Unofficial results

SOURCE: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

SOURCE: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

SOURCE: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

SOURCE: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Unofficial results

SOURCE: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

A developer is seeking approval for The Oval project adjacent to Wildflower Park. City Council members and residents have mixed reactions about the proposal, with some saying it would detract from the park’s beauty. Rendering provided

By Michael Cook

Boca Raton’s Wildflower Park might get a new next-door neighbor, as a developer is asking the city for the green light to build a five-story luxury development called The Oval. 

The mixed-use project has community members on the fence, with some seeing it as a potential boost to downtown and others worried it could disrupt views of the park.

“I don’t like it. We got enough here,” said city resident Alan Peterman, 67, who passes through the waterfront park as part of his daily walk. Peterman said he wouldn’t want to see a multilevel development rise right beside the park, which he said could detract from the park’s natural beauty and add traffic to an already congested area. 

“To do the high-rise and change the whole thing, personally, it hurts me,” he said. “Keep it part of the park.”

The Oval is proposed for the vacant, fenced-in lot on the northeast corner of East Palmetto Park Road and Northeast Fifth Avenue. Calvin Haddad, president of Fifth Avenue Associates that owns the property, is seeking to build an oval-shaped structure with 10 residential units and 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, intended to provide walk-up amenities for those strolling through the downtown area. 

The proposal is in the city’s review pipeline and must be approved before moving forward, though there is no official timeline yet.

The site is adjacent to the 2.3-acre art-filled park, to which the city been working to attract more visitors. The most recent efforts include the rollout of free weekly recreation programs and four new permanent public art projects inspired by the city’s centennial, which cost the city more than $500,000. In another effort to boost foot traffic, the city launched Food Truck Fridays in February, which will continue on the last Friday of each month.

The park, named after a 1980s restaurant and bar that previously stood there, opened in 2022 after a multimillion-dollar construction project.

It fronts the Intracoastal Waterway at the western end of the Palmetto Park Road bridge.

Park expansion an option?
Boca Raton City Council member Marc Wigder, who also chairs the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, prefers a permanent concession stand at the park and is not in support of The Oval project. Wigder, who is up for reelection March 10, hopes to convince the private landowner to reverse the development plan and sell the lot at 501 E. Palmetto Park Road to the city for a potential park expansion.

The idea would create extra space for amenities, such as a standalone shop for a hot-dog vendor or an ice cream parlor, something he says the park is missing. Another part of his plan would be to improve traffic flow by widening the roads at the heavily trafficked intersection and to provide additional parking for visitors. 

Wigder said it seems more logical for the property to be acquired by the city to meet the community’s needs, but any purchase would require City Council approval. He made clear the city can’t force the private developer to do whatever the city wants, as the company owns the land.

“But if that piece of property was built with a commercial structure, I think the park might lose its visibility or access,” Wigder said. He pictured Wildflower Park tucked behind the proposed development, with only a narrow pathway leading in from Palmetto Park Road.

On the other side of the conversation is former Deputy Mayor Andrea O’Rourke, who would be in favor of a mixed-use development on the lot west of the park. She said a coffee shop or an ice cream parlor in the retail area could create walkability to nearby restaurants and shops. “I think anything that’s built downtown or adjacent should consider the human element,” she said.

Art and activities
O’Rourke, a key figure in launching the city’s public art program in 2023, said it is heartening to see pops of colorful artwork installed throughout the park as part of efforts to activate the space. Boca Raton invested about $540,000 in the four art projects inspired by the city’s history, installed at the end of last year. 

New features include environmentally themed murals under the bridge along a pedestrian path connecting Wildflower to the south with Silver Palm Park, which is popular for its boat ramp and docks. Other additions are centennial mosaics on the restrooms and a sunrise-inspired splash pad mural. The most popular attraction is Mi Casa, Your Casa 2.0, a house-framed swing set repainted in the city’s centennial colors, which draws hundreds of visitors each week to take action on the four swings that face the Intracoastal.

There’s also the Bloom in Wildflower series of pop-up wellness activities, which cost the city about $1,200 to produce since launching last fall. The weekly instructed classes include yoga and Pilates and attract about a dozen attendees per session. The city said the program has been well-received and it plans to continue building on that success. 

Highland Beach woman a socialite on Netflix’s ‘Members Only: Palm Beach’

At home in Highland Beach, Rosalyn Yellin models one of her favorite dresses. Her dog is Lou Lou. She plays a socialite on Netflix's Members Only: Palm Beach. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Stuck at home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, raising five kids just six years apart, Rosalyn Yellin escaped from the daily pressures of motherhood by watching “The Real Housewives” reality television, with a special fondness for The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

“It was my guilty pleasure, my release from diapers, bottles and laundry,” she said.

The more time she spent soaking up stories about the lives of women living a luxury lifestyle 2,400 miles away, the more she admired the cast.

“I always wanted to be them,” she said. “I always dreamt I would be them but I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be on a reality show.”

Fast forward several decades to August 2024, and that long-ago dream came true when Yellin was chosen as one of five women to be cast in Members Only: Palm Beach.

A reality show with many of the same story lines as Real Housewives, the eight-episode Netflix program focuses on socialites who wade through squabbles and rivalries while cementing close friendships during last year’s Palm Beach social season.

“It was a lot of fun,” Yellin said about the show, which first aired in December. “It is just a show about five women, our journey and our lives.”

Much of the season’s last episode provides a close-up look at Yellin, especially when she challenges another cast member — the one who excluded only her from a party in the first show because she didn’t see Yellin as belonging in her same social circle.

As you might expect, a shower of tears and a crisscross of accusations take place. While it is good drama that follows a Real Housewives theme, it was also an opportunity for Yellin to define herself to viewers and — she says — to herself. Rosalyn Yellin exits a Lamborghini on the set of Members Only: Palm Beach. Photo provided

“I learned something about myself doing the show,” she said. “I learned to stand up for myself. I never had to do that in Bucks County.”

Despite some of the hurt feelings and subtle and not-so-well-disguised spite, Yellin says she is looking forward to returning to the show if it is renewed for a second season.

If that happens, viewers are likely to see more of the real Rosalyn Yellin.

“I think of myself as a simple person,” she said. “Lead with kindness and treat everyone the same. Nobody is better than anyone else.”

Members Only: Palm Beach has developed a strong following, with Yellin saying it’s not unusual for her to be recognized when she’s out and about.

Some, however, question the show’s Palm Beach moniker.

Yellin, like most of the other cast, doesn’t live in Palm Beach and instead has settled with her husband of more than 30 years in a multimillion-dollar home on the Intracoastal Waterway in Highland Beach.

While social-scene purists will say you’re not a Palm Beacher if you don’t live on “The Island,” Yellin is quick to point out that she is in Palm Beach almost every day during the social season, attending parties or chairing or participating in charity events.

“When you’re chairing an event, you’re in Palm Beach 95% of the time,” she said.

A member of one of the prestigious clubs on the island, Yellin is a strong supporter of several charitable organizations including those helping cancer patients, current and past service members, and young adults who have aged out of foster care.

The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and daughter of a mother who died of ovarian cancer, Yellin is a strong supporter of the Cancer Alliance of Help & Hope and is one of the celebrity dancers in the organization’s Dance the Night Away Gala set for March 13 at the Breakers.

A dancer in her earlier life who also taught Zumba-like exercise classes in Pennsylvania, Yellin has raised more than $138,000, far exceeding totals of the 11 other dancers.

Rosalyn Yellin, on the set of Members Only: Palm Beach, says the show taught her ’to stand up for myself.’ Photo provided

She has chaired the America First Gala, a fundraiser for The Grey Team, a Boca Raton-based organization that aims to prevent military and veteran suicides. Yellin is also a strong supporter of Place of Hope, which focuses on helping those aging out of foster care.

“I love helping charities that are helping here in Palm Beach County,” she said.

Yellin, 54, is also extremely proud of her family — her husband, three daughters and twin sons as well as four grandchildren.

“I’m very proud of the job I did as a mother,” she said. “All of my children are very high-achieving.”

