questioned the true-up bill that came in late 2021, and officials there were even more surprised when the 2022 true-up arrived in December for more than triple the 2021 cost.
“Since we terminated the contract, the true-up amounts have gotten quite large and warrant a more detailed review,” Labadie told The Coastal Star. 
Labadie claims Delray Beach had stymied his town’s efforts to analyze the extra costs by first requiring Highland Beach to file public records requests for the information and then not providing all it wanted for the analysis.
Moore, though, said Delray Beach Fire Rescue, the Finance Department and others involved provided Highland Beach with everything it needed in terms of analysis and billing. “Highland Beach just did not honor that obligation,” he said.
 Prior to the Jan. 24 meeting, Labadie said what Delray Beach provided are only “just ‘trust us’ numbers.”
“We want details so we can see how they got to the number,” he said. “They just keep giving us totals.”
He hopes his recent meeting with Moore changes that.
“If everything is as we discussed, we could be making a recommendation to our commission regarding the true-ups in a few weeks,” Labadie said.

City wants some cash back
Besides the true-up charges, Moore informed commissioners Jan. 10 that the city had sent Highland Beach a check for ambulance transport fee reimbursements totaling about $114,000, which he said the city was now trying to get the town to pay back.
City Attorney Lynn Gelin told commissioners a software change with billing company Digitech is at the root of the overpayment; she said the payment was around $15,000 in previous years.
Gelin said though Delray Beach shoulders some of the blame, Highland Beach “had a duty to call the city and question why it was so astronomically high when compared to prior years.”
Documents obtained by The Coastal Star show the payments have varied widely. The amounts were $15,877 in fiscal year 2019 and $88,343 in fiscal year 2018.
Of the 2022 amount sent to the town, Moore is seeking $103,025 back from Highland Beach. Delray Beach commissioners appeared to be hearing about the issue for the first time at the Jan. 10 meeting even though it occurred almost a year ago.
Labadie questioned whether the EMS transport dollars were actually an overpayment. He said that if Delray Beach’s request for reimbursement was correct, then Highland Beach had only about $8,000 in transports for the 2022 fiscal year — only between 30 or 40 residents being transferred by ambulance.
But information from Delray Beach Fire Rescue shows that the Highland Beach station conducted 289 medical transports from Highland Beach in 2022.

Town says breakup is final
What really burned Labadie was hearing that some in Delray Beach think Highland Beach won’t be able to establish its own fire department and that it will come back to the city hat in hand. He said that had no basis in reality since town voters overwhelmingly supported spending up to $10 million to build a new station.
Labadie told The Coastal Star he thinks the disputes may boil down to a new interpretation of the contract by new leaders of the Delray Beach city administration. He and Moore are still hopeful there may be some mutually acceptable resolution to the dispute.
Either way, there remains a lack of trust.
 “Every time I get information from them, I begin questioning the prior information that was provided,” Labadie said at Highland Beach’s Jan. 17 commission meeting.

This morning meetup at the Palm Beach Bakery & Cafe in Lantana is a chance for the regulars to discuss their lives, past and present, and tell a few jokes. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

Ask what they call themselves and no one seems to know.
The Breakfast Group maybe? The Breakfast Club?
One guy had a hat made that said Bakery Bums, but that was a joke. These men and women are far from being bums.
What they do know is that six days a week since 2005, they have met around an outdoor table at the Palm Beach Bakery & Cafe on East Ocean Avenue in Lantana for coffee, pastry and conversation.
Finnish speakers meet at a nearby table, so maybe they’re The English Table?
“I’m the chairman of the board,” says Ed Scalone. He’s not sure what to call them, either, and he doesn’t do much chairing. He doesn’t announce topics to be discussed or monitor the rambling chatter. Scalone is more host than chairman.
“I was just walking by and Ed told me to sit down,” says Ygal Lalo, 73, who sells Italian handbags in Palm Beach. That was a year ago, and Lalo is still showing up.
The only thing these men and women seem to have in common is age. Most are in their 60s, 70s, 80s. Scalone is 91.

A honey bun sells for $3.50 at the bakery.

Other than that — well, order a coffee, maybe a pastry, grab a seat and introduce yourself.
Get to know them.

 •

Barry Heiniluoma, 77, has been showing up at this table for nearly a decade.
“We’re here six days a week,” he says. “They’re closed on Sunday or it would be seven.”
But why? What is it about these morning gatherings that’s brought him back so often for so long?
“Well, let’s see,” he says. “One guy worked in the shipping business for a grain company in northern Wisconsin. That leads us to talk about shipping and we wonder how big a ship you can get into the St. Lawrence Seaway.”
He shrugs. “It’s nothing. But it’s interesting.”
Dan Trachtenberg, 81, was a medic in Vietnam, awarded a Bronze Star. Back home he became a radiologist in York, Pennsylvania, and retired after 30 years.
In March 1979, when the threat of nuclear disaster struck the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near York Memorial Hospital, Trachtenberg was in charge of the hospital’s nuclear disaster committee.
“We had a plan, but fortunately we never had to use it,” he says.
Now he collects Kentucky rifles and entertains the table with trivia.
“Do you know how the grandfather clock got its name?” he says. “They used to be called tall case clocks.”
And then in 1876 a man named Henry Clay Work wrote a song called My Grandfather’s Clock.
My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf so it stood ninety years on the floor.
And the tall case clocks have been grandfather clocks ever since.
It’s nothing. But it’s interesting.

•

The group usually includes a retired radiologist who was a medic in Vietnam, a Korean War veteran, a retired New York City firefighter and people from Iran, Iraq and Brazil.

John O’Neill is 54, a lawyer, and a newcomer to the table. The chairman of the board invited him to drop by a year ago.
“I enjoy hearing what the people have to say,” he says, “the travel stories and the jokes.”
Oh, the jokes.
“Do you know how the camel came to be?” asks Merdock Saleh. “It was a horse created by a committee.”
This was not the funniest joke that morning. Scalone tried out three, searching for one clean enough to be published in The Coastal Star.
He failed.

