Nathan Hecker fishes from the beach in Gulf Stream as Clayton Peart, president of Universal Beach Services Corp., rakes and buries sargassum. He has a contract with private property owners. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Musgrave

When Tom Fitzpatrick arrived at Delray Municipal Beach early one Saturday in mid-May, he was stunned to see it covered with thick brown seaweed.

Although he had heard about a giant blob lurking offshore and had occasionally seen clumps of the stuff dotting the beach, he said the sheer volume was shocking.

“I’ve never seen it so bad,” Fitzpatrick said. “They’ve got to figure it out.”

For the last several months, officials in Palm Beach County’s southernmost coastal communities have been trying to do just that.

Pointing to a record-breaking 13 million-ton belt of seaweed stretching 5,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of Africa, marine scientists are predicting Florida’s east coast beaches will be inundated this summer with the particular type of macroalgae known as sargassum.

Anticipating their phones will light up with complaints from oceanside residents and beachgoers, officials in Delray Beach, Ocean Ridge and other beachside communities began exploring what, if anything, they could do to prepare for a possible onslaught.

With the exception of Ocean Ridge, the answer came back: Not much.

While it might be unsightly and smelly, sargassum is important to marine life, particularly the millions of baby sea turtles that will begin emerging from the thousands  of nests along county beaches in the coming months, experts say.

Further, other communities have discovered that raking sargassum into piles and trying to cart it away caused bigger problems, said Delray Beach Public Works Director Missie Barletto. Not only do piles of seaweed become smellier and more obtrusive, but removal is expensive. 

Miami-Dade County estimated it could spend as much as $6 million removing sargassum from its beaches this year.

If huge waves of sargassum begin arriving in southern Palm Beach County, steps can be taken then, Barletto advised Delray Beach commissioners at a meeting on May 16. 

“So much of whether it’s a problem on the beach or not is dependent on wind direction and wave action,” she said. “It’s not one of those things that I think you can have significant plans for in advance. You kind of have to deal with it when it happens.”

Economic harm possible

Stephen Leatherman, a professor of coastal science at Florida International University who is known as “Dr. Beach” for his annual Top 10 list of beaches nationwide, isn’t sure waiting is the best approach. 

He noted that the presence of sargassum stripped all beaches along Florida’s east coast from his Top 10 list this year. The potential economic impact from loss of tourism could be devastating, he said.

“Sargassum is a monster and South Florida has a bull’s-eye on it,” he said. “We’ve got to find something to do with it.”

Palm Beach County environmental experts recommend sargassum be left to the whims of Mother Nature. Tides will either carry it back to sea or it will rot away, said Andy Studt, supervisor of coastal resources management for the county’s Department of Environmental Resources Management.

“The county takes very much a hands-off approach,” he said. “We leave it in place.”

While sharing Studt’s view of sargassum’s important ecological benefits, Delray Beach and Boca Raton don’t completely follow the county’s lead.

Both cities use tractors to rake their public beaches and bury the seaweed in the sand.

“So, we don’t remove it,” said Samuel Metott, Delray’s director of parks and recreation. “But for visitors of the beach, it kind of disappears a little bit. It just looks like a darker, shadier portion of the sand.”

While Delray hires a private company, spending $78,000 annually, Boca Raton uses city crews. A Boca Raton spokeswoman said city officials are lining up an outside company to respond if masses of sargassum become too much to handle.

At the urging of Vice Mayor Steve Coz, Ocean Ridge is considering hiring a firm to rake its beaches.

Not only would raking remove the seaweed, but, more important, it could help the town solve an even thornier problem: erosion.

Having lived in Ocean Ridge since 1985, Coz said he has watched the shoreline shrink. If the dune is breached, “we could be in serious trouble.”

Sargassum could be raked from the beach and pushed up along the dunes to stabilize them, he said. Although town officials embraced his proposal at a meeting on May 1, obstacles remain.

A permit must be obtained from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Also, because the town operates no public beach, private landowners would have to give their OK.

Town Manager Lynne Ladner said she is awaiting approval from the state agency. Coz said oceanfront landowners in a 200-foot “test area” at the beach access point at the end of Woolbright Road have agreed to pay for the raking.