Those who watch the show might take note that there is little mention of Yellin’s husband, Jonathan, a successful business owner, and that’s not by accident.

Yellen said her husband values his privacy and made it clear from the outset that he didn’t want to be involved with the show. In fact, it was her husband’s desire for privacy that almost led her to decline the invitation. A couple of her friends who auditioned for the show recommended Yellin, who made the cut while they didn’t.

“I was excited but I was really nervous about telling my husband,” she said. “After going back and forth, he agreed.”

The journey from Bucks County to Highland Beach, which took place five years ago, was one that Yellin began many years before while visiting the area annually on vacation.

“We love our lifestyle in Highland Beach,” she said.

Yellin also says she’s happy to be part of the Palm Beach social scene and involved in so many events like the women she admired on reality shows decades ago.

“I came to Palm Beach and I fulfilled my dreams,” she said.

Related: Lantana/Hypoluxo Island: Out on a limb: Hypoluxo Island residents grapple with how to protect their tree canopy

Related: Editor's Note: With mature trees threatened, the answer isn’t more palms

Related: Delray Beach: Fight to preserve massive banyan at golf course pits city against drainage district

By Mary Thurwachter

There used to be a sign on Lantana Road near the old A.G. Holley State Hospital, where Water Tower Commons stands today. The sign welcomed visitors to “Lantana, Fl, Tree City.” The sign is gone, but Lantana is still a Tree City.

Decades ago, to honor that distinction, Lantana adopted a tradition of planting a tree every Arbor Day, a practice the town continues to this day.

“We plant trees throughout the year, and we planted 100 for our centennial celebration” in 2021, Mayor Karen Lythgoe said. 

Is a palm a tree?

Ilona Balfour, who lives on Hypoluxo Island with her husband, former Lantana Vice Mayor Malcolm Balfour, recalls the 2019 Arbor Day tree planting ceremony in Bicentennial Park. Dave Stewart, who was mayor at the time, pitched a fit when town staff gave him a palm tree to put in the ground, she said. 

By then, Stewart had been educated on trees and refused to be photographed planting the palm tree, Balfour said. Stewart complained that the palm wasn’t a real tree but more of a grass.

That sent town staff scrambling to find what Stewart believed was a real tree to plant.

Stewart remembers that day and says Balfour was correct. “I didn’t want the Tree City officials seeing me plant a palm. It would have been an embarrassment. We had to plant real trees during my regime.”

The staff argued that a palm tree was a tree; it was called palm tree, after all. 

Stewart disagreed.

“My fellow councilmen said I was being a jerk,” Stewart said. (He used another word for “jerk,” but we’ve cleaned it up a bit.)

In the end, a small oak was planted, and the commemorative photo was taken. No one recalls what happened to the rejected palm.

Tied to a tree?

Balfour is also the subject of local tree lore.

“Didn’t Ilona tell you about the time she tied herself to a large ficus tree when the Nature Preserve was being built in 2000?” Stewart asked. “She held a sign that read ‘Leave my tree Ilona,’” a wordplay on her first name.

However, that’s not exactly what happened. 

Ilona Balfour said she threatened to tie herself to a “huge ficus tree full of birds. I wanted to save it” from being taken down.

“I got wind of it early one morning when I was in my nightgown,” said Balfour, whose home is close to the preserve. “I didn’t march over there in my nightgown, but I did say if the tree was touched, I would tie myself to it.

“Because it wasn’t a native tree, the ficus wasn’t protected, only the plants that were there before the white man came were allowed in the park,” she said. The town “made me sign a document that I would do nothing to stop them from cutting this tree down. 

“Then Town Manager Mike Bornstein and arborist Mike Greenstein thought this was funny and took a little Bellie (a troll doll promotional gift from Burger King) and tied it to the branch they had taken from the ficus tree. Along with the doll (representing Balfour) there was a little sign tied to the branch that said, ‘Leave my tree Ilona.’ 

“They all got a good laugh from it,” Balfour remembered.

The ficus was taken down and replaced by a strangler fig. 

The birds seem to like it — and Balfour’s story remains part of local lore, even if it stretched the truth. 

Protected trees 

The following trees are protected by the Town of Lantana:

Bald cypress 

Black ironwood 

Blolly 

Cabbage palm 

Chapman oak 

Dahoon holly 

False mastic 

Fiddlewood 

Florida elm 

Geiger tree 

Green buttonwood 

Gumbo limbo 

Lancewood 

Laurel oak 

Live oak 

Mahogany 

Myrtle oak 

Paradise tree 

Pigeon plum 

Pond cypress 

Red bay 

Red maple

Royal palm 

Sand live oak 

Sand pine 

Satinleaf 

Sea grape 

Silver buttonwood 

Shortleaf fig 

Slash pine 

Soapberry 

South Florida slash pine 

Southern magnolia 

Southern red cedar 

Spicewood

Strangler fig 

Sweet bay 

Torchwood

The list of protected trees and list of trees that can be used for mitigation are interchangeable.

Construction of new and larger houses has been chipping away at the tree canopy that used to shade most of Hypoluxo Island.  Many residents would like to see tougher rules to protect the trees. Google Maps 

Related: Lantana: Tales from a Tree City

Related: Editor's Note: With mature trees threatened, the answer isn’t more palms

Related: Delray Beach: Fight to preserve massive banyan at golf course pits city against drainage district

By Mary Thurwachter

Longtime Hypoluxo Island residents fondly remember the binoculared birders who roamed the island in Lantana in the mid-1990s. 

They were Audubon members who came from all over the world to spot birds on the Atlantic flyway, an avian superhighway that ran through the barrier island, designated as a bird sanctuary as indicated by signs leading into both the north and south sections of the island.

Patti Towle and others who have lived on Hypoluxo Island for three decades or more also fondly remember the shade trees where so many birds perched. Over the years, many of the trees have come down to make room for new and larger houses. The bird population has plummeted, too.

“You could hear the birders speaking different languages like German or Finnish,” Towle, a 35-year resident, remembers of that earlier time. 

When Towle noticed that a hardwood tree in her neighborhood was cut down recently, she emailed the Town Council and town manager on Jan. 5, not to complain but with hopes that together they could find a solution for the protection of native hardwood trees.

Towle had been instrumental in helping to draft some of Lantana’s tree protection laws. “These laws are currently shown in our Town Code but do not seem to be enforced,” Towle wrote.

“Over the weekend — when code enforcement could not be contacted — a spec builder removed a large hardwood tree, in the swale area, in front of the property at 505 SE Atlantic Drive,” Towle wrote. “The tree was home to one of the great horned owls who live on Hypoluxo Island. The owl is a desirable bird to have with benefits for conservation.”  

This mature ficus tree was cut down without permit at a spec home job site. Photo provided

The exterior of the house had already been constructed, and the hardwood tree posed no threat to the dwelling or the house’s future driveway, according to Towle. 

The tree was in the swale area adjacent to the street, an area which belongs to the town, not the owner. 

Towle said that last fall she wrote the building department and code enforcement calling their attention to a large, endangered tree at the corner of a new construction site at 717 SE Atlantic Drive, a tree that remains standing. 

“I believe the tree to be a kapok, which is a celebrated tree that other Florida townships protect,” she wrote. “I was informed by our building department that nothing could be done to protect our Lantana hardwood trees. I find that hard to believe, especially when they pose no threat to construction. There has to be a solution.”

Towle says hardwood trees were being removed in significant numbers “because out-of-town buyers are attracted by the lure of palm trees. If the property owner has not obtained a permit to remove the tree, he pays the town a fine and then is allowed to replace a hardwood with one or several small palm trees. Often developers factor these fines in as their cost of doing business.”

Back-and-forth with town

Her plea was slow to receive responses. She first heard from Vice Mayor Kem Mason, who told her he had asked Town Manager Brian Raducci to investigate what is happening at the two locations she referenced. 

“From your description, it is disturbing, but we do have to investigate and get all the facts before we take any actions,” he said.

Towle repeatedly asked the manager for a meeting with her and other residents, and one finally took place Feb. 9.