•

Saleh, 64, is an Armenian from Iran who came to the U.S. in 1976 and built homes in New Jersey.
“I came for breakfast one morning and I see all these guys getting rowdy, so I picked up my coffee and pastry and said, ‘Can I join you?’”
The table is not very big, but the men and women who gather around it cover the world.
Gina Fisher, 71, is from Brazil.
“My husband was a cultural diplomat,” she says, “so we worked in embassies around the world.”

•

Vicky Mouallem was born in Baghdad to parents from Entebbe.
Christer Sundell, “63 but I feel 23,” ran companies in Australia, Italy, Singapore and the U.S.
“I can communicate in eight or nine languages,” he says. “But that’s not the same as speaking them.”
Ed Yany, 78, retired in 1998 after 27 years with the New York Fire Department.
“Six from my ladder company, Ladder 1, died on 9/11,” he says. “Including my best friend.”
Bill Aho, 89, served on the USS Hornet in the Korean War and wears the cap to prove it.
“Then I went to the Fitchburg Teachers College in Massachusetts on the GI Bill, taught seventh grade for a year, worked for the Social Security Administration in Gary, Indiana, got a Ph.D. from Notre Dame and taught at six different colleges.”
For such a varied group, the conversation remains friendly.
“We try to avoid politics,” Scalone says.
“There’s been a couple fights,” Sundell concedes. “Well, not fights, but disagreements.”
They are here to tell jokes, share stories from their lives before retirement and pictures from their travels now. Some come early, some late. Some stay hours, some no longer than a coffee.
As Aho rises to go, he proudly displays the Apple watch on his wrist.
“I surprise people when I pay with my watch,” he says, “because I’m so old.”
On the way out, he runs into Tuula Salmela, 76, just back from Panama.
“So, the cruise was good?” he asks.
“The highlight was rafting on a river in Jamaica,” she tells him.
Salmela has been coming to the table for six or seven years now, and here she is again.
Ask her why, and you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking she probably speaks for everyone here.
“The coffee’s good,” she says, “the sweet buns are good, and the conversation is good. We talk about everything under the sun. Where they’re going and where they’ve been.
“Then you put in a little of yourself, and you’ve got a morning.”

Related story: 'Truly the end of an era’: Tears, heartbreak mark final days at Seaside Deli

Longtime Seaside Deli & Market manager Chelsea Steen (left) embraces customer Carol George after helping George load her car during her final visit to the deli, which closed last month. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By John Pacenti

For nearly a decade, a look at the Florida Board of Medicine’s website would find Dr. Michael Ligotti in good standing.
No emergency actions. No discipline. No public complaints.
No indication of any investigation — criminal or administrative — of the Delray Beach physician who stood at the apex of an insurance fraud scheme in Palm Beach County that illicitly exploited drug addicts looking to recover during the height of the OxyContin crisis.
This despite complaints from families and advocates and finally an indictment 2½ years ago.
It would take a Miami federal judge’s order Jan. 9 for Ligotti, 48, to surrender his medical license after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for defrauding insurers of $127 million on a total $746 million his Whole Health Medical Center billed.
The osteopath must also pay back a yet undetermined amount of money. A hearing was set for April 4.
The Board of Medicine weeks after the sentencing had not updated Ligotti’s status from “clear/active.”
The site warns that a doctor’s criminal history may be incomplete and is only verified at the time of initial licensure and when a license is up for renewal, which in Ligotti’s case is listed as March 2024.
“I simply lost my way,” a tearful Ligotti said in front of U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz II as his wife and family watched from the gallery. He said he “failed miserably” at upholding the sacred oath of a doctor to do no harm.
Prosecutors said Ligotti’s business moved addicts around like chess pieces, transporting them in vans dubbed “drug buggies” to associated sober homes and drug rehab centers in order to bilk Medicare and private insurance through fraudulent tests and treatment.
The operation relied on illegal patient brokering where third parties — often addicts paid by rogue treatment centers and sober homes — recruit other addicts to be used and victimized by the fraud.

Ken Daniels carried family photos inside his jacket when he attended the sentencing. His son, Jamie, died in 2016 while under Michael Ligotti’s care. John Pacenti/The Coastal Star

One family’s story
Lisa Daniels-Goldman and Ken Daniels lost their son, Jamie, in December 2016 under the care of Ligotti.
He was 23 and aspired to be a lawyer or a sports agent. He was working on a program of recovery, his parents said, and even had a job at a law firm but ended up dead of a fentanyl overdose under the care of Ligotti’s operation.
“We trusted a system, shame on us,” Ken Daniels told the judge. “We trusted Jamie was living in a safe and sober environment, overseen by qualified medical professionals and staff, only to find out after his death that Jamie had been used for financial gain, your personal gain, Michael Ligotti.”
How craven was the patient brokering system? Daniels-Goldman said outside the courtroom that the person who had lured her son into the sober home where he died contacted the family afterward on Jamie’s phone. The man had some of Jamie’s prize possessions — jewelry, headphones — that he would return for a fee.
Outside of court, Ken Daniels opened his sports jacket. Inside were photos of his son and his daughter over the years. He is the TV play-by-play announcer for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League. The ESPN investigative news magazine E-60 did a story on Jamie’s death called the “Florida Shuffle.”
Ligotti, who received his medical degree from Nova Southeastern University, joins a sad parade of those prosecuted under a crackdown on South Florida’s illicit addiction industry.
The multi-agency task force was the first to start looking at the drug recovery industry in Palm Beach County — or really anywhere in the country. It paved the road for more than 120 arrests, according to the State Attorney’s Office.
Besides Ligotti, Dr. Mark Agresti was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for assisting in a $31.3 million fraud by sober home operator Kenneth Bailynson. Bailynson received a six-year sentence.
One of the most notorious sober home operators — Kenny Chatman — was given a 27-year sentence. Chatman prostituted some of his clients in a $16 million kickback and bribery scheme.
Ligotti faced 13 charges of health care fraud and money laundering but pleaded guilty Oct. 4 to only one count.
He faced life in prison because his operation was so extensive — thus leading to the plea bargain. He served as medical director for more than 50 sober homes, substance-abuse treatment centers and clinical testing laboratories, prosecutors said.
Special Agent in Charge Kevin W. Carter of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Miami Field Division said in a news release that families rely on doctors in the drug treatment industry to help their loved ones who suffer from the disease of addiction.
“Physicians and other medical professionals who hold positions of trust within our communities, will absolutely be held accountable for violations of that trust,” Carter said.
The bread and butter of the fraud was urine and blood drug testing of patients three or more times a week. The analysis was sent to labs, which billed insurers and paid kickbacks to sober home and treatment center operators. In turn, these businesses sent the patients to Ligotti’s Whole Health for additional testing and treatment.
Prosecutors said Whole Health billed one patient’s insurer more than $840,000 in six years.
In 2016, Ligotti sued an insurance provider for failing to pay him. He also sought to bully state regulators, writing to them in 2013 that he was outraged by accusations against Whole Health, claiming his name and license were used in an “unauthorized fashion,” according to the FBI’s arrest affidavit.