With the six-month hurricane season underway, Coz said the town must act quickly. “If a real storm comes in there … we could be in serious trouble, like serious trouble, if that dune is washed away any further.”

Despite their hands-off approach, county officials said some steps can be taken if the predicted deluge of sargassum materializes.

For example, the seaweed can be raked by hand to create pathways so beach-lovers can reach their beloved shore, Studt said. “In an extreme event, it could be piled up to a point,” he said.

A sea turtle nest is cordoned off on the beach at Ocean Ridge. Beach rakers work around the marked-off areas when clearing sargassum from the shore. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

A lifeboat for hatchlings

The simultaneous arrival of the sargassum and sea turtle nesting seasons creates a unique set of problems. Once nesting season began on March 1, rakers were required to consult sea turtle watchers before combing the beach.

Sea turtle nests are protected. Palm Beach County is traditionally one of the state’s top destinations for the threatened and endangered species. Loggerhead, green, leatherback and sometimes hawksbill and Kemp’s ridley turtles flock to the county to lay their eggs.

“Palm Beach County has about 40,000 nests each year which produce millions of eggs and hatchlings,” Studt said.

For hatchlings that make it to the sea, sargassum is their lifeboat. They float in the seaweed, which captures small creatures they can eat. “It’s their refuge,” he said.

“It’s super important for hatchling survival,” said Lexie Dvoracek, conservation program manager for Sea Turtle Adventures. “Without it, they don’t have a habitat to protect them.”

The nonprofit monitors nesting activity in a roughly 3-mile stretch from George Bush Boulevard in Delray Beach to Woolbright Road in Ocean Ridge.

Some worry that mounds of sargassum will make it difficult for hatchlings to make their already arduous journey to the ocean. Dvoracek said that last year workers found a few hatchlings that looked like they may have gotten stuck in the seaweed.

But, she said, a bigger problem is the well-meaning, but misguided, people who pick up the tiny turtles and drop them in the ocean. Instead of helping the creatures, they unwittingly doom them because the turtles aren’t yet strong enough to swim.

“Just leave them and call us,” she advised, adding that touching hatchlings is a federal offense.

Other human influences, such as lights west of the beach, are a greater threat to hatchlings than sargassum, Studt said. Artificial light can confuse them.

“When hatchlings come out of the nest, they are looking for the starlit point on the horizon,” he said. “Their natural instinct is to go to the light.”

Both Dvoracek and Studt said they have seen no evidence that sargassum blocks adult sea turtles from coming ashore to dig their nests. International research is ongoing.

So far, Dvoracek said it appears this will be a banner year for turtle nesting. As of late May more than 110 nests had been made on the stretch her group monitors, roughly double the number counted at this time last year.

The nests included one dug by a Kemp’s ridley turtle. The rarest and most endangered species of sea turtle, the Kemp’s ridley normally nests in Texas and Mexico, she said.

“We’re very excited,” Dvoracek said of the nest that was discovered on April 30. “Florida sees less than 20 annually. It’s the first one we’ve seen in our area in 25 years.”

Like others, she is cautiously optimistic that this year won’t bring record amounts of sargassum to shore.

As Fitzpatrick and other beachgoers have already discovered, some days it covers the beach. But, Dvoracek said, days later it’s gone.

Leatherman said he is hopeful scientists and entrepreneurs will figure out ways to keep it from making landfall. Some ideas he has heard of, such as sinking it far off shore, sound promising, he said.

Researchers at the University of Miami and the University of Florida are exploring ways to turn it into compost. The key is ridding it of arsenic and other toxic heavy metals.

In the meantime, beachgoers need to understand how important the seaweed is to the coastal ecosystem, Dvoracek said.

“Instead of getting rid of it, we have to learn to exist in harmony,” she said.

But, she admitted, the potential for a large mass of sargassum moving ashore is concerning.

“It’s going to be a weird season,” she said.

By Mary Hladky

Taxable values of Palm Beach County properties held strong this year, jumping 13.4% and coming close to matching last year’s 15.2% surge.

This marks the 12th year in a row that taxable values have increased in a steady rebound from the 2008 Great Recession.

“The overall increase in value is similar to what we saw last year,” said Palm Beach County Property Appraiser Dorothy Jacks. “This is driven by continued demand for properties of all types and near record new construction.”

