To participate in the March 19 Presidential Preference Primary and local elections, residents must be registered to vote by Feb. 20.

You can register online at RegistertoVoteFlorida.gov.

Application forms are also available at any Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office or to download from the supervisor’s website, VotePalmBeach.gov.

You can contact the office at 561-656-6200.

Voters have until 5 p.m. March 7 to request from the supervisor’s office — either in person, online or by phone — that a vote-by-mail ballot be mailed to them.

Lowell Van Vechten is surrounded by family photos and a portrait of her late husband, Jay, at home in Boca Raton. Jay Van Vechten died in 2020 at age 75. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star  

By Ron Hayes

According to the website of the American Disabilities Foundation, Lowell Van Vechten is its co-founder and honorary chairwoman.

This is true.

“But really I’m the keeper of the history,” she adds.

By history, she means a tragic accident that has been reborn as an annual day of joy.

On March 2, thousands will gather in Boca Raton’s Spanish River Park for the 15th annual Boating & Beach Bash for People with Disabilities.

They will enjoy boat rides on the Intracoastal Waterway, bathing in the Atlantic Ocean, health screenings, therapy workshops, wheelchair yoga, live music, dance parties, therapy pets, giveaways and barbecue lunch.

It’s all free and all are welcome — family, friends and people with disabilities, whether their disabilities are visible or invisible.

“One of the great successes of the Bash is that everyone is made to feel equal,” Van Vechten says. “There’s nothing more healing than to be celebrated and surrounded by people like yourself so you know you’re not alone.”

Lowell Van Vechten’s husband, Jay, was alone in a San Diego hotel room that night in 2001. A successful New York public relations executive in town on business, he slipped on the wet bathroom floor in the dark, fell backward over the tub and shattered five vertebrae. Then he fell forward and shattered both knees. The splayed legs required two hip replacements.

The couple’s old life was gone, but a new one was born.

“Jay’s personal motto was, ‘Don’t postpone joy,’” Van Vechten says.

After his accident, Jay and Lowell Van Vechten of Boca Raton dedicated their lives to bringing joy to the community he’d suddenly joined in that dark hotel bathroom.

Jay served on Boca Raton’s since-disbanded board for people with disabilities, and when his vision for the city’s annual picnic for the disabled grew bigger than the city could handle, the Van Vechtens took over. The Beach Bash debuted in 2009, they founded the American Disabilities Foundation in 2012, and since Jay’s death in 2020, his widow has committed herself to perpetuating their annual day of joy.

Her familiarity with tragedy and commitment to others did not begin with her husband’s fall.

In 1960, her oldest brother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and institutionalized.

In 1998, her middle brother, a Vietnam vet who had been treating his PTSD with heroin, took an over-the-counter medication for the flu, lapsed into a coma and died three days later. He was 48.

She shares this family heartache on the ADF website, in an essay titled, “Why Do I Care So Much About People with Disabilities?”

Growing up on Long Island, she volunteered as a candy striper at Southampton Hospital.

“I put together stacks of bandages,” she recalls with a laugh.

As a high school student at Sacred Heart Academy in Menlo Park, California, in the late 1960s, she volunteered at a Stanford University program for children with developmental disabilities and learned skills she preaches today.

“You ask before touching,” she tells volunteers. “You don’t speak in harsh tones, and if someone is using a wheelchair, you lower yourself to their eye level.”

In the 1980s, while Van Vechten was a marketing director at Mademoiselle magazine in Manhattan and AIDS patients were fighting for both their lives and insurance coverage, she volunteered at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

“I shuffled papers,” she says modestly. “A lot of people don’t understand insurance.”

Now she is one of about 150 volunteers who will work in six shifts, organizing 40 exhibitors in 25 active zones throughout Spanish River Park, so about 5,000 disabled guests and others can share a day of community and barbecue.

“I always used to say, if you have an annual party, you’d make new friends over time and eventually it grows to be almost a family of people with whom you celebrate, whatever the occasion happens to be,” Lowell Van Vechten says, “and that’s what the Bash is.

“It’s a free day of joy.”

If You Go
What: The 15th annual Boating & Beach Bash for People with Disabilities — the nation’s largest, free, one-day event for people with disabilities
When: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. March 2
Where: Spanish River Park, 3001 N. Ocean Blvd., Boca Raton
Information: www.AmericanDisabilitiesFoundation.org. To volunteer, call 561-899-7400.

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

As the former marine conservationist for the city of Boca Raton from 1995 to 2021, I have watched the developments at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and the actions of the nonprofit Gumbo Limbo Coastal Stewards.