Prison term to start in June
“We are happy to put an end to this tragic episode,” said Judge Ruiz, noting the sentence was appropriate for the harm done. He noted that Ligotti’s operation also undermined the faith families could have in drug treatment while costing all those with private insurance higher premiums.
But Ruiz did not remand Ligotti to custody. Like some others who have been convicted of sober home crimes, he will remain free to testify against others in trials this spring. He is to report to prison on June 12.
“This is nothing but privilege over justice,” said Maureen Mulroy Kielian, whose Southeast Florida Recovery Advocates sounded the alarm about Ligotti long before his indictment.
Kielian filed a complaint against Ligotti in 2020 with the Board of Medicine.
In April 2021, she was informed that the complaint was forwarded to a probable cause panel for consideration but she said nothing happened. A complaint is noted on the Board of Medicine’s website only if probable cause is found.
She said most of South Florida’s drug treatment center woes can be laid at the feet of unscrupulous doctors.
“It’s not a sober home problem. It’s a treatment, medical director problem,” Kielian said. “There is no money without a prescription pad. It’s the same model as the pill mills. The minimum requirement is a Florida licensed provider.”

Here we go again.
Remember back in 2007 when an “unbelievable” offer to buy Briny Breezes evaporated when the financing collapsed amid a volatile market? Remember 2018, when a small group of shareholders in the mobile home park failed in an attempt to get approval to market the park for sale?
Well, a small group of residents (some of them the same) wants to try again.
This time, they want to bring much of what most residents enjoy about this special place to a grinding halt for two entire years.
Here’s some of what will happen if their proposal gains 67% of the vote at the park’s Feb. 22 annual meeting:
• Friends and family, the typical purchasers of homes, won’t buy into the park — only speculators will do so.
• Grants that the town has been pursuing to help with immediate infrastructure needs will dry up.
• Residents will no longer want to serve on corporate or town boards, since any discussions of the future will be moot.
• Every offer that’s scared up by this “marketing” will require time and effort of staff and officials and cause upset among residents.
What sort of a vacation retreat does this leave?
I suspect the self-important residents behind the push to market the park for sale could not care less. Dangling billion-dollar dreams as short-term enjoyment of the park crumbles is unconscionable. Especially as Realtors position themselves to profit from speculators in the interim, regardless of some unlikely sale of the park.
The original founders of Briny Breezes had a vision for the park and it wasn’t for self-enrichment. They found a way to keep viable all that they cherished about the coastal lifestyle.
Once they purchased the land by selling shares and setting up the corporation, they preserved their “trailer park” lifestyle by driving to Tallahassee (not easy in the early 1960s) and successfully lobbying to incorporate as a town.
It took commitment to their friends and neighbors and a vision for the future to pull this off.
That same dedication was evident when town leaders later sold bonds to install sewers — some of the first on the barrier island. Visionary leadership.
Briny is again in a position where vision will be necessary to move forward as climate change raises sea levels and delivers flooding rains. All of Florida faces these challenges. Briny’s coastal neighbors are dealing with identical issues. They aren’t giving up.
Many of Briny Breezes’ elected, appointed and hired officials have roots back to the visionary leadership of the past and they, too, are looking at options to keep this lovely, thriving vacation community moving forward.
This latest selfish and shortsighted effort to market the community for sale should fail.

NOTE: Mary Kate Leming and her family have owned mobile homes in Briny Breezes since 1998.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

Barbara and Mike Soroker have given about $150,000 to the Boca Raton Police Foundation for training and equipment not in the city budget. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Were it not for the quick thinking of two Boston cops, Mike Soroker might not have made it to his fifth birthday.
An obviously rambunctious 4-year-old who snuck out to track down the nearby ice-cream truck, Soroker was hit by a car as he headed back to the house where his family was visiting.
With no ambulance nearby, the two officers who responded quickly put Soroker in a police van, where they helped stop the bleeding and raced him to a hospital where he would stay for 11 months while recovering.
“Without them, I wouldn’t be here today,” he said.
Now, more than seven decades later, Soroker and his wife of more than half a century, Barbara, have found a way of showing their appreciation for the work of police officers by supporting the Boca Raton Police Foundation and by helping to raise money for the organization.
The couple is relatively new to South Florida, having moved to Boca Raton in 2019 for health reasons. They gave a $100,000 gift to the foundation after seeking it out in 2021 and then late last year created a $50,000 matching gift challenge which raised close to $109,000.
Money from the matching grant will be used to provide training tools for investigators that simulate high-risk scenarios involving people with mental health issues, according to Debbie Levine, executive director of the foundation, which helps fund items and training not included in the city’s budget.
The money raised also will help cover the cost of a training academy for families of law enforcement officers and will provide protective suits and gear for nonlethal force training as well as other items.
Soroker, who is now on the board of the foundation, says that in supporting the organization, he and Barbara wanted to make sure local law enforcement officers received the respect they deserve at a time when the phrase “defund the police” has become part of the national vernacular.
“It just seemed like the right thing to do at the right time,” Soroker said.
Soroker was meticulous in his research before he and his wife decided to support the foundation and the Police Department.
“I literally investigated them,” he said, adding that he spoke to several police officers to be sure the donation would be a worthwhile investment.
In one instance, Soroker walked up to a relatively new Boca Raton officer at Mizner Park and just asked him what he thought of the Police Department.
“He was really glowing about the management and felt that he could grow,” Soroker said. ”I walked away with a very comfortable feeling.”