All southeast county municipalities saw double-digit gains, with Lantana’s 17.1% increase leading the pack. That was closely followed by Manalapan’s 15.5% gain and Gulf Stream’s 15.2% rise.

“We were pleasantly surprised,” said Lantana Town Manager Brian Raducci. “We are excited about new development.”

He noted, though, that new development “places a burden on the demand for services as well.”

While the overall gains are impressive, six southeast county municipalities saw slight decreases from last year’s meteoric rises that similarly were due to a hot real estate market and a spike in new construction.

Last year’s southeast leader was Manalapan, which saw a whopping 28.2% jump.

Even so, Mayor Stewart Satter said town officials “are happy with the increase” of 15.5%. He predicted continuing taxable value growth.

“We think interest in Manalapan will increase and property values will increase going forward,” he said, noting the town is drawing residents relocating from Palm Beach and others moving to Florida.

“We have a number of new homes going up on the waterfront. I see that continuing. We don’t have enough inventory to satisfy the demand for new homes.”

Ocean Ridge’s 12.9% increase was down from last year’s 18.3%, but that didn’t concern Town Manager Lynne Ladner.

“I don’t see it as a significant dip,” she said. While new single- family homes have been added to the tax rolls, others remain under construction. Some were delayed by supply-chain issues.

When they are completed, Ladner expects her town’s taxable values will shoot up.

Boca Raton’s taxable values rose 11.9%, down from last year’s 14.5%. Delray Beach’s were up 13.2%, compared to last year’s 15.4%; Boynton Beach’s rose 12.6%, a decrease from 16.5%; and Highland Beach’s rose 13.2%, down from 13.8%.

Briny Breezes’ taxable values were up 14.6%, and South Palm Beach’s by 13.8%.

New construction added $4.3 billion to the county’s taxable values, almost equal to last year’s $4.4 billion rise.

While Boca Raton’s percentage increase was not eye-popping, the city’s taxable value is $34.6 billion, far more than any other city in the county.

New construction added to the tax roll was valued at $606.6 million, also far and away the largest amount in the county.

“Boca Raton residents can be happy about the strong rise yet again in home values,” said Mayor Scott Singer. “We lead the county in property values, increases and new investments, and they are further testaments to how attractive our Boca Raton is.”

The county’s median home sale price, which broke records last year, has cooled slightly as interest rate increases dampen some home buyers’ interest.

As of April, it was $585,000, or 2.7% less than $601,000 at the same time last year, according to the Broward, Palm Beaches and St. Lucie Realtors.

The figures Jacks released on May 26 are estimates that are based on market conditions as of Jan. 1, 2023. They will be revised at the end of June and submitted to the state Department of Revenue. Until then, the Property Appraiser’s Office will add more properties to the tax roll and make final calculations.

The taxable value results are great news for municipal leaders as they work to finalize their budgets for the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Local governments use taxable values to calculate how much property tax money they can expect. They then set their annual budgets and tax rates.

An increase in taxable value means they will collect more money from property owners if they keep their tax rates the same as last year’s.

Unless municipalities lower their tax rates, homeowners will face higher property tax bills at a time when inflation and rising interest rates are straining family budgets.

To prevent a tax increase, elected officials would have to use the “rolled-back” rate, which state law requires them to calculate. That rate would generate the same amount of property tax revenue as in the previous year.

Homeowners, however, don’t feel the full brunt of rising property values because state law caps the taxable value increase to 3% for homesteaded properties. Non-homesteaded properties are capped at 10%.

Graffiti artist Marcus ‘the Grabster’ Borges spray-paints part of the ‘Pineapple Paradise’ mural on the building at the entrance to Pineapple Grove. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

The pineapples are back in Pineapple Grove.

Welcome them, please, as they welcome you.

In 2008, mural artist Anita Lovitt adorned the east wall of the Chloe Building — now called the Deb — at 135 E. Atlantic Avenue with “Dancing Pineapples,” a quintet of tumbling pineapples.

For the next 13 years, visitors approaching the archway to the Pineapple Grove Arts District on Northeast Second Avenue were welcomed by the dancing pineapples.

Why pineapples?

Today, Pineapple Grove is a neighborhood of boutiques, bistros, galleries and salons. A century ago, it was a genuine pineapple grove.