“Our most important result is the town door appears open, and so far reception has been graciously received,” Towle said. “Let’s see what happens when we follow up with our strong language to strengthen our town’s tree ordinances.”

After the meeting, Towle contacted Town Clerk Kathleen Dominguez about the establishment of a Lantana architectural review committee, a volunteer group used by other municipalities to ensure new construction and landscaping are compliant and the ordinances enforced.

After being reviewed by Town Attorney Max Lohman, that request was denied. Lohman determined that Lantana does not meet any of the narrow exceptions required by the state to enforce such regulations. One of those exceptions requires a board to have been created before Jan. 1, 2020. 

According to Towle, there doesn’t appear to be any accounting for the nearly $107,000 the town collected for the tree removed at 505 SE Atlantic Drive. “The money can be spent anywhere in the town on various and sundry” things, Towle said. “A Tree Fund does not even appear on the town budget. Where the money goes, I have no idea. I had hoped it would be used for replanting more hardwood trees on Hypoluxo Island. Sadly, that is not the case.”

How does it work?

“Protected trees are permitted to be removed if mitigation is provided,” Development Services Director Nicole Dritz told Towle. “If mitigation cannot be provided because of certain factors, such as space constraints, the code allows for payment to be made to the Tree Mitigation Fund. 

“We, of course, always encourage the protection of any protected tree, but it is not a code requirement. There are also state statutes which allow for protected trees to be removed in certain cases, sometimes without a permit from the town entirely.”

Few fines for tree removal

A public records request on how many tree fines had been issued during the past five years showed none. Going another five years back, the search showed that two fines (for $15,000 and $1,000) were assessed in 2019 and one fine (for $2,500) was assessed in 2021.

Dritz’s assistant, Elizabeth Eassa, explained the dearth of fines.

“Trees by code are required to be removed with a permit,” she said. “When they are removed without a permit and code enforcement gets involved, there are two options that we can take. One is fines and the other is mitigation.

“Our preference is to protect the tree canopy so that was always done via mitigation. Either paying into the Tree Fund or replacing trees on their property.  There’s a formula to it. It’s like one and a half of what was removed has to be provided on site. That’s why the number of fines in the past five years was zero. In every situation we went for mitigation instead of assessing a fine.”

The town, Eassa said, is more interested in the tree canopy and replenishing it than to impose a code enforcement fine.

The code does allow for trees to be removed, both protected and non-protected trees. “There are property rights and we have to allow people to take trees down,” she said. “If it is a protected tree, they are required to mitigate for it and there’s list of trees they can choose from and some of them are palm trees.”

In the case of the protected tree removed at 505 SE Atlantic Drive, the tree was where the owners proposed putting a driveway, Eassa said, although Towle says the tree would not have been in the driveway’s path. 

“We have to accept their application, their request, but we can push back and encourage them to keep trees,” Eassa said.  “We prefer them not to remove trees, but at the end of the day, we come to some sort of agreement. In this case it was a large amount of money ($106,400) they paid into the Tree Fund to offset the tree’s removal. That’s money the town can use to replant new trees on our public properties to keep the tree canopy for the whole town intact.”

Property owners, in order to have the tree cut down, “provided an arborist’s report saying the tree had been compromised and wasn’t in the best condition and it wasn’t a great candidate to be relocated,” Eassa said.

The property owners provided their own arborist, although the town now has an arborist on staff.

Eassa said the Tree Fund  (no one could say when it was founded) currently has $185,480 in it. In the past year, Lantana Public Services planted trees in the swale along Marbella Lane and is proposing to install trees on Ocean Avenue and at the tennis courts.

Town Finance Director Stephen Kaplan said the Tree Fund is an account used to track related purchases. “Historically, we adjust this account during the fiscal year through a budget amendment, increasing the budget based on the payments received for that specific purpose,” he said.

The removal of this mature ficus without permit is one case in a growing concern. Photo provided by Town of Lantana

One resident’s initiative

Some residents aren’t waiting for the town to replace or plant new trees. Ellen Schweber is one of them. The former New Yorker moved to the island less than 10 years ago and found the block on which her house stands was “very uninspired,” with none of the canopy trees that made her fall in love with the neighborhood.

“It had been stripped of its old beauty, its jungle-like quality,” she said. “It looked so bare.”

To remedy that, Schweber began buying trees with her own money. Some of her neighbors chipped in, and a little money came from the town.

She asked her neighbor, Media Beverly, if they could start a group to inspire others to plant trees. “It turned out it would cost a lot of money to do it properly, so I did it improperly.”

Schweber began planting live oak trees with the goal of getting a canopy. “I know it’s a slow growing tree, but it’s native and we wanted something that would one day go over the road and be very beautiful.”

Eight trees were purchased for her block and the first ones are coming together. “They are not very lush yet, but they are actually meeting. I’d love to extend the project around the island,” she said. 

Schweber, Beverly and Towle are working on that.

A tree saved

Occasionally, efforts to save protected trees have been successful. 

The large ficus on the curve at 707 S. Atlantic Drive, adjacent to Pelican Lane, survived thanks to the efforts of former island resident Richard Schlosberg.

“The developer was about to saw it down,” Towle said, “having clear-cut the lot to build his house, when Schlosberg intervened and pointed out that the tree was in the swale and belonged to the Island — not the developer’s lot. The tree was spared. And it remains a lovely tree, still standing.”

Beverly called on future homeowners to make mindful choices. “Thirty-five years ago, we chose to live on historically significant Hypoluxo Island, a place of unique architecture surrounded by a lush, beautiful tranquility rarely found elsewhere,” Beverly said. “Sadly, this paradise is being slowly eroded by new huge structures replacing ageless landscaping. I am hopeful that future owners will be more mindful of their precious new surroundings.”

On a bright note, the great horned owl who lost his home in the tree cut down at 505 SE Atlantic Drive, appears to have found news digs — in one of Towle’s hardwood trees. 

Briny Breezes author Lee Godby published his auto-biography at the ripe old age of 100. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

A word of advice.

If you should meet Lee Godby, please do not congratulate him on having lived 100 years.

“I’m 100 and a half,” he will correct you — with a smile. “I was born on June 25, 1925, so that makes me 100 and a half. Every half counts when you’re 100.”

In addition to being 100 and a half, Godby has the honor of having published his autobiography at 100. Last year, before the half.

Age aside, he is not alone. In Briny Breezes, a town of 532, Godby is one of about 15 residents, children of residents, and grandchildren of residents, who have written books on display in this little town’s little library.

Here you’ll find a history of the town itself, mysteries, children’s books, World War II memoirs, and a celebration of dance.

Also, the story of one’s man triumph over prostate cancer called Bend Over and Say AHH!

“I figured I’d better get it down while my mind is still sharp,” Lee Godby said, sitting with his wife, Josefina, by the shelf where his book Ensley is waiting to be read.

Ensley is his given name, Ensley Godby, but he goes by Lee.

“I hated the name for a long time,” he recalled, “but then I thought, I’ve never heard of another Ensley in the world, so I thought it must be unique. Now I don’t hate the name anymore.”

Ensley the book began when Ensley the author started writing about his father, a steam engineer who ran a power plant up home in Canada, back in the days before electricity.

“I had written quite a bit when I saw an ad for LifeBook Memoirs,” he said.

An international company, LifeBook Memoirs works with aspiring memoirists to create their autobiographies, from the first word to the finished volume. The service is not cheap. According to the company’s website, Godby’s volume cost $18,000.

“They sent a really fantastic lady, and I started talking and she started recording,” recalled Godby, a year-round Briny Breezes resident.

Every Friday for three months, a freelance interviewer named Lauren O’Farrell interviewed Godby for 90 minutes. Her interviews were then forwarded to a ghostwriter, who returned written drafts for him to review, criticize, correct and expand on.

He told O’Farrell about growing up in Mountain Park, Alberta; about earning a master’s degree in electrical engineering; about his summer job with the Eldorado Mining & Refining Co., when he used a Geiger counter to look for uranium under the earth.

“At breakfast one day,” he remembered, “an old guy named Ed Cody announced that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, and I realized why we were doing what we were doing.”