Support of other causes
The Sorokers support Boca Helping Hands, another organization that passed the couple’s tough scrutiny with flying colors.
The couple also supported their local synagogue and Goodwill chapter while living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
That home was one of 17 they owned over the years, with Mike Soroker’s career taking him to cities in Canada, Japan as well as many in the U.S.
Soroker is an engineer who was a senior executive at a handful of international companies before buying Reliance Network, a company that specializes in building websites for real estate agents. After leaving the corporate world — where he worked for companies including Playtex, Baxter Health Care and Benetton — Soroker in 2000 began consulting. One client was Reliance, a small, struggling organization at the time.
Soroker later bought the company and has overseen its growth to the point where it has between 80,000 and 90,000 agents in its network. Although he gave up his title as CEO a short time ago, Soroker remains chairman of the board and puts in 20 to 30 hours a week.
He will tell you that a piece of his success in business can be traced back to another interaction he had with police officers who mentored him while he was playing basketball with the Police Athletic League in New Haven, Connecticut.
“They gave me the confidence to do anything,” he said. “I’ve always kept that feeling.”

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

By Joe Capozzi

At a special meeting to discuss the process of finding a new town manager, South Palm Beach council members reached a consensus Jan. 30: They’d like the current town manager to stick around a little longer.
It could take at least four and as many as six months before the town hires a new town manager, council members were told during a presentation by an adviser with the International City/County Management Association.
Council members, who were also told they could expect 30 to 50 applicants, agreed it would be in the best interests of South Palm Beach if Manager Robert Kellogg agrees to stay until the new manager is hired. 
At the Town Council’s next meeting, Feb. 14, Kellogg will be asked to agree to a six-month extension during which he can be terminated with notice as soon as a new town manager is hired.  
The council that day also will discuss whether to hire a professional recruiting firm, which can cost $25,000, or use the ICMA services, which are free except for $2,500 in background checks for each candidate and for meals and travels for the ICMA adviser.
Also that day, the council will discuss salary and qualifications for a new town manager. Kellogg, town manager since 2019, is making $105,000 a year. 
Kellogg, who did not attend the Jan. 30 meeting, announced in November that he planned to retire at the end of March. He made that decision a day after councilman Ray McMillan called for his termination, a request that got no support from other council members. 
On Jan. 30, most council members said they didn’t like the idea of hiring an interim town manager or of continuing to give Kellogg monthly extensions, as they have had for part of the past year, until a new manager is hired. 
But McMillan didn’t like the idea of Kellogg sticking around longer.  “I feel like we’re doing everything for him,’’ he said. 
Other council members didn’t agree with McMillan’s characterization. 
“I think it’s doing it for us,’’ councilman Monte Berendes said. “We want to look good as a town. I think somebody new coming in is going to look at us like we’re letting him go with nobody (in charge).’’ 
Vice Mayor Bill LeRoy agreed, saying that if a town manager candidate finds out “we’ve got a manager from month to month, they’re going to think, ‘I don’t want to work for that town.’’’
Near the end of the meeting, McMillan sternly asked why Kellogg didn’t attend. “Why isn’t he out here? Isn’t that part of his job?’’
Town Attorney Glen Torcivia said Kellogg didn’t think it appropriate to attend a meeting that was called for the purpose of finding his replacement.
“It’s embarrassing for him and for us,’’ LeRoy added. 
A majority of council members also agreed the town manager should be a full-time position, shooting down an idea broached at a previous meeting about hiring a part-time manager. 
One potential candidate attended the Jan. 30 meeting: Philip Harris, an executive director in the city manager’s office in North Miami since 2022, according to his résumé. Harris, whom McMillan endorsed at two previous South Palm Beach Town Council meetings, worked in 2021 as an assistant to the city administrator in West Palm Beach. 
Speaking during public comments at the end of the Jan. 30 meeting, Harris said he attended “just to observe the process” and was “very much interested in the town.’’
Former Ocean Ridge Town Manager Jamie Titcomb also attended. Although he told council members he was not interested in a full-time job, he said he was available to offer advice.