And two centuries before that, 17th-century traders carrying the exotic fruit from the Caribbean to New England sailed perilous seas. Some sea captains were said to display a pineapple outside their homes to announce their safe return, and to serve pineapples was a symbol of hospitality.

Pineapples symbolize a warm welcome.

But alas, a professional dancer’s life is short, and in the summer of 2021, water damage required repairs to the wall, new stucco and new windows.

The repairs left gray patches. The dancers could dance no more and were retired.

The Grabster used rollers to paint large areas and spray paint for the details on his ‘Pineapple Paradise’ mural, which took about 10 days to complete.

Now those “Dancing Pineapples” have been replaced by “Pineapple Paradise,” a new mural by a new artist that’s 30% bigger, filling the entire 88-by-25-foot wall with pineapples, palm trees and swooping seabirds against backgrounds of a variety of colors.

These pineapples grew in the mind of the Grabster, the artist commissioned to bring them back by Lee Cohen — who manages and owns the building along with his family — working with Glayson LeRoy of the Galera Collective, who curated the project.

The proposal was approved by the city’s Public Art Advisory Board on March 27, but no public money was involved. The Cohen family paid for the mural.

And the Grabster went to work.

“Altogether, it took about a week and a half, with some breaks for rain,” the Grabster said one Wednesday morning as he put a few finishing touches on the north end. “The large areas were done with Home Depot latex paints applied with a roller, but all the rest is freehand with spray paint. The closer I hold the can, the finer the line.”

He smiled. “I didn’t want it to look like artificial intelligence.”

Now before you ask, no, his parents did not name him the Grabster.

When not creating art, he is Marcus Borges, 40, from Mineola, Long Island, now of Fort Lauderdale.

“In high school, I was into the whole hip-hop scene in New York,” he explained. “Graffiti, rap battles and break dancing. So, I took the G from graffiti, the ra from rap, and the b from “break dancing” and got Grab. The Grabster.”

He’s been painting graffiti since he was 17, first in New York, “legally and illegally,” and since he moved to Boca Raton for high school and studying painting at FAU, professionally — and legally.

Clifford, a pit bull/German shepherd mix owned by Nick Elgarresta, reacts to being photographed in front of the mural.

As he worked, passersby paused to admire the work.

Roger Caine and his wife, Linda Hubbard, were impressed.

“I love it,” Caine enthused. “The colors, the brightness.” He searched for a word. “The boldness!”

The Grabster did admit to having heard one discouraging word, however.

“Those colors are very Miami,” a passing naysayer said. “They’re not Delray.”

Water flows downhill. Heated water expands. The moon’s proximity to the Earth affects the height of tides. Dropping pressure in a storm raises tide levels, and wind increases the height of waves.

As we enter another hurricane season, I’m thinking a lot about water.

Hide from wind, the old Florida adage goes, and run from water.

Again, water. My small house is on the coastal ridge in Ocean Ridge and my large yard is planted for maximum stormwater retention.

Still, in every heavy rain, I watch water flow down the gravel driveway and push farther along the street toward storm drains that inevitably back up from water both rushing down pavement and pushing up from the Intracoastal Waterway. The street often becomes impassible, stranding residents in their homes.

Along State Road A1A, non-permeable driveways without swales dump water into low spots, causing road closures. Slowly the Florida Department of Transportation is incorporating improved drainage into resurfacing, restoration and rehabilitation plans. Work should begin in Highland Beach a year from now and last about 18 months, before moving north up the highway toward South Palm Beach. Residents will no doubt fight the changes, believing they control the property within the state’s easement.

At the foot of bridges to the barrier island, standing water often makes passage impossible. It also means public safety vehicles can’t get on or off the island until the water subsides. Most of these streets are under the purview of adjacent cities and towns that show little interest in anything other than growth.

Frightening.

Also frightening are the number of new multi- and single-family homes being built along streets already prone to flooding. New homes are built on fill and elevated above flood level — which may keep them high and dry and insurance rates acceptable, but what about their neighbors in homes closer to street level?

Most low-lying older homes were built before standards for elevation and water retention existed. Even the new properties are designed to handle only so much water — an inch or two a day is frequently all that’s required by local code. So, as ever-larger homes with smaller and smaller yards are built, where does the runoff go? Downhill, of course.