He told O’Farrell about his time in Ottawa, working with the government’s National Research Council, using magnetometers to look for submarines.

He told her about his four children, Gavin, Scott, Mark, and Howard, all in their 70s except for Howard, the baby at 69. His six grandchildren, his six great-grandchildren.

He told her about his four wives, and how he met Josefina in 2013, when his son Scott introduced them.

“I liked that his name has ‘God’ in it,” Josefina says.

They married in 2017.

“It’s not just the final product,” O’Farrell says, “but the interaction between the subject and the interviewer and the writer. Working with Mr. Godby was amazing. He’s an incredible person who’s lived an incredible life. We had a great time working together.”

Ensley is an impressively produced, hardcover volume filled with photographs, many in color, and a century of memories.

The author was more than satisfied.

“I got 40 copies,” he said, “and I’ve ordered some more.”

Ron Vaughn, author of three books.

Working on his fourth book

None of Lee Godby’s fellow writers is 100 and a half, yet.

Ron Vaughn is a mere 84. His nickname is Butch, and it’s the title of his autobiography.

“It’s about growing up in a rural community outside Flint, Michigan, until the age of 11,” he says. “I never got in any real hard trouble, but I was always in mischief.”

A part-time Briny Breezes resident since 2000, Vaughn still spends most of the year up North, but between here and there he has found time to write Butch, as well as a crime novel and a medical memoir.

Skeeter Jones, the novel, is loosely based on a true story.

“A guy I knew had a son on drugs, and he took a shotgun and shot the pusher’s head off,” Vaughn explains. “I had Skeeter go on the run after shooting the pusher, but what really happened is, he put the gun down on the bar and said, ‘Call the police.’”

Which brings us to Bend Over and Say AHH!

“It’s rated G,” Vaughn quickly notes. “About my experience with prostate cancer four years ago. I was lucky, they caught it in the first stage. Twenty-eight treatments and so far, so good. There’s nothing to it if it’s caught early.”
The title is funny, but the message is serious. Get tested, and you can live long enough to be writing your fourth book.

“It’s another true story, about a young couple who tried to rob a gas station back in 1976,” he explains. “The gun went off and killed a guy in a paint shop across the street. The wife was pardoned after 26 years, but the guy’s still in prison.

“I’ve been working on it about six months, and I like this one even better.”

Andrea Olsen with her book The Place of Dance. 

Dancing, writing and beach

Most books by Briny authors are self-published, but not all.

Andrea Olsen’s The Place of Dance is available from Wesleyan University Press, along with her three previous books.

“The Place of Dance is about the role of dance in culture,” she says, “and how place influences dance.”

Briny Breezes has influenced Olsen’s dance for a very long time.

“We first visited Briny when I was 5 in 1953,” she explains. “We towed a long green trailer down from Decatur, Illinois, and then bought two lots in 1958. I’m 77 now, so I’ve been in Briny for 72 years.”

For 32 of her 77 years, Olsen taught dance and environmental studies at Middlebury College in Vermont, and she still leads workshops. Over her lifetime, dance has taken her to Paris, Denmark, New Zealand — and of course, Briny Breezes.

“I dance on the beach every morning at 9 a.m.,” she says, “and then I journal on the beach, writing about what happened the day before. Walking on the beach every day, you get used to the broad horizon, the seashells, the palm fronds, the breeze. Dancing outdoors changes how you move. In Briny, it’s the sense of being by the ocean and the rhythm of the waves.

“I wrote parts of all four books in the winters here.”

For the young ones

And there are children’s books.

Rosie’s Song, by Mary Kate Leming, The Coastal Star’s founder and editor emeritus, with illustrations by Deborah LaFogg Docherty, follows Rosie the sea star’s search for her brothers lost in a storm.

Sassyquatch: Yeti Or Not, Here I Come is inscribed, “This book was written by Lindsey Stansfield, daughter-in-law of Patricia Stansfield, K-28. For all the youngsters at Briny.”

Turtlee in Paris notes it was written by “Paris Stankewich, granddaughter of Stan and Carole Brunell.”

And other books:

From a Branch and a String by David Lindmark tells how his fishing guide service grew into a Christian ministry.

Suzanne Snyder-Carroll offers her “Joe The Plumber” mystery trilogy.

And of course, the writings of Dorothy McNeice, the town’s historian.

100 and then some

And now for the inevitable question before Lee Godby returns to his trailer: How do you get to be 100 and a half?

“The secret is having the right ancestors,” he says. “But I can’t prove that because most of mine died of tuberculosis. My father’s mother and father both died of TB, and my mother’s father died of TB. But my mother’s mother lived into her 90s.”

He never drank or smoked, and he never followed any strict diets. “I eat whatever she cooks,” he says, nodding at Josefina. “She’s my life.”

Being memorable

For You The War Is Over: A Flyboy’s Experience of World War II by Carl Weller is in the Briny Breezes library.

And so is Seagoing Veterinarian, by Harold “Doc” Burton, a memoir of his work delivering farm animals to Europe in the 1940s.

Both Weller and Burton have died, but their memories still live, on the shelves of that tiny, one-room library next to the shuffleboard courts in Briny Breezes.

At 100 and a half, Lee Godby spoke for all the town’s writers.

“Why does anybody write anything?” he asked. “The feeling of wanting to be immortal.

“I’m happy about that.” 

A set of shelves in the Briny Breezes library celebrates the town’s authors.

Liebelson in dispute with Thomson over campaign funding

Related: Ballot includes decision on new police headquarters

By Mary Hladky

With the March 10 city election fast approaching, Boca Raton’s mayoral race erupted into a brawl between Mike Liebelson and Andy Thomson.

Tensions flared on Feb. 25 when an attorney representing first-time candidate Liebelson accused Thomson’s campaign political consultant of making defamatory and misleading statements about Liebelson in political flyers sent to residents.

In his letter, attorney Ricardo Reyes demanded that Rick Asnani, well known throughout Palm Beach County for his work representing candidates, retract the statements and issue a written apology to Liebelson.

Attached to his letter were copies of flyers that, among other things, accuse Liebelson of benefiting from a dark money political action committee’s raising funds for Liebelson’s campaign whose “secret” donors would not be disclosed until after election day.

They accuse Liebelson of not disclosing his donors, a charge Liebelson disputes.

It was not clear before The Coastal Star’s March 3 deadline if Asnani had responded. He did not immediately reply to two messages requesting comment.

Thomson noted that the letter was sent not to him, but to two PACs raising money for his campaign.

Yet he did not dispute the accuracy of the messages in the flyers.

“There is nothing in any of their messages that is false at all,” he said. “It is accurate. … Everything the political committee said is documented fact, from what I can tell.”

Any response to the allegations should come from Asnani, he said.

Along with Liebelson and Thomson, City Council member Fran Nachlas is vying to replace term-limited Scott Singer as mayor.

The allegations are notable in part because of the astonishing amount of money Thomson and Nachlas have raised in their race to become mayor.

As of March 2, Thomson had raised $422,566 and Nachlas $489,905. But that does not include the amounts raised through some PACs since Dec. 31. That information won’t be released until April.

Liebelson has raised $203,390, including $190,000 in personal loans and $5,000 in a personal donation.

He also has a PAC, Friends of Mike Liebelson. Its end-of-year report said it had raised no funds. Updated information won’t be available until April.

But Liebelson said it has raised a total of $25,000 from his 90-year-old father-in-law and a former business partner.

Liebelson has made an issue of the amount of money Thomson has raised from developers, particularly through PACs.

While not a member of Save Boca, Liebelson agrees with its stance against the proposed redevelopment of the downtown campus by One Boca. He has vowed not to accept developer money for his campaign.

Nachlas has received developer donations, but Liebelson has not highlighted that because he says she is upfront about supporting development.

He singles out Thomson for saying he opposes the downtown campus redevelopment while also accepting developer contributions.

Thomson does not dispute that developers have donated to his campaign, “but not in the overwhelming scale that Mr. Liebelson suggests. That is just false,” he said.