I moved to Ocean Ridge in 1973 — 50 years ago last month. For virtually that entire time, I enjoyed — without dispute or interruption — full recreational use of the beach and ocean on both sides of my access pathway through the dune at the end of Tropical Drive.
My wife moved here three years prior to me, but used to visit Tropical Drive from Canada with her parents for several years even before that.
Both of our children, now 39 and 35, grew up and played on that beach through their entire youths.
In 1974, the year after I moved here, a landmark case, City of Daytona Beach v. Tona-Rama Inc., was appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. In the March 25, 1974, ruling quashing the decision of an earlier court, Chief Justice James C. Adkins repeatedly and eloquently affirmed what he variously termed:
• “The right of the public of access to, and enjoyment of, Florida’s oceans and beaches” which had “long been recognized by this court”;
• “The interest and rights of the public to the full use of the beaches should be protected”;
• “If the recreational use of the sandy area adjacent to mean high tide has been ancient, reasonable, without interruption and free from dispute, such use, as a matter of custom, should not be interfered with by the owner”;
• “The owner may make any use of his property which is consistent with such public use and not calculated to interfere with the exercise of the right of the public to enjoy the dry sand area as a recreational adjunct of the wet sand or foreshore area”;
• “This right of use cannot be revoked by the land owner”;
• “The general public may continue to use the dry sand area for their usual recreational activities … because of a right gained through custom to use this particular area of beach as they have without dispute and without interruption for many years.”
Further, Scott Woolam of the Division of State Land, Department of Environmental Protection, states in a Feb. 2, 2022, email regarding the Erosion Control Line superseding the Mean High Water Line in locations proximate to state-funded beach restoration projects: “The resulting additions to upland property are also subject to a public easement for traditional uses of the sandy beach consistent with uses that would have been allowed prior to the need for the restoration project.”
Finally, Ocean Ridge Town Attorney Christy Goddeau acknowledged in a Dec. 5 Town Commission meeting that with the subject beach, there are “other property interests involved regarding the public’s access and easements that the public has … that have been created over the years.”
 I believe the town of Ocean Ridge owes a duty of care to its residents to preserve the above referenced rights.

Chris Currie
Ocean Ridge

By Joe Capozzi
 
Ocean Ridge commissioners finally chose a new full-time town manager Jan. 31, capping a difficult six-month selection process marked by complications right up to the very end. 
Lynne Ladner, who has held the post on an interim basis since Sept. 11 when former Town Manager Tracey Stevens resigned, will be offered a contract for the full-time job at the commission’s next meeting Feb. 6. 
But Ladner wasn’t the commission’s first choice. 
After a full day of interviews with six finalists — including private one-on-one sessions with individual commissioners in the morning and public interviews at a special meeting with the full commission in the afternoon — former St. Lucie County deputy administrator Alphonso Jefferson, 52, emerged as the top choice. 
But during a recess, called so the town’s recruiting consultant could discuss a contract with Jefferson, word spread among a half dozen residents at the meeting about Jefferson’s demotion from his job in 2019 as assistant county administrator in Broward County. 
Residents found articles online reporting that Jefferson was demoted and forced to take a $30,000 pay cut after he was accused of sexual harassment by a former county employee. Although a county investigation determined the allegations were unsupported, Jefferson was demoted for questionable judgment in maintaining a personal relationship with the employee and for sending inappropriate texts. 
The allegations were included in a background report about Jefferson provided to Ocean Ridge commissioners Jan. 23 by Colin Baenziger & Associates, the recruiting firm the town hired for $29,500 to find a new town manager.
“Broward’s Office of Professional Standards found all allegations in [the woman’s] complaint to be ‘unsupported.’ It did so in part because the complainant refused to provide her cell phone and because she did not supply any witnesses to corroborate her allegations. Mr. Jefferson could not provide the texts because they ‘were no longer on his phone,’’’ the Baenziger report said. 
The complainant “and Mr. Jefferson had some sort of relationship. We believe it was consensual, and Mr. Jefferson did send some inappropriate texts. It was clearly a mistake,’’ the report said. 
Baenziger’s report also said: “We have been told that if you hire Mr. Jefferson, it is likely [the accuser] will resurface these allegations in an effort to cause Mr. Jefferson to lose his job.’’
According the report, Jefferson’s supervisor in Broward County told Baenziger that Jefferson’s “work was exemplary and he was always on top of his projects” and that his accuser “had made other allegations against other county employees.’’
Although the allegations were never brought up during the commission’s public interview with Jefferson on Jan. 31, some commissioners said they asked about the report during one-on-one interviews with Jefferson in the morning and were satisfied with his answers. 
But during the recess, some residents found a 2022 article in the Florida Bulldog blog that described salacious texts Jefferson allegedly sent the woman. Some residents loudly complained that the town’s selection of Jefferson was “an embarrassment.’’
When the meeting reconvened, commissioners agreed to consider casting a new vote for town manager.
“Some material has come to light that perhaps all of the commissioners were not aware of, which is what is causing this brouhaha,’’ Commissioner Steve Coz said, referring to the Florida Bulldog article. “Several townsfolk and commissioners thought everybody was aware of this. If they were, they maybe didn’t interpret it fully.’’
Another recess was called while Baenziger met privately with Jefferson. When the meeting resumed a few minutes later, Baenziger said: “Mr. Jefferson has decided to withdraw. He felt that it wasn’t the right fit at this point.’’
Commissioners held a new vote and gave unanimous support to Ladner, who was the runner-up in the first round of votes that supported Jefferson, 3-2.
“I’m thrilled and excited and looking forward to continuing the progress we’ve made,’’ Ladner, 53, said in an interview after the meeting. 
“We have great ideas and a wonderful staff and I am really looking forward to the next several years,’’ said Ladner, whose interim contract was set to expire Feb. 28.
Commissioner Martin Wiescholek, who cast one of three votes for Jefferson, said after the meeting that the texts detailed in the Florida Bulldog were not included in the background report. If they had been, he said he might have cast a different vote.
After the meeting, Jefferson — who would have been Ocean Ridge’s first African American town manager — emailed this statement to The Coastal Star: “I was excited about the opportunity to be the next town manager. This would have been an historic achievement for the Town and me. I respect the will of the distinguished commission, and I look forward to serving an organization that will benefit from my 31 years of public/private/military sector experience.’’

On Jan. 18, the Interim St. Lucie County Administrator requested the resignations of both Assistant  County Administrators, Jefferson and Mark Satterle, Baenziger said in his report. They were both "at will" employees. There was nothing in Jefferson's personnel file.
The search process started July 25 — 10 days after Stevens announced she was leaving Sept. 11 to take the town manager’s job in Haverhill. At the time, commissioners expected to hire a new full-time manager by Thanksgiving at the latest. 
They also opted to save money and rejected hiring a recruiting firm, relying instead on guidance from the Florida City and County Management Association’s senior advisers program, which is less expensive. 
But just 15 candidates applied. After a series of meetings with the commission, all but two finalists withdrew, prompting town officials in October to start over with a recruiting firm.