And high-rise towers built into crowded downtowns with little green space and chronic street flooding? Cities like to talk about the benefits of density and an increased tax base, but where are their plans to mitigate a public safety crisis from a hurricane or heavy rain event?

The National Weather Service is predicting a reduction in hurricane activity this summer during a forecasted El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific — likely good news for Florida.

But these scientists also predict a higher risk of flooding due to increased precipitation throughout the Southeast. That’s water, folks. They are warning us about water.

Tell your elected officials to pay attention and prepare.

It’s summer. The water is coming.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

Kavita Sahai of coastal Boca Raton meditates at South Inlet Park, which she visits often when she wants to relax. Sahai sells a line of essential oils for wellness and beauty. Tim Stepien /The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett

When three children and three adults were fatally shot in March at a school in Tennessee days after a student wounded two school administrators in Colorado, Kavita Sahai was touched.

“I have kids in school, so it just hit home,” said Sahai, who as a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland is sensitive to school shootings.

So Sahai, who markets essential oils as aids to wellness and beauty, reached out to local schools to offer 3,000 roll-ons, with a retail value of $105,000, to reduce stress and promote relaxation. Only the A.D. Henderson University School in Boca Raton responded, and she wound up giving 108 teachers and staff $45 sleep sets. The set, with a spray and cream, contains ylang-ylang, sandalwood and palmarosa oils to encourage peace, quiet the mind and diminish anxiety.

“I really think that mental health and the ability for people to connect to nature is so important. It really helps students, teachers, everyone just kind of bring the temperature down,” she said.

“It used to be that we spent a lot more time in nature, but now we don’t even have real grass, right? It’s like fake grass and turf and concrete,” she said. “I feel like if we could reconnect, that would be ideal. It’s like, can we get them the essence of nature through our lines of essential oils-based products, help them ground again?”

The product line — which includes other roll-on oils to aid breathing, de-stress, detox, focus, ease muscles and relieve headaches, as well as the sleep spray for pillows — incorporates aspects of Sahai’s Indian heritage: “the chakra system, Ayurvedic and yoga principles that have been proven over, you know, many, many lifestyles,” she said.

Sahai and her husband, Ashish, an orthopedic spine surgeon, moved to Boca Raton after she earned her MBA in entrepreneurship at the University of California, Berkeley, and he was finishing a fellowship at Stanford University. She hired on at Sun Capital Partners equity group and he at the Boca Raton Regional Hospital.

But her years in mergers, acquisitions and the private equity sector began to wear on her.

“I started to experience all kinds of non-digestible symptoms, like fatigue, brain fog and agitation and you know. So it’s sort of, I stumbled upon a therapy … and realized that it was connection to nature,” she said. “I went from, you know, finance geek to kind of, you know, holistic medical woman.”

Sahai wound up embracing the idea that your mind controls your skin.

“It’s kind of like when you’re happy, you glow, sort of like a bride on a wedding day. You know, happy people just have this beautiful glow about them,” she said. “I really believe, and science will prove, that if you’re able to calm your mind and kind of release these happy endorphins, your skin will be better and your health will be better.”

The Sahais live on the barrier island and have three children: Inik, 13, Aryana, 11, and Saira, 8. Kavita enjoys music when she wants to get pumped up, but otherwise: “Meditate — I think that’s probably my No. 1 way to sort of relax — or walk on the beach or be in nature,” she said.

She started her year-old business, K Sahai LLC, after spending five years as CEO of Delray Beach-based essential oils marketer 21drops, growing its sales from $400,000 a year to $10 million-plus.

Her husband, she said, has been very supportive throughout her transition away from the financial world.

“When I first got involved, he kind of decided it was amusing because I was never that person. I was not somebody who ate organic at the time,” she said. “I was just working a lot and feeling a lot of symptoms that were, you know, like I said … sort of anxiousness, all of that stuff. All kinds of things.

“And my son at the same time was having a lot of respiratory issues. And when I came across sort of the oil industry … when I started to use it I felt better, like back to my normal self in six months. And he stopped prescription drugs completely within three,” she said.