The Coastal Stewards have been in existence for about three years at Gumbo Limbo. What have they done with your hard-earned donation money in those few years?

The Coastal Stewards allowed the Gumbo Limbo Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Facility to close, with no indication of its return. There would have been no interruption in the facility’s operation if the Coastal Stewards had offered the city-employed permit holder and her staff the same jobs.

Recently, the Gumbo Limbo Coastal Stewards dropped “Gumbo Limbo” from their name, seemingly severing their allegiance to Gumbo Limbo. Now, they claim to have been educating the public for the last 40 years, even though Gordon Gilbert, a Palm Beach County schoolteacher, and the Palm Beach County School District ran the educational programs. The city and the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District continue to fund education staff, with little or no support from the Coastal Stewards.

More recently, I saw a post on the Coastal Stewards Facebook page about the return of Morgan, a disabled sea turtle that resided at Gumbo Limbo for years. The morning after the Coastal Stewards allowed the sea turtle rehabilitation program to shut down, Morgan was sent to a facility that could care for her.

The recent return of Morgan was due entirely to the experience and dedication of the city’s existing sea turtle conservation coordinator, who played a pivotal role in ensuring Morgan’s well-being. It is questionable if the Coastal Stewards are paying anything for the support of Morgan.

A recent check of the Coastal Stewards’ website indicates that they are now expanding their purview to marine mammals and manatees in addition to sea turtles, although they have done nothing with sea turtles since March 2023 at Gumbo Limbo. I find this interesting, as city staff are trained to handle marine mammal and manatee strandings. Why would Coastal Stewards try to duplicate this effort with their own staff?

From what I can tell from tax forms, the Coastal Stewards are paying more for salaries while donations decline. It took the Coastal Stewards less than three years to defund the original Friends of Gumbo Limbo nonprofit, the Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Facility and educational programs. It’s time for the city of Boca Raton to break any ties with the Coastal Stewards, as they no longer represent the interests of Gumbo Limbo and the city of Boca Raton.

If you’re fortunate enough to donate money to a cause, I advise avoiding Coastal Stewards. The money appears to go toward paying salaries for Coastal Stewards staff and not benefiting Gumbo Limbo Nature Center.

Dr. Kirt Rusenko
former marine conservationist,
city of Boca Raton

I write to express my concern about the ongoing debate in Ocean Ridge regarding the local election scheduled for March 19. Some residents argue that forgoing the election would save the town money, but I believe it’s crucial to consider the broader implications.

Recent events, such as the rapid replacement of two commissioners in a brief meeting, raise questions about resident representation. The method of selection, with unanimous decisions within 10 minutes, leaves room for skepticism. Out of seven residents interested in candidacy, the appointment of two without a comprehensive election diminishes community involvement.

The heart of the matter lies in our right as residents to choose our local leaders. If we bypass the March election, we risk allowing a small group to dictate our town’s representation without broader input. Democracy thrives on active participation, engaging with candidates, discussing town issues and making informed choices.

I firmly believe that the price of holding a local election is a small one compared to the invaluable right of residents to actively shape our community’s future. Let us preserve the essence of democracy in Ocean Ridge by ensuring that our voices are heard in the upcoming election.

Dr. Victor Martel
Ocean Ridge

Related: Six seeking two commission seats - Seat 1

Six seeking two commission seats - Seat 3

Three candidates for mayor (Seat 5)

The March ballot has this charter amendment proposal: “The City Charter requires a board of adjustment to consider and decide appeals and variances to the land development regulations. Other city boards can perform these duties. This charter amendment would eliminate the Board of Adjustment. Shall the charter amendment be adopted?

Choices to succeed term-limited Mayor Shelly Petrolia all have sat on City Commission.

Related: Six seeking two commission seats - Seat 1

Six seeking two commission seats - Seat 3;

Charter amendment on the ballot

Delray Beach voters have plenty of choices in the March 19 city election, with three candidates each in the race for mayor and for two open City Commission seats. All posts are for three-year terms and all seats are elected by voters citywide.

Related: Six seeking two commission seats - Seat 1

Three candidates for mayor (Seat 5)

Charter amendment on the ballot

Delray Beach voters have plenty of choices in the March 19 city election, with three candidates each in the race for mayor and for two open City Commission seats. All posts are for three-year terms and all seats are elected by voters citywide.

Related: Six seeking two commission seats - Seat 3

Three candidates for mayor (Seat 5)

Charter amendment on the ballot

By Anne Geggis

A special magistrate is expected to rule Feb. 20 on whether Ocean Ridge’s new beach sign ordinance is too vague for enforcement due to the beach’s shifting sands.