The opening of Brightline stations in Boca Raton and Aventura has boosted ridership.
The new stations generated 17,682 rides, representing 24% of Brightline’s ridership since the Boca station opened on Dec. 21 and the Aventura station on Dec. 24, the company’s year-end ridership and financial report said.
The ridership increase “revealed strong latent demand for our service in those communities,” Brightline’s report said.
Brightline President Patrick Goddard, speaking during a ribbon-cutting for the Boca station on Dec. 20, said the company’s website saw record traffic when the station’s opening date was announced on Dec. 15.
During all of December, Brightline carried 183,920 passengers, an 87% increase over December 2021.
The cost to ride also is increasing.
The company hiked the price of a monthly pass by about 15% in November, to $229 or $339 depending on the start point and destination.
It expects to further raise prices “after we evaluate the increased demand expected” as a result of the new stations, the report said.
Brightline has started phasing out introductory one-way $10 tickets announced when the two new stations opened. While they were still offered at the end of January, fewer were available then or in February.

— Mary Hladky

Tracks from vehicles that navigate the cul-de-sac have damaged the landscaped circle. Nearby residents have offered to pay for pavers, an alternative the Town Commission may consider. Photo provided

By Larry Barszewski

At the end of Lands End Road, residents are at their wits’ end because delivery and construction trucks trying to navigate the cul-de-sac there have knocked down mailboxes, torn up front lawns and ridden roughshod over the landscaped circle in the middle of the road.
Neighbors Joe Imbesi and Dan Leever asked Manalapan town commissioners at their Jan. 24 meeting to fix the situation by reengineering the cul-de-sac and improving its look. They offered to pay for the cost of pavers to beautify the portion of the road in the cul-de-sac, though they said the town might consider stamped concrete that would probably look just as good and hold up better under the weight of the trucks riding over it.
The main problems, residents and staff said, are that the circle is too large and is off-center.
“The circle has got a diameter of 30 feet right now. That’s 10 feet too much,” Imbesi said. “If you would go down and look at the damage, it clearly delineates exactly where the circle should be. Because you can see that on the east side it’s smashed down, on the south side it’s smashed down. The west side and the north side are intact.”
Commissioners were sympathetic and asked staff to have engineers come up with a fix, which they hope to consider at their Feb. 28 meeting. Town Manager Linda Stumpf said the town would have to check on what’s possible, given that the circle must follow Florida Department of Transportation guidelines.
Imbesi suggested maybe the circle itself should be devoid of landscaping and just have pavers.
“Perhaps if we had stamped concrete, then the 20-foot diameter circle of beautiful pavers, it would be a better look,” Imbesi said. “And it would last and it would stay good looking. You know Manalapan is such a beautiful community, this is atrocious, the way it looks.”
The lone tree in the center of the circle won’t face a death sentence, no matter what is done.
“The tree that’s there currently will be relocated to either the Audubon Causeway or the library,” Stumpf said. “We’re not going to get rid of it. It was a donated tree.”
Although Imbesi and Leever asked for final approval of the selected design since they could be putting up money for the decorative elements, town officials said they could only agree to consult with them on the plans.
“I’ll work with them. I’d like to have their cooperation and input since they live there. It’s in front of their houses,” Stumpf said. “My intent is to make a beautiful cul-de-sac there that the residents that live around it will love.”
In other news, Stumpf told commissioners that all work on a new water main crossing the Intracoastal Waterway between Point Manalapan and the beach should be completed within a few weeks. The crossing is finished, but the town was waiting on asphalt to put the finishing touches on portions of road that were damaged by the work. The new main should improve water pressure to homes along State Road A1A.
Progress is also being made on the town’s sewer study, Stumpf said. The town now expects the requested 30% design work to be completed by April 1, several months earlier than originally estimated.

By Mary Thurwachter

Kem Mason has had it with the hateful speech found on social media and directed at local public officials. During the Jan. 9 Town Council meeting, the first-term council member aimed his remarks at some postings on a private Facebook group called Lantana Raw.
His outburst was fueled by a comment made on the group’s page about using “a vat of sulfuric acid” on an anonymous elected official, who the page’s administrator Catherine Phillips said was stalking her.
In a complaint she filed with police, Phillips said she thought council member Mark Zeitler was stalking her because he drove by her home and remained at the stop sign near her house longer than needed before making a turn.
Mason decried the social media posts, saying “an attack against one town official is an attack against all of us,” but Vice Mayor Lynn “Doc” Moorhouse said he for one didn’t need anyone’s help in being shielded from such attacks.
“I appreciate how you feel, I feel the same way, and there’s no need to protect me, I protect me,” Moorhouse told Mason. “I’ve been trashed for so many years, I’m good. I can take care of me.”
Mason decided to speak out after a concerned citizen brought him a copy of the posts, which he shared by displaying them on a video screen. Zeitler — who at the time had not been publicly identified as the subject — said he would refrain from commenting beyond what Mason said.
Phillips wrote that she was experiencing “creepy behavior” from an unnamed elected official and so was her friend.
Underneath this statement was a picture of a person in a black hoodie with no face, but where the face would be is printed “stalker” in bold red letters.
“The next screen shot shows a comment from Chris Rodgers, one of the 2,600 followers of Lantana Raw, who wrote ‘hmmmm, not good,’” Mason read. “Ms. Phillips says, ‘nope, need you here to show him who’s the boss.’
“Rodgers wrote, ‘A vat of sulfuric acid would work.’ And Phillips replied: ‘True.’
“Instead of discouraging the comment, she supports his suggestion of an act of violence against a Town Council member,” Mason said.
Mason said Phillips has a history of making defamatory remarks about elected officials.
“You’ve called me a liar, a bully and a cheat, along with implying I was taking money for the Kmart project,” he said.
Mason ignored the comments, hoping they would pass, he said, “but now you have gone too far by encouraging harm against an elected official.”
In 2018, Phillips accused former Mayor Dave Stewart of misusing his position to obtain a sexual benefit for himself and soliciting sex from a constituent based on an understanding that his vote, official action or judgment would be influenced. A Florida Commission on Ethics judge found Stewart did not violate ethics law and threw out the claim.