So, Ashish was convinced, “and he uses all of them,” Sahai said. “I think he thinks there’s a place, right? Obviously there’s a place where he believes he comes in, of course, he’s a surgeon. I’m not going to be able to fix anybody that needs surgery with my oils,” she said.

Sahai is a “big believer” in karma. Important to her business model is giving — she donates 10% of sales to charities that provide such things as 100 daily doses of milk supplements to children in need or 100 days of literacy education for Dalit girls, formerly known as India’s untouchables.

The company’s oils are available at ksahai.com and in select spas. The next big step will occur this month. “We are actually launching in Bloomingdale’s in June,” Sahai said. “We don’t know yet what stores they’re going to put it in, but I’m hoping they’ll put it in Boca.”

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By Steve Plunkett

Residents now have the blessing of the Town Council to raise their homes on stilts, but whether the corporation will permit it remains the big question.

The council approved the creation of an “elevated single-family home overlay district” on a second reading of an ordinance on May 25 by the same 3-2 vote it gave the first reading. Council President Christina Adams and members Liz Loper and Bill Birch voted yes.

Members also approved on first reading an ordinance to amend the town’s zoning map to show the new overlay on a 4-1 vote with Sue Thaler joining the majority and Kathy Gross dissenting.

The ayes came after Birch read text messages he had received from Michael Gallacher, general manager of Briny Breezes Inc., who encouraged the council to OK the zoning.

“A lot of work has already gone into this so do not let it die, in my personal opinion. And it doesn’t force or bind anything at this point, so I don’t fear it,” Gallacher messaged.

The new zoning will allow the owner of a mobile home to raise it on stilts or pilings to a roof peak maximum 25 feet above the crown of the road. The area underneath the mobile home, which the ordinance calls the “lowest floor,” could be an unfinished or flood-resistant enclosure with “breakaway” walls or screening and would be used only for parking, building access and storage.

The new district anticipates that streets in Districts 3 and 4, between State Road A1A and the Intracoastal Waterway, will be raised at least 2.5 feet to combat perennial flooding and predicted sea level rise. A Flooding Adaptation Plan paid for by the corporation shows low-lying areas on the west side of town permanently under water in as soon as 13 years.

Before the votes, Town Attorney Keith Davis offered in-depth answers to questions that were raised at the council’s April 27 meeting.

“As you may recall, during the first reading there was robust public comment and there were numerous questions that were posed,” Davis said.

The most exasperating question, one “that has come up multiple times since we started this exercise,” Davis said, was whether the corporation has final say on whether to allow implementation of the ordinance.

Answer: “The corporation, as the landowner, is not obligated to allow it to be put into effect on the land it owns,” he said. “I’m not sure how I could be any more clear.”

Other answers focused on the amount of fill allowed under a two-story home (roughly equal to the street level); whether such a home would have to be ADA-compliant (no); whether the town’s building official has reviewed the concept (he has seen the ordinance but Davis was unaware of any comments made, if any); has the fire marshal reviewed it (the ordinance requires compliance with all fire and life safety codes), and have home manufacturers said whether such structures can be built (yes).

Another question was whether the council should wait to vote on the ordinance until after Briny’s sea wall has been raised. Town Manager William Thrasher is seeking grants and loans to pay for that. Davis said it was up to the council to decide whether to vote now but pointed out that without the ordinance, if a major storm hit the town, residents could not replace their units without conforming to the Florida Building Code and Federal Emergency Management Agency elevation requirements.

Also answered was whether architects renderings could be prepared to show what the overlay might look like in Briny Breezes. Davis said they could be if the council requested them.

That was still Thaler’s concern, one she had expressed at the April meeting as well.

“If you have two-story structures facing each other over a 9-foot-wide road, I really think that we need to look at what that’s going to look like,” she said.

But no one made a motion to request renderings.

During public comments seven residents spoke against the overlay ordinance, one emailed her objection, and two spoke in favor, including Jerry Lower, chairman of the town’s Planning and Zoning Board (and co-owner and publisher of The Coastal Star).

Davis’ full, written answers were made public record and are available from the town clerk.