Related: Mayoral race takes nasty turn

By Mary Hladky

With so much crammed into Boca Raton’s March 10 election ballot, residents can be forgiven if they have lost sight of the fact they also will be voting on whether they are willing to finance the construction of a new police headquarters.

Even if they know that, the measure has created some confusion.

It is one of two referendum questions on the ballot, with the other one giving residents the final say on whether the city can redevelop a portion of the 31-acre downtown campus in partnership with developers Terra and Frisbie Group.

That has led some to conclude that the two matters are linked.

That perception has been fueled in part by Save Boca, which strongly opposes the proposed public-private partnership (P3) with Terra/Frisbie, now branded as One Boca.

Save Boca says, correctly, that if the P3 is approved, two new residential buildings will be built roughly on the site of the city’s current police headquarters located immediately east of City Hall.

But the group is also intimating that the city wants to move the police headquarters off site to free up land for downtown campus redevelopment.

City officials insist that is not so. They also are responding to residents’ complaints that the $190 million projected cost of a new headquarters is excessive.

To make their case, officials have been holding information sessions and meeting with any organization, homeowner association or civic group that wanted to be briefed. By election day, they will have held about 40 meetings.

A new headquarters is needed, officials say, because the existing one is far too small and in poor condition. As a result, various functions are now located in seven buildings, creating inefficiency and coordination problems.

Further, the department has space needs it would not have envisioned years ago, such as the addition of drone teams.

In response to suspicions the city is in league with One Boca, officials say they have known since 2001 that they needed a new building. Planning began in earnest even before they received proposals to redevelop the downtown campus.

They determined that the current site no longer meets the city’s needs. That’s because most of the city’s population growth has been west of the downtown, making the city’s geographical center generally in the area of the Boca Raton Innovation Campus.

Wanting to avoid the expense of buying land, they selected 17 city-owned acres adjacent to the Spanish River Library at the intersection of Spanish River and Broken Sound boulevards.

That site also provides good access to major roadways. Police Chief Michele Miuccio says the new location would not affect police response times for any part of the city.

Regarding the $190 million cost, Miuccio said what’s proposed is not one building but a police campus.

The campus would include an energy plant so police no longer will have to move out when a bad storm or hurricane approaches, as they do now.

There also will be a firing range and evidence storage building. A parking garage has been put on hold for now to shave $20-25 million off the project cost.

At a Feb. 17 community meeting on the project at the Downtown Library, Deputy City Manager and Chief Financial Officer Jim Zervis noted that, unlike the redevelopment plan with One Boca, the police project is not a P3.

Rather, the city will issue up to $175 million in tax-exempt general obligation bonds for a 30-year term. This, Zervis said, is the traditional way governments pay for such projects. The city will pay the remaining $15 million cost out of the general fund.

City property owners will pay for the $175 million through a property tax increase of 26 cents for every $1,000 of taxable value. That would come to $260 more a year on a property with a taxable value of $1,000,000.

The project will be competitively bid. So if the final tab is less than $190 million, the cost to property owners would be reduced.

If voters approve the bond issue on March 10, construction is expected to begin in early 2027 with completion two years later. 

Agreements adhere to law but came with no public debate

Florida Atlantic University students and others protested in February the university police department’s partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via a 287(g) agreement. It mandates that police officers work with ICE to apprehend immigrants who are not in the country legally. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By John Pacenti

Delray Beach — like municipalities throughout Florida last year — found itself in a vise. 

Capitulate to Gov. Ron DeSantis and turn local police officers into de facto federal immigration agents or be labeled an illegal “sanctuary” city and face the consequences.

“Everyone’s in the same position, right?” said State Rep. Rob Long, a Democrat who was still on the Delray Beach City Commission when the issue surfaced for elected leaders last summer. “Cities don’t want retribution either. God knows, we’ve had enough from the state.”

The city already tangled with the governor when it refused to paint over its LGBTQ rainbow intersection — the state stepped in unannounced and did the job itself — and the city even briefly considered joining a lawsuit. 

As detailed in The Coastal Star in January, municipalities have seen the state Legislature erode home rule, and it is now looking to get voters to starve the cities, towns and villages of their financial lifeline by eliminating ad valorem taxes for homesteaded properties.

In the end, the city signed the cooperation agreement on Oct. 27 with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to train officers in enforcing immigration laws.

But City Manager Terrence Moore did not put the 287(g) Memorandum of Agreement on the commission’s agenda for a public discussion. Instead, he and Police Chief Darrell Hunter met with elected officials one-on-one.

“If anybody had read it or discussed it, it might have come out that all of a sudden, we no longer have a Police Department. We’re going to have a sub-ICE agency,” said former Commissioner Shirley Johnson.

The agreement was signed before ICE made Minneapolis the center of its enforcement action — before immigration agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti and before they detained a 5-year-old boy. 

Long said the city was just trying to “fly under the radar” so neither the governor nor ICE would make South Florida its next Minneapolis. 

“It’s a conundrum as a commissioner,” Commissioner Tom Markert recalled. “I mean, you just, you try to weigh everything as best you can, and you try to do what’s absolutely best for the citizens.”

Johnson didn’t hold back during public comments at the Jan. 20 commission meeting, calling for dissolution of the commission, describing “the prostitution of our Police Department via the agreement, an MOA, with ICE. Outrageous. Shame. Shame. Shame.”

Residents along the coast who spoke to The Coastal Star declined to go on the record. Residents in Delray Beach known to support ICE also did not respond to efforts to reach them.

For many residents, immigrants are their neighbors. Some are here legally, some have green cards or are working toward them — and some crossed the border without proper papers for work or safety. They are found throughout the barrier island as yard workers, in the trades, as nannies, as housekeepers.

Not just Delray

Delray Beach is not alone. Boca Raton, Gulf Stream, Ocean Ridge and Highland Beach also did not bring the 287(g) agreements up in a public forum. Gulf Stream, with a force of 13, has four officers trained to assist ICE, Police Chief Richard Jones said.

In Boca Raton, resident Christina Escalante asked the City Council at an Oct. 27 workshop why the 287(g) agreement was not posted on any city or Police Department website. She wanted to know if local officers — like ICE agents — would obscure their identities and make language-based stops and target domestic workers’ identification.

About 100 Florida Atlantic University students in Boca Raton staged a protest on Feb. 25 about FAU’s signing a 287(g) agreement for campus police to be trained to be ICE agents. 

Organizers of the protest also pointed out that FAU President Adam Hasner is a former executive for the private prison GEO Group, which is profiting mightily from the detention of immigrants. GEO pulled in $254.3 million — a net increase of 700% — as President Donald Trump’s government has amassed a network of detention centers, buying former big-box stores.

Student protests in 2012 stopped the FAU football stadium from being named after GEO Group.

Some of the concerns regarding the 287(g) agreements stem from the way DeSantis has used the Florida Highway Patrol, which has been documented as detaining U.S. citizens after pulling them over because they looked Hispanic. 

“The Florida Highway Patrol has basically been turned into a show me your papers patrol,” Thomas Kennedy, a consultant with the Florida Immigration Coalition, posted Feb. 18 on X. 

The Republican governor has also been denounced by Amnesty International for building the Alligator Alcatraz immigration facility west of Miami, saying detainees face human rights violations.

Impact in Delray

Back in Delray Beach, the issue bubbled up at the Beach Property Owners Association commission candidate forum between Andrea Keiser and Judy Mollica. “Would you be supportive of ICE here to support getting rid of the criminal, illegal or not?” asked a resident attending, demanding a yes or no answer.

Many in the audience shouted the questioner down, saying the issue wasn’t relevant. All the candidates for the open seat — including Delores Rangel, who wasn’t at the BPOA forum — have said the agreement should have been a public matter. Mollica, though, added, “Because, much like the (Pride) crosswalk thing, they didn’t give us a choice.”

Delray Beach is also home to 15,000 Haitians —  20% of the city’s population. A federal judge on Feb. 2 blocked Trump’s efforts to strip Haitians with temporary protected status of that status even as their homeland remains in what the United Nations has called a “deepening security, humanitarian, and governance crisis.” 

A federal immigration enforcement action against Haitians could put ICE agents on the streets of Delray Beach, Johnson said.