Also at issue: Does a sign printed on both sides amount to two signs or just one?

Public anger over “No Trespassing” signs erected on the beach by the Turtle Beach of Ocean Ridge Condominium Association led town commissioners in September to adopt regulations limiting beach signage. The new ordinance specifies how large the signs can be (they can’t exceed 18 inches by 18 inches), how they can be placed, and that they face “either to the east or to the west.”

Even with that specificity, Turtle Beach and the town still aren’t seeing eye to eye, with the town saying the association’s new signs are not in compliance.

A 90-minute hearing on the case Jan. 9 in front of a special magistrate did not produce an outcome. Special Magistrate Amity Barnard asked both the town attorney and the Turtle Beach representative to draft memos of no more than three pages to make their arguments on the state of Turtle Beach’s compliance with the ordinance.

The town says that two-sided signs, like the two now in place at Turtle Beach, amount to four signs, violating the two-sign limit. The association disagrees. And, the town says, the placement was not as described in the ordinance approved in September.

The ordinance says that signs are not allowed to be placed on the beach seaward of the toe of the frontal dune, which is the first natural or manmade mound or bluff of sand located “landward of the beach” that has significant vegetation, height, continuity or configuration that offers protective value.

“The signs as of today are still double-sided and they still are at an approximate amount of feet from the frontal toe,” said Officer Aaron Choban of the Ocean Ridge police.

But the association says that there’s no telling exactly where seaward of the front toe is from day to day.

Turtle Beach association President Mark Feinstein said he had numerous “pleasant” conversations with town officials and thought an agreement had been reached. The dune goes in and out — it’s not linear, he said.

“After I got the notice of violation, I was actually shocked and surprised,” said Feinstein, who is a lawyer and also had one representing him at the hearing. “… I certainly think that the ordinance is, at best, vague.”

The special magistrate could levy a fine up to $250 a day after a finding if the property is not brought into compliance. If the violation is found to be irreparable or irreversible, the special magistrate could impose a fine up to $5,000.

A construction trailer and portable toilet are still visible at the site on Jan. 28. Staff photo

By Anne Geggis

When 2024 dawned and an Ocean Ridge home under construction for the past eight years still wasn’t finished, its owners were on the hook to pay the town $50,000 in addition to the taxes owed on the land.

Failing to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to wrap up the planned construction, Oceandell Holdings LLC, which owns the oceanfront property at 6273 N. Ocean Blvd., was required to make a payment in lieu of taxes by the end of January, according to an amendment to the construction extension agreement dated Jan. 10.

Revised plans submitted to the town in June called for the property owners to apply and obtain a temporary certificate of occupancy by Dec. 31. Failing that, the town was owed $50,000 to help make up for the taxes it would have collected if the project had been completed in 2023, the agreement says.

Town Commissioner Carolyn Cassidy estimates the protracted construction timeline — which has kept the building off the tax rolls — has meant the town has collected one-fourth of the taxes it should have since 2017, considering the difference between taxing vacant land and taxing the same land with a house on it year after year. 

Cassidy is also one of the neighbors to the project.

“We’re all just tired of the construction — lots of trucks parked illegally — and it appeared to be abandoned for a while,” she said.

The latest construction manager seems to have improved things for now, though, she added.

The principal listed as a contact for Oceandell through the state Division of Corporations could not be reached for comment; nor could Andrew Rivkin — who representatives have identified as the owner of the property and who was the Oceandell signatory on the agreement with the town.

Town Clerk Kelly Avery said as of Jan. 29, the payment had not been made.

If the construction drags on past March 15, the owner shall pay the town $5,000 a day for each day that construction continues for “liquidated damages,” according to the agreement signed by the town attorney, clerk and manager. The daily damage assessment would accrue until May 1, potentially a maximum of $235,000 in fines.

That’s a one-month extension from the deadline commissioners approved in September. They had called for the $5,000-a-day penalty to start if construction was not completed by Feb. 15, and capped those fines at $150,000.

The owner recognizes the work “has continued for an extensive period of time and has negatively impacted the neighbors and the town,” the agreement says. “The owner further recognizes that time is of the essence under this agreement and if the March 15 construction deadline … is not satisfied by the owner, the neighbors and the town will continue to be negatively impacted and suffer financial loss.”

When asked, Town Attorney Christy Goddeau did not offer an explanation for the one-month extension, but said that the commission would be updated on the property at February’s meeting.

The project has become known as “the parking garage house” because its front was, at first, allowed to be built without windows. The Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s website shows that the 1.13-acre property has been taxed solely for the land value starting in 2017, with the total market value of the land at $9.2 million.

The first building permit for the site was issued in May 2015.