LEFT: The 1979 Coastal Construction Control Line, shown in yellow, is farther east than the 1997 line, shown in purple. Both are east of State Road A1A. Map provided by Engenuity Group Inc. and Town of Ocean Ridge

By Larry Barszewski

A 2020 Ocean Ridge ordinance that got little notice at the time it was approved has become a major controversy for oceanfront property owners, who say they were given no warning about the changes in regulations it enacted, which they say have infringed on their property rights.

Town commissioners passed the ordinance giving the town some say on property construction east of the 1997 Coastal Construction Control Line. The state requires property owners to get a permit from its Department of Environmental Protection for any construction projects seaward of that line, but the ordinance required that any such work would also have to receive a permit from the town.

The ordinance also said no construction would be allowed east of an earlier, 1979 Coastal Construction Control Line, which is closer to the water than the 1997 line. On properties such as those between Anna and Corrine streets, where existing houses extend east of the 1979 control line, construction is only permitted within the structure’s existing footprint or with a variance from the town.

Other oceanfront homeowners have buildings sitting between the 1997 line and the 1979 line. Besides stating the requirement of a town permit for any construction, the ordinance also affected how big a rebuilt home or a home with an addition could be.

Previously, the amount of square footage was determined by the size of the property going out to the mean high-water line, which is to the east of the 1979 control line. The 2020 ordinance allows property owners to go only as far as the 1979 line when calculating allowable square footage.

Critics say they wouldn’t even be able to rebuild to the same size under the ordinance, let alone add space.

“Beach owners have been targeted,” said Merrilee Lundquist, whose home lies between the two control lines. “I think this ordinance has done more to destroy our net worth than the stock market ever had.”

Lundquist and other property owners requested the commission repeal the ordinance at its May 1 meeting, but commissioners decided more study was needed about the ramifications of any change. In addition, any change to a town ordinance would require two officially noticed readings before the commission.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Commissioner Ken Kaleel said of the request. “You just can’t repeal something that you don’t know what the effect of that repeal is going to be.”

Town Attorney Christy Goddeau was instructed to report at the commission’s June meeting about the potential consequences of a repeal or smaller changes to the ordinance, as well as other factors the commission might need to consider.

Brett Berish told commissioners the ordinance is affecting his plans to add space to better accommodate his family of six children.

“All of us on the water, our property size and value have been affected,” said his wife, Alana Berish. The couple bought their home at 6275 N. Ocean Blvd. in 2021 after the ordinance was passed, but said no one told them about the implications of the changes.

“No one knew. Even now, no one truly understands,” Alana Berish said.

By Larry Barszewski

An advisory committee of local police officials will interview six finalists for Ocean Ridge’s police chief position June 7 and then give its feedback to Town Manager Lynne Ladner.

The Police Chief Advisory Committee is scheduled to meet from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Town Hall to interview the finalists and then reconvene at 6:30 p.m. for members to present their thoughts and recommendations to Ladner. The public will not be allowed to comment during the interviews, but will be given a chance to speak at the start of the evening session.

The interviews are expected to last about an hour each. The committee is scheduled to take a lunch break and resume the interviews at 1:30 p.m.

The night session is scheduled to last until 9 p.m.

Ladner created the advisory committee to assist her in the search. The members are Tequesta Police Chief Gus Medina, Highland Beach Police Lt. Michael Oh, Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office Lt. Ryan Mugridge, and former Ocean Ridge Town Manager Tracey Stevens, who is now Haverhill’s town administrator.

Twelve people applied for the police chief position, which opened in February when Chief Richard Jones announced he was leaving to head the Police Department in Gulf Stream.

The finalists to be interviewed are: Ja’vion Brown Sr., deputy sheriff with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office; John Donadio, former police chief of Sewall’s Point; Eric Herold, a supervisory federal air marshal; Albert Iovino, a captain with the Indian River Shores Department of Public Safety; Tom Levins, interim commander with the Clewiston Police Department, and Scott McClure, Ocean Ridge’s acting police chief.

Ladner plans to announce her selection following — but not before 10:30 a.m. — the town’s 9 a.m. Planning and Zoning Board meeting on June 20.

By Larry Barszewski

With the exception of Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia, a May 9 meeting between city commissioners and Old School Square’s former operators featured everyone singing from the same page.