“The things that happen in Minneapolis could happen in any USA town,” Johnson said. “You can’t send people back to that country. It is in turmoil — turmoil. They’re killing people as they step off the plane.”

When asked, Commissioner Juli Casale referenced the 2024 campaign when she, Mayor Tom Carney and Markert campaigned on ending back-room deals.

“We were elected on a firm commitment to transparency and public accountability,” she said. “While Mr. Moore acted within his administrative authority to resolve this matter, in retrospect, an issue of this significance should have been presented for public discussion.”

Casale said she requested a copy of the Memorandum of Agreement from Moore for a meeting on Sept. 24. Moore did not give her a copy of the 287(g) but insisted that the city would not incur liability and cost for the local police officers who were trained to become ICE agents.

Casale then made a public records request for the MOA. “Upon reading the MOA, I disagreed with Mr. Moore’s assessment as to liability and cost,” she said.

The commissioner also contacted City Attorney Lynn Gelin to request that the document be amended to clearly state that there would be no costs or liability — which she called her bigger concern — to the residents of Delray Beach.

‘It’s a state law’

Neither Moore nor Chief Hunter would comment on the ICE agreement. The Coastal Star, through a public records request, received 101 pages of emails and documentation.

Then Police Chief Russ Mager, in a March 3, 2025, email to then Assistant Chief Hunter, discussed the new MOA. “We need to designate 10% of the agency for ICE training,” he states. There are around 160 sworn police officers in the department, meaning that 16 would be trained on immigration enforcement.

In a 10-point summary of DeSantis’ proposal, Mager says by Jan. 1, 2026, any law enforcement agency with 25 or more sworn law enforcement officers must enter into a written agreement with ICE and participate in “every program model offered.”

Carney told The Coastal Star he had no appetite to revisit the 287(g) agreement when asked about it.

“It’s a state law. You obviously didn’t watch the governor the other day,” the mayor said. “The governor essentially said that if people are going to fight him on it, he’s going to remove them” from office.

State Attorney General James Uthmeier has said that not signing the agreement violates state law by creating an illegal “sanctuary policy” and impeding enforcement.

South Miami took the DeSantis administration to court, citing liability and cost concerns. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in March 2025, saying the litigation was premature since the city had yet to incur any real damages.

South Miami leaders remain in office and have not faced punishment from the state. 

Nearby Key Biscayne, a wealthy community with a lot of immigrants, has also not signed the agreement after opposition from residents and has faced no repercussions.

Delray Beach resident Ken MacNamee, a retired CPA, started asking questions in December after he said he was “blindsided” when he learned of the MOA. 

MacNamee wrote to commissioners on Dec. 8, saying municipalities had every right to object to or modify the agreement according to the MOA itself: “It is convoluted, lacking, and very poorly constructed. It protects ICE but not the City. I find it tantamount to conscripting the Delray Beach Police Dept. to do ICE’s job.” 

Related: Lantana/Hypoluxo Island: Out on a limb: Hypoluxo Island residents grapple with how to protect their tree canopy

Related: Lantana: Tales from a Tree City

Related: Delray Beach: Fight to preserve massive banyan at golf course pits city against drainage district

Palms reign in South Florida, a visible reminder to so many northern transplants that we’re not in Kansas anymore (or New York, or Massachusetts, or … ).

We may grumble about traffic and never-ending construction — not to mention the stifling heat that comes with our extended summers — but right now our address is paradise: a tropical oasis with balmy temperatures and sun-splashed beaches, and a backdrop of stately palms most anywhere you turn your gaze.

But South Florida needs more trees, and our fixation on palms isn’t helping. Tree City USA — and botanists — don’t even consider palms to be trees. And palms don’t add much to the shade canopy that’s needed for heat reduction and for capturing carbon emissions.

That’s why it’s important to protect decades-old trees of great stature, replace them with a similarly sized arbor canopy when we can’t, and add more shade trees wherever possible.

More large trees seem to disappear every day. A massive oak two doors down from my Boca Raton home was there when I left for work a few days ago but gone when I returned that night — it appears its roots had become a threat to my neighbor’s sewer line.

On Hypoluxo Island in Lantana, concern is growing that too many of its mature trees are being uprooted to fit the design plans of new construction, with developers treating the fines or fees merely as a cost of doing business.

In Delray Beach, the Lake Worth Drainage District is forcing the city to cut down a massive banyan rooted in a canal bank at the city’s golf course. The city has objected, but the district has been unwavering, concerned that the tree could fall into the canal in a hurricane and lead to flooding in nearby communities.

In Boca Raton, three century-old banyans were recently cut down to make way for a 12-story apartment complex, but only after the developer had arborists show proof that while the trees were big and beautiful, they were also diseased and a danger. 

There are tree preservation efforts, some more popular than others.

Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and Lantana hold Tree City USA status and have for decades. They’re developing policies, such as tree giveaways, to promote a larger tree canopy in their communities.

Elsewhere, Ocean Ridge stopped short of joining Tree City USA in 2022, but it has regulations on the books regarding tree removals. And the state has allowed Gulf Stream to preserve the invasive Australian pines that provide a unique canopy over the town’s stretch of State Road A1A.

The downtown campus proposal Boca Raton voters will decide March 10 would preserve a half-dozen large banyan trees near City Hall — not that they’re under any threat now — if voters approve a denser development on the other side of Northwest Second Avenue.

While I’ve never considered myself a tree hugger, my wife and I try to do our part. Though we have close to 20 palms on our less-than-quarter-acre lot, we have some older trees and have made room for new ones.

Two 70-plus-year-old oaks cover our front yard — no threat to any pipes yet — along with a relative newbie, a 5-year-old pink showers tree we hope will have its first bloom this spring. 

We also have an eclectic mix of 10 other trees, including a royal poinciana that covers a large part of our backyard. 

When they developed our 65-year-old neighborhood, they planned around our oaks and dozens of others in the community. We can use more developments sticking to that ideology today. 

It would also be great if more homeowners planted trees of their own, ones that add to the region’s canopy and not only to its tropical feel.

— Larry Barszewski, editor

Jackie Lorne’s passion led her to create Sea Turtle Adventures Inc., which monitors sea turtle nests in Gulf Stream, Briny Breezes and southern Ocean Ridge. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett

On the eve of nesting season 2026, Jackie Lorne was busy rounding up people for her sea turtle group’s annual fundraising walk and reminding folks that it’s time again to leave room on the beach for mama turtles and turn off lights at nights.

“We’re expecting another steady year,” Lorne says of nesting season, which runs from March 1 to Oct. 31. “Last year was a pretty stable, steady year and I think we’re predicting the same for this year as well. It’ll be interesting to see when we get our first nest.”

Her group, Sea Turtle Adventures Inc., counted 652 nests in 2025 along the roughly three miles of beach it monitors in Gulf Stream, Briny Breezes and southern Ocean Ridge. The nonprofit also conducted five nighttime lighting surveys to ensure beaches are dark for nesting turtles and their hatchlings.

The group, now in its 10th year, has two other full-time employees, three part-timers and about a dozen volunteers. They keep active during the off-season rescuing injured turtles and organizing beach cleanups and educational events.

“We stay busy 365 days a year,” Lorne says. “We’re one of the main nonprofits that rescues turtles throughout the whole county.”

Her fascination with marine life started early.

“I always just wanted to be a marine biologist, ever since I was a little kid. Looking back, my favorite gift I ever got for Christmas was a fish tank when I was 10. It was just, I’ve always had a love for the ocean,” she says.

Lorne, who was born and raised in Boynton Beach, had another childhood dream to live in Briny Breezes. She accomplished that four years ago.

“I have wanted to live in Briny Breezes since I was a kid, and I always knew I was going to make it happen one day,” she says. “I love the community, the people, the clubs. And it’s just unlike anywhere else. It is so unique. It’s my favorite place to be and I can’t picture myself ever leaving.”

The town is also the perfect spot for Lorne and her significant other to raise their toddler son. “It’s just an amazing community for him to grow up in,” she says.

Lorne, now 44, recommends that youths start as soon as they can in following a career path.