“We’re just trying to do our best to expedite completion … have it be a completed home instead of a construction site,” Cassidy said.

By Anne Geggis

The Ocean Ridge Town Commission has five seats, but January’s meeting brought to 10 the number of commissioners who have sat on the dais in the past year.

Ainar Aijala Jr. and David Hutchins were sworn into office to replace Commissioners Philip Besler and Ken Kaleel, who turned in their resignations effective Dec. 30.

Kaleel said he was resigning rather than comply with a new state law that requires those serving on local elected commissions and councils to file a detailed disclosure of personal assets, effective Jan. 1. Besler was hanging it up for personal reasons, he said.

Aijala and Hutchins swore to faithfully execute all the duties of town commissioner to applause from the crowd at the Jan. 8 meeting. Their appointments are good only until the March 19 election, when voters will decide who fills three commission openings — including their seats — that are on the ballot. Both Aijala and Hutchins have qualified to run in that election.

Hutchins, a town resident since 1990, said he hopes to put his eight years of experience serving on the Planning and Zoning Commission to work in this new role. He is optimistic about the town’s direction but sees some areas that could use improvement.

“Repairing and replacing existing, worn infrastructure is a priority always, but living within our means has to be part of the equation,” he texted about why he stepped forward to serve.

Aijala, who hails from Michigan, said serving on an elected board fulfills a longtime interest in public service that he couldn’t pursue beyond nonprofit roles because of his position at Deloitte, the largest professional services firm in the world. There, he was CEO of its global consulting practice.

The town is on the right track, and he intends to use his professional experience in strategic planning to help it operate even more efficiently, he said after he was sworn in.

“Ocean Ridge is a very special place,” he said.

The past year has been rife with the town’s leaders coming and going, however.

The two exiting commissioners, Besler and Kaleel, were appointed to replace two other commissioners who resigned in 2023, Martin Wiescholek and Kristine de Haseth. In addition to that, Commissioner Carolyn Cassidy became a new face on the dais last April, after finishing ahead of then-Mayor Susan Hurlburt, who came in last in a three-way race for two commission seats.

Wiescholek, the other winner in the March 2023 election, resigned at the same April meeting at which he was sworn in for a second, three-year term. His resignation came minutes after the commissioners agreed in a split vote to hire Town Manager Lynne Ladner on a full-time basis. Two hours later, at the same meeting, de Haseth resigned, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family.

So, Mayor Geoff Pugh and Vice Mayor Steve Coz are the only holdovers from before the last election.

Aijala and Hutchins were selected for commission appointments out of eight applicants.

The town’s charter calls for vacancies to be filled at the next election instead of having an appointee fill out the remainder of an unexpired term — something that’s done in other communities such as Manalapan and Gulf Stream. The seat originally held by de Haseth was up for election this year anyway, but the seat once held by Wiescholek wasn’t supposed to be up for election for another two years.

Aijala, Hutchins, Pugh and political newcomer Nick Arsali will compete for a pair of three-year terms on the commission and another two-year term.

Pugh acknowledged at the Jan. 8 meeting that he might lose as the commission agreed on a workshop date for training on the new system for town business on April 8 — after the next election.

Minimum flood elevations likely to be repealed — Preliminary FEMA maps adopted in 2019 are likely to be stricken from the town’s ordinances so the rules revert to the 2017 FEMA maps.

The state preempted local governments from using preliminary FEMA maps for any rules for permitting, so the 2019 maps have been left on the town’s books, with no enforcement, while final approval of the 2019 maps remains in limbo.

Town attorney Christy Goddeau said repealing the minimum elevation ordinance for the high-risk zone would be the clearest course for keeping the town out of litigation.

“So that there’s never any argument that we could enforce it,” she said, before the commission agreed to proceed with repealing the ordinance regarding minimum elevations in certain parts of town.

Town history gets fifth printing — Details on the origins of Ocean Ridge shall not be lost to time — Commissioner Carolyn Cassidy funded a fifth printing of the late Commissioner Gail Adams Aaskov’s telling of it. And now the 80-page booklet, “The History of Ocean Ridge,” is available for $1 at Town Hall.

Ocean Ridge, we learn, got its start as Boynton Beach, carved out of Boynton, by a special act of the Legislature in 1931 after a dispute over beach properties.

Problem was, the name was often confused with “Daytona Beach” — to the point mail intended for Daytona came south. So, six years after the town’s founding, an emergency meeting was called to consider a new name. Marion White Bird suggested “Ocean Ridge” and won a $100 prize, “a sizable amount of money at that time,” Aaskov writes. 

— Anne Geggis

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