Town or personal issue?
Mason asked Phillips to stop posting such things, “because these claims are nothing to be cavalier about. It hurts a person’s reputation and creates doubt in the people’s minds about their public officials.”
Phillips, contacted by The Coastal Star after the meeting, criticized Mason for attacking her right of free speech.
“I find it very scary and disturbing that an elected official is not representing truths about private citizens such as myself,” she wrote in an emailed response. “Mr. Mason was elected as a Councilman to make policy decisions that affect Lantana and not to use his position as a pulpit to bully constituents.”
At the meeting, Moorhouse, who said he was unaware of the postings and is a friend of Phillips, questioned whether addressing social media issues from the dais was appropriate. “Is it taking advantage of our official position for personal defense?” he asked Town Attorney Max Lohman.
“That’s really not for me to say,” Lohman said. “We could have different opinions on it, it’s not really a legal question. If it were a matter of decorum, it’d be different.”
“This is just a ‘he said, she said’ and goes on and on,” Moorhouse said.
Lohman said this wasn’t so much a legal issue as a personal issue to be dealt with by each council member. He said people could argue on whether it was beneficial to address.
“I know it’s difficult to have things posted about you on social media and spread around, especially things that are not true,” he said. “That’s hurtful and it’s hard to swallow. I think each person is going to have to deal with it differently. As a council, you could come up with a policy on how you’re going to deal with it as a body. But it still wouldn’t prevent the individual from choosing to address it.
“The standard and the bar for proving defamation or slander for public officials, or someone who is in the public eye, is much higher than it is for regular citizens,” Lohman said. “When you bring the tort of defamation or slander or libel, you typically have to show actual damages.”
He said it is always very challenging “when it’s something like this, it isn’t necessarily about the way anybody’s doing their job up here, it’s an ad hominem attack. There’s really no legal position on it because each one of you has the right and the ability to say what you’re going to say …and we can agree to disagree on whether it’s wise or not wise to.”
Mason and Zeitler had filed a police report on the postings and police did speak with Phillips.
As for her stalking complaint, police talked to Phillips and said they couldn’t stop someone from driving on the streets of town.
Phillips previously lodged a complaint against Zeitler during the 2021 mayoral election, saying he threw down a political sign for the candidate she supported, former Mayor Robert Hagerty. That complaint was dismissed after Hagerty chose not to pursue it.
The Facebook posting referring to sulfuric acid has been removed from Lantana Raw, although Phillips told police she didn’t know who took it down. The site lists one other administrator and two content moderators.
Mason wasn’t backing down.
“She went over the line with the sulfuric acid posting,” he said. “That’s a real threat, a serious offense. I’m letting you all know that I’m not taking it. I’m taking something that’s in the dark behind a keyboard and bringing it in the light. And, if you’re going to say things about me, it’s going right up there on the screen, every single time. I’m done with this.”

In other news, Town Manager Brian Raducci announced that a ribbon cutting for the remodeled library is scheduled for 11 a.m. Feb. 22 at the library, 205 W. Ocean Ave. A community celebration will begin at noon March 11 with food trucks, story times and other children’s activities.

Manager’s numbers sound good to council, will get further study

By Larry Barszewski

It’s not clear yet if Town Manager William Thrasher’s proposed formula for paying for flood protection and sea wall restoration in Briny Breezes is innovative math or wishful-thinking algebra, but Town Council members are interested in seeing if his numbers really do add up.
Thrasher says that using his calculus, the town could cover the cost of critical projects — $8.55 million to completely restore its sea walls and $3.5 million to install an advanced drainage system to reduce flooding — and still have $10.2 million available for other needed improvements.
“This is extremely complicated, but more interesting than anything I’ve ever worked on,” Thrasher told Town Council members at their Jan. 26 meeting. His proposal is still early in the development stage and he called his figures “soft numbers” because more study is needed.
However, some of his equations are striking.
The town would have to borrow only $2.5 million to generate the $22.25 million needed for the projects. The borrowed money would be combined with $1 million in reserves to leverage much larger grants that would cover the bulk of the project costs.
At the same time, the town would cut its property tax rate more than 60%.
The tax rate drop would be offset possibly by the creation of a special assessment residents would pay for police and fire-rescue services, so the change would be a wash for residents. The change is needed to open up room in the town’s property tax revenues — already assessed at the maximum level allowed by the state — to cover the cost of future loan payments.
“In order to invest into a sea wall and obtain a loan, you’re going to have to lower the millage rate somehow,” Thrasher said. “I’m suggesting that you direct me to find a way, either voluntarily through the corporation, or through a special assessment, fire assessment, to generate room in the millage rate in order for the town to apply for and receive and then make payment of a $2.5 million loan, or in that range.”
Council President Sue Thaler and other council members, including Mayor Gene Adams, encouraged Thrasher to discuss the tax rate reduction and special assessment ideas with the corporation.
“I think we have to do it, because you have to get started somewhere. If you don’t lower the millage rate, you’re not going to get any kind of loan to be able to take care of it,” Adams said.
“I think this is some very, very good information,” Thaler said.
Thrasher also received support for beginning to meet directly with residents to explain his proposals and answer any questions they might have.
Since 2009, the Briny Breezes tax rate has been at the state cap of $10 for every $1,000 of taxable value. The way Thrasher sees it, the rate could be lowered to about $3.83 for every $1,000 of taxable value if there were a separate assessment — or a transfer from the corporation — to cover public safety and emergency services.
The drop may seem dramatic, but it’s basically the reverse of a step the council took in 2009, when it almost tripled the tax rate to hit the cap. In the years before that increase, the town’s corporation had been making transfers to the town budget that usually covered between 70% and 80% of the town’s fire, EMS and police costs, Thrasher said. With the higher tax rate, the transfer dropped to 29% of those costs in 2009.
Back then, residents received an income tax advantage from being able to deduct the higher property taxes, something they did not receive when paying for the services through the corporation, Thrasher said. That tax advantage for itemizing deductions isn’t really there now for many residents given the changes in tax law over the past decade, he said.
As for taking out a loan to pay for needed work, Thrasher said borrowing money would not be unheard of in the town — even if it might be unusual — and it makes fiscal sense.
“We would be able to leverage what money we have to the greatest possible extent. That would be something we would use the loan money for,” Thrasher said. “Briny has borrowed money before. I didn’t realize it until studying some of the records. Briny borrowed approximately $1 million to fund upgrades to the water/sewer back in 1994.”
Thrasher emphasized the impact of the money would go far beyond a 50-50 match, where each local dollar is matched by a grant dollar. Using other available grants — possibly from private sources, Palm Beach County, the U.S. Department of Transportation or the Federal Emergency Management Agency — as matching dollars for Resilient Florida program grants, Briny would only have to pay about 151/2 cents for each dollar matched, he told council members.
In other action, the council decided to switch banks again, leaving PNC bank to return to TD Bank, which Thaler said is offering higher interest rates that could produce more than $62,000 in additional income for the town over the next year. In the past, the town had been with TD Bank before switching to PNC bank, officials said.