“The earlier you start in the field, the better. Volunteering your time, essentially getting off the couch and doing something useful,” she says.

Lorne began monitoring turtle nests and volunteering at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach when she was 13. That gave her a leg up when it came to going to college and getting a career. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology and spent 15 years as a project manager at Florida Power & Light before turning full-time to nonprofit work.

Her group’s annual “Turtle Crawl” fundraiser is at 8 a.m. March 7.  

The nonprofit will also host nighttime sea turtle walks and its nest adoption program this year. It offers a Mommy and Me program where moms and their little ones read a story, do a craft and go to the beach to dig up a nest, and a ride-along program “where families hop on our five-seater ATV with us and they spend an hour with us on the beach watching us dig up a sea turtle nest.”

Nests are excavated three days after they hatch to free any remaining hatchlings.

Lorne, whose grandparents started Lorne and Sons funeral home in Delray Beach, is also proud of her efforts to improve the lives of people with special needs through a weekly Conservation Club.

“It’s something God has put in my heart since I was a little kid,” Lorne said. “I wanted to provide nature-based experiences to that population. Their activities were more traditionally indoor-based and more isolated to being around others with their same condition. I wanted to get them out in nature, on the beach and integrating with the public and helping with conservation.”

The program proved so popular that it spun off its own nonprofit to organize bingo nights, dances and cooking classes.

“It started with seven members in 2016, and last year we had over 250 members,” Lorne says. 

Turtle Crawl

What: 2.25-mile fundraising walk

When: 8 a.m. March 7

Where: Nomad Surf Shop, 4655 N. Ocean Blvd. 

Register: seaturtleadventures.com

Cost: $35

NOMINATE SOMEONE TO BE A COASTAL STAR 

Send a note to news@thecoastalstar.com or call 561-337-1553.

An eager crowd awaits the chance to dig in and find natural treasures among rocks, shells and pieces of coral dumped Feb. 23 in Anchor Park. Their removal from the beach is an effort to protect the outflow area of sand pumped during the renourishment process. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Sephora Charles 

In Delray Beach, seashell hunters don’t have to comb the shoreline for treasure — they’re sifting through a city-made mound across the street instead.

Residents dug through a fresh pile of dredged shells at Anchor Park, chatting quietly as they filled their buckets and bags on Feb. 23. The chilly Monday morning shifted when a sudden squeal cut through the air.

Tiffany DeSilva of Lake Worth Beach laughed in excitement as she held a junonia, a rare find in Florida that can sell for about $200. Junonia shells are considered rare because they live in deep water and typically appear ashore after a major storm, DeSilva said.

This special treasure wasn’t found after a hurricane or tropical storm, but as a by-product of Delray Beach’s beach renourishment efforts that began Feb. 6.  

The sporadic delivery of shells is temporary, lasting only until the end of the sand project, which has an April 30 deadline. Crews have been separating seashells during sand screening and dropping them off at Anchor Park — across State Road A1A from the beach and to the north of Casuarina Road — for people to collect. 

“This is really cool that they’re letting us do this,” DeSilva said.

DeSilva, who’s been shelling since she was a little girl, said she’s been visiting the park every other day to find shells and meet “like-minded people.”

“I’ve met a lot of cool people, and I’m happy that I can call them my friends now,” she said. 

Tiffany DeSilva of Lake Worth Beach found a junonia, considered to be a holy grail for shell collectors because of its deep-water habitat.

For similar reasons, Linda Horst, a Maryland resident who spends winters in Florida, said she is drawn to the park’s dredge pile. 

“You get to meet so many different people and have a good time,” Horst said. “The majority of people are so nice, and they’re so willing to share. It’s really a great community of people.”

She describes herself as a “shell addict” who has been collecting for more than 30 years, finding joy in discovering her “dream shell” or “a really good shell.” 

After collecting shells, Horst typically makes crafts for loved ones or displays them for sale while educating people about them. 

Her passion for shelling correlates with her love for beaches. An item on her bucket list is to walk on every beach in the United States, she said. She’s yet to walk on the beaches in Mississippi and Alabama. 

Being near the beach to pick shells has a calming aura and brings Horst relaxation, she said. “I definitely feel a lot closer to God here.”

While some shell collectors have decades of dredge pile experience, others arrived as curious newcomers after hearing about it through word of mouth.

Kaitlyn McLoughlin, a Colorado native, experienced pile dredge shelling for the first time at Anchor Park. Despite recovering from a snowboarding accident while visiting home, McLoughlin made efforts to participate in the fresh pile drop-off. With a seat cushion and a hand rake, she collected a bucket full of shells. 

“Not being from here, it’s like a whole different type of appreciation for shells and the ocean. I never wanna leave now,” she said.

Max Chiorean, 20, from Boynton Beach was introduced to the Anchor Park pile by his friends. Chiorean arrived at the park around 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 23, hoping for a fresh shell drop for his first visit. Crews with a big truck came shortly after, dumped their load, and the community digging began. 

Surrounded by people with years of experience, Chiorean said he felt comfortable asking others for their shelling knowledge and sharing with those who didn’t find shells. “There’s no real greed in this,” he said.

Above all, Chiorean said he finds joy in using his hobby, which makes him “feel like a little kid again,” to give back to those younger than him. He takes buckets of shells to the beach and gives them to children.

“It’s all about making memories and making people happy. I think the smile is worth it more than anything,” Chiorean said. 

If You Go   

What: Dredged shells from a beach renourishment project are being trucked to a park across the street from the Delray Beach municipal beach for the public to pick over.

Where: Anchor Park, 340 S. Ocean Blvd.

When: Through April 30, or until otherwise advised. The delivery of new shells to the park is sporadic and is not announced ahead of time. The park is open daily, sunrise to sunset.

Suggested equipment: Gloves, sand scoop or sifter, small rake or hand shovel, water shoes or sturdy shoes, mesh bags or small protective containers.

Info: Contact Delray Beach Parks and Recreation at 561-243-7250 ext. 7277.

Manalapan residents and visitors can buy alcohol at Publix in town on Sunday mornings after the Town Commission voted to roll back a decades-old restriction that barred sales during early Sunday hours.

The amendment aligns Manalapan more closely with many South Florida communities that have relaxed blue-law-style limits on Sunday alcohol sales in recent years.

Town Manager Eric Marmer said the change came after complaints from residents, such as those who go grocery shopping on Sunday morning. 

— John Pacenti

Advisory board’s input to weigh on final design

By John Pacenti

Call it the Taj Mahal of guardhouses. Architects presented to the Manalapan Town Commission a new glass-enclosed design — to replace the town’s aging guardhouse — that could run as much as $340,000.

However, Town Manager Eric Marmer says the final say will come after residents’ input at the town’s Architectural Commission meeting on March 5. 

“It’s hard to say what the final design will be,” Marmer said. “We will have a clearer picture of the final design once the Architectural Committee meets and weighs in with their recommendation to the Town Commission.”

The guardhouse — built in 1968 — is located on Lands End Road and serves as the entrance to Point Manalapan, but it’s not easy for nonresidents to find. Motorists have to follow a circuitous route through Hypoloxo Island. 

The J. Turner Moore Memorial Library is located in the neighborhood on the Intracoastal Waterway, and the guardhouse is adjacent to some stylish homes — right next door is a good two-story example of coastal colonial design, nicknamed “Southern Exposure.”

Options presented at the commission’s Feb. 10 meeting are eye-catching, to say the least. 

Jess Sowards of Currie Sowards Aguila Architects presented commissioners with two main schemes: a full steel trellis that covers both ingress and egress lanes, and an asymmetric option that covers only the incoming lane while leaving the outbound lane open to the sky. 

Both concepts center on a largely glass guardhouse clad with smooth-face coquina stone and dark bronze metal accents, designed to maximize visibility into the facility for security monitoring. 

A covered carport for golf carts and integrated TV monitors above the guards, intended to reinforce the perception that drivers are being observed, are included in the proposal — though the public road is open to anyone.

Commissioners praised the design as modern and contemporary, but also questioned how the design strikes a balance between security and privacy for nearby homeowners. 