A referendum on the March 14 ballot aims to change Lantana’s charter to put an end to runoff elections.
Currently, a Town Council candidate must receive at least one more than 50% of the votes in a race to be elected. If no candidate gets a majority, a runoff election is held between the two candidates receiving the most votes in the race.
A forced runoff in two council races last year made some elected officials consider a change to a plurality system, where the candidate receiving the highest number of votes in a race — whether or not it is a majority — is the victor. 
The majority vote stipulation has been the rule in Lantana for decades.
Changing the election system requires a change in the town’s charter, something voters need to decide. The council cannot accomplish the change on its own.
Although runoff elections have been required only a few times in Lantana’s history, they cost extra money. Last year’s two runoffs cost about $21,700.
One council member questions the fairness of plurality, since more people could end up voting for other candidates than for the winner.

— Mary Thurwachter

By Steve Plunkett

The head of the Gulf Stream School asked for — and received — permission to boost enrollment past the town’s 250-student cap, but only after attendance exceeded the limit for more than two years.
The school currently has 293 students after enrolling 270 the last school year and 260 the previous year. Enrollment was 232 when Dr. Gray Smith took over as head of the school in 2019-20 amid COVID-related financial troubles, he said.
“Before I begin, I do want to acknowledge that the school is over-enrolled at this point,” Smith told town commissioners on Jan. 13. “We can no longer meet budget at 250.”
Gulf Stream and the school agreed to limit enrollment and future building when the town OK’d construction of second-story classrooms in 1994.
Smith originally wanted to add a prefabricated 625-square-foot building in the parking lot to store food so he could offer students on-campus lunches. But when town officials and school representatives reviewed the proposal, they realized the 1994 agreement would have to be amended first to raise the enrollment cap and second to allow more construction.
“I do want to acknowledge that we’re doing this backwards to some extent,” Smith said. “I do apologize for that.”
Smith said Gulf Stream School’s current facilities can accommodate 300 students without adding any more buildings.
The school also tries to cover its expenses with tuition and fundraisers without touching its endowment, he said.
Its expenses have skyrocketed since 1994, Smith said, going from $42,376 for insurance to $298,000, for example, and from zero dollars for technology to more than $300,000. The school also now employs a full-time security professional and a full-time school nurse.
“Even at 300 students, we would project only a modest end-of-year budget surplus,” Smith said.
He also said the school has minimized disruptions to its neighbors by altering the way parents drop off and pick up their children, with younger students channeled to Gulfstream Road and older ones to State Road A1A. As a result, morning arrivals are finished by 8:15 a.m. and afternoon dismissals take just 10 to 18 minutes.
Police Capt. John Haseley said cars arriving early lead to backups.
“Like all parents, everybody wants to be first. That’s what creates the lines,” Haseley said. “Once the line starts flowing, it moves pretty rapidly.”
About 20 students live close enough to walk to school, Smith said.
Commissioners Paul Lyons, Joan Orthwein and Thom Smith did not want to authorize a 300-student cap without more input from town residents.
Thom Smith, who was on the school’s board of trustees when the 1994 agreement was reached, said negotiations went on for months.
“If you read the history of it, it was thought to be permanent,” said Smith, who added that he was not opposed to amending the agreement.
Orthwein said: “I’d hate to see you next in 10 more years, you say 350 or 400.”
But Gray Smith called 300 students the “tipping point.”
“If you’re managing the school on a day-to-day basis and you’re seeing the magic that happens there, yeah … I would not want to see us move over 300,” he said.
Michael Glennon, who lives at the corner of Gulfstream Road and Lakeview Drive, said the school was one of the reasons he and his wife bought their home in 2020.
“Being able to walk to school every morning is simply unmatched,” he said. “I certainly am impacted by the car line which, you know, no question is sometimes a frustration, but kind of the price you pay.”
To allow progress on the food storage building, commissioners agreed to make the limit 300 students for this school year only, and possibly extending it after hearing from the public. They also approved amending the agreement to allow for the new construction, which will still have to go through review by the Architectural Review and Planning Board and the commission again.
To alert residents, the town will include an item on the school’s requests in its winter newsletter.