The new design includes golf cart storage to allow guards — community service officers — to respond to medical emergencies quickly.

Commissioner David Knobel urged inclusion of vine-covered green walls or trellises along one or both sides of the structure to screen spillover light from the 24-hour facility. “With a glass guardhouse that might put light over to the houses on either side of it. So I was looking to kind of screen it a little bit,” he said.

Marmer added, “Obviously, the full trellis looks nice, but can we live with the half, asymmetrical trellis?”

The design drawings show a 15-foot clearance that Sowers said provides extra margin over the standard height requirements. Mayor John Deese and other commissioners expressed concern that oversized loads — an example was given of a truck full of grown palm trees — would not be able to get through.

“I don’t think that accommodating pretty much a one-off situation should be a big concern,” Knobel said.

Resident Niki Peterson, who sits on the Architectural Commission, attended the meeting and said she would like the full trellis: “I think it’s beautiful, that’s for sure.”

Marmer said the building alone, as now designed, would cost between $150,000 and $170,000. However, that does not include the trellis feature, which would double the cost of the project. “So, we didn’t budget for that,” he said. The commission earmarked $100,000 for the project, but Marmer said it’s not accurate to say the town has run over budget.

“When we originally budgeted for this project, it was to remodel what currently exists there,” he told The Coastal Star. “But after having people check it out, it’s in such poor condition that that doesn’t really make sense. So, it became a tear-down and rebuild.”

The new design expands the guardhouse from 200 to 260 square feet, growing it longer as opposed to wider. 

A two-phase approach was discussed at the commission meeting: build the guardhouse, foundations and piling first, then add the trellis and site finishes in a later phase. Architects emphasized that piling and permitting work could proceed while the trellis is being fabricated.

Installing the pavers might present a conundrum, Marmer said, if the town moves forward with a septic-to-sewer project.

In the end, Deese said the town’s Architectural Commission should weigh in and allow residents to comment on the design at its meeting. The final say-so rests with the Town Commission.

Another major change for the guardhouse already occurred.

At January’s commission meeting, Police Chief Jeff Rasor said the town in December moved away from the private security company and created community service officer positions. They are employees of the Police Department and will staff the guardhouse. 

Rasor noted the Police Department had already hired three CSOs and was working toward full 24/7 coverage, with regular police officers filling any gaps.

Target construction start for the guardhouse was discussed for the off-season in May, subject to permitting and bidding schedules. 

By John Pacenti

Ocean Ridge’s town manager has proposed a modest but potentially crucial new revenue stream as Tallahassee debates sweeping changes that could strip local governments of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next decade.

At the Feb. 2 Ocean Ridge Town Commission meeting, Manager Michelle Heiser proposed the town raise its communication services tax as a way to diversify revenue should state legislation to cut property taxes for homestead properties end up on November’s ballot. 

Like all Florida initiatives, such a proposal would need 60% of the vote to be approved.

The CST is levied on the sale of communication services — think smart phones, landlines, cable, and internet. If you’ve ever looked at your monthly cell phone or internet bill and noticed a list of fees that make the total significantly higher than the advertised price, the CST is usually one of the biggest culprits.

Ocean Ridge currently levies the CST at 2%, generating roughly $41,800 in the current budget year, Heiser told elected leaders. If the commission were to adopt a commonly used rate of 5.22% — the maximum  allowed for many municipalities — the town could see CST receipts rise to about $109,300, an increase of roughly $67,500 annually.

“(It) doesn’t seem like a lot, but it does make a difference. Every little bit is making a difference,” Heiser said. Gulf Stream to the south has its CST rate at 5.22%, but Manalapan to the north uses a rate of 1.6%.

The CST discussion came after the town’s elected leaders last November directed staff to explore other sources that could mitigate potential reductions to property tax revenues resulting from state-level initiatives.

Commissioner Ainar Aijala Jr. described proposed state legislation that could drastically reduce local property tax revenues over time. The version discussed at the meeting would create a new homestead exemption that phases in by $100,000 per year until it reaches $1 million. It then eliminates the town’s ability to levy certain non-public-safety property taxes on those homes.

Using conservative local assumptions, Aijala’s preliminary “back-of-the-envelope” projections show the town would lose roughly $61,000 in the first year under the draft state plan, $122,000 the next year and about $180,000 the third year.

If the exemption reaches its full phase-in, the town could see cumulative annual losses on the order of several hundred thousand dollars — and potentially more than $1 million once the cap phase ends and limitations take full effect, he said. “So we either have to find some things to do, like communication services or fee-based, or we’re going to start reducing the services that we provide to our residents,” he said. “Why should our people pay less for a cell phone than somebody in Gulf Stream does?”

Mayor Geoff Pugh said he wants to take a wait-and-see approach with what comes out of Tallahassee. “I’m not raising the tax just because somebody else is 5.2%, unless we need to,” he said.

Heiser recommended that commissioners consider the CST as a budget season option and, if they want to proceed, direct drafting of an ordinance and public hearings. Legally, the town must adopt an ordinance and notify the Florida Department of Revenue by Oct. 1 to have any rate change take effect Jan. 1 of the following year. “We’re in pretty good shape today, but these proposals in Tallahassee change the context,” Heiser said. “The CST could help us remain net neutral in year one if the law passes, but we need a clearer picture before making a decision.”

If a CST of 5.22% is adopted, the average impact would likely be roughly $100 per household annually, Aijala said, but the exact increase depends on families’ communication usage and bills. 

The CST is collected from service providers and remitted to municipalities by the state.

Public hearings and ordinance drafting will provide residents a chance to ask questions and weigh in before any change is enacted. 

By John Pacenti

Town Manager Michelle Heiser asked the Ocean Ridge Commission at its Feb. 2 meeting to consider revising the town charter’s term-limit provisions, arguing that limits enacted in 2019 may hinder the town’s ability to carry long-term projects across election cycles.

Heiser told commissioners she was raising the issue as a policy question for their consideration, not at the request of any commissioner. Her memo and on-dais remarks framed term limits as a potential liability for a small municipality facing complex, multiyear initiatives and shifting state rules that could affect local revenue and regulation.

“Term limits, while a very good talking point politically, can work against us in a small town,” Heiser said. She noted that the 2019 charter change now creates the possibility that multiple seats could turn over at once, leaving the commission with a large share of new members at critical moments for projects requiring institutional memory and continuity.

Heiser pointed to examples of lengthy public works projects elsewhere — including a decades-long county bridge project from her prior experience in Port St. Lucie — to illustrate efforts that benefit from elected officials with longer tenures and deeper familiarity with local priorities. “We’re going to move forward with a lot of projects, and this town would benefit from having a lot of institutional knowledge on this board and understanding exactly what the constituents want,” she said. “In the next couple of years, we’ll have an election where people are not gonna be able to run again, and that’s going to be a loss.”

Vice Mayor Steve Coz currently holds the most consecutive years serving on the commission and will be ineligible to run once his current term ends in 2028. The Town Charter limits commissioners to three consecutive three-year terms, after which they must sit out a year before running again.

Mayor Geoff Pugh, the next longest-serving in terms of consecutive years, could run for office again in 2027 before he is term-limited. 

Heiser also noted that Ocean Ridge does not have a residency requirement for candidates like other municipalities. Such rules ensure that newcomers have time to learn the town’s culture before seeking office.

The manager said the idea is intended to be a conversation starter, not an immediate action item. Any charter change, she reminded the board, would require voter approval. She also noted that the earliest practical timeline to place such a measure before voters would likely be March of next year.

Commissioners already experienced what could happen if an exodus of elected leaders takes place.

In 2023, four commissioners resigned: Martin Wiescholek, in protest over the hiring of then Town Manager Lynne Ladner; and Kristine de Haseth, citing family obligations; then their two replacements, with Philip Besler citing personal reasons and Ken Kaleel citing opposition to new financial disclosure requirements.

At the March 2 commission meeting, several residents offered public comments on the issue. Pugh asked that the item be on April’s agenda, where the commission can decide how to move forward — or to keep term limits as they are written in the charter.