“Excuse me if I don’t feel warm and fuzzy,” said Petrolia, the only remaining member of the commission majority that in 2021 kicked out the nonprofit Old School Square Center for the Arts from its decades-long role of running the city’s downtown cultural centerpiece.

But even Petrolia supported the recommendation of Vice Mayor Ryan Boylston that the city investigate creating a city cultural council that was referenced in a 2006 report but never materialized. The council, which the Coletta & Company report called the Delray Beach Creative City Collaborative, was to be an umbrella organization for arts and culture in the city.

“We have so many plans, so many things that we didn’t do. We really need to go back to them as a city,” Boylston said.

Boylston quoted from the 2006 report, saying the primary function of the Delray Beach Cultural Council would be “to strategically target culture as a competitive advantage and increase funding to enlarge the cultural scene, trigger innovation and creativity strategies, fund existing cultural groups and champion new initiatives to claim Delray Beach’s unique niche.”

Commissioners agreed to hold a future workshop meeting on the proposal.

Overall, there didn’t appear to be any clear objective to the meeting, other than to begin a healing process between the two sides. Commissioners expressed a desire to see the nonprofit group continue to be a force in the community, though it wasn’t clear what that role would be.

“I did not agree with the way the whole incident with Old School Square was handled,” said Angela Burns, who was one of two new commissioners elected in March who switched the commission’s leanings on the issue. “But I look forward tonight to mending fences and some open dialogue so that we can move forward in our city. We have a great cultural center and I would like to see it continue so that it is serving everyone in our community to the best of its abilities.”

The settlement to the lawsuit filed by the nonprofit in November 2021 — and the city’s countersuit — was approved in April. The only issue the settlement did not cover was the nonprofit’s efforts to acquire a trademark for the Old School Square name, which the city is challenging. That decision is before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Patty Jones, chair of the nonprofit, told commissioners, “We look forward to being a resource for the city of Delray Beach and the community to make Old School Square the best it can be.”

Jeff Perlman, a former mayor and a member of the nonprofit’s board of directors, said the group had no demands. Both sides acknowledged that the Old School Square campus is now being run by the Downtown Development Authority — which was not invited to be part of the workshop — and expressed no desire to see that change.

“We are not here with an ask other than we would respectfully request a seat at the table,” Perlman said.

The tensions in the room were highlighted by testy exchanges between Petrolia and Perlman and between Petrolia and Frances Bourque, the nonprofit’s founder and the original driving force behind the transformation of the city’s Old School Square campus.

Petrolia, who said the campus was in the good hands of the DDA, questioned why the city would move forward reestablishing a relationship with the group given the city’s past concerns over its finances and a continuing federal investigation into the group.

After the meeting, Petrolia said she was referring to investigators looking into the possible misuse of Paycheck Protection Program funds by the nonprofit to cover salaries that were already included in grants to the nonprofit. Petrolia said she has not been interviewed in the matter, but she knows of others who have regarding the pandemic-related funding.

While Petrolia did not approve of the settlement, Bourque said Petrolia needed to live by the will of the majority on the commission and stop disparaging her organization.

“You as the leader of this group agreed to settle, as did we. It’s over. It’s over, and it’s not fair for you to continue to espouse one side, while our agreement is firmly implanted in accepting the fate of a dual agreement by which neither party is supposed to malign the other,” Bourque said. “And there is no way we can be invited to a table in which that climate continues to exist.”

But Petrolia said she would not be silenced, especially since she was limited in what she could say while the litigation was pending.

“I will continue to express my opinions as I feel fit, moving forward. I’m not bound by anything,” Petrolia said. “I didn’t make any agreement. I will continue to do that because I think it’s just as important for those that basically are going to be holding the ball here, to understand how we got to this point. We have not had that opportunity until today. So, it’s very important that the public understands what happened.”

By Rich Pollack

Elaine Prentice knew she had to do something.

A condo manager with a green thumb and an eye for natural esthetics, Prentice had seen pictures and heard how Hurricane Nicole battered the beaches near Vero Beach in November, gobbling the sand under sea walls and causing them to crumble into the ocean.

To ensure that didn’t happen to her Penthouse Towers oceanfront building in Highland Beach, Prentice took aim at strengthening all beachfront property owners’ first line of defense against powerful seas that can crumble concrete in minutes — the natural sand dune.

“After seeing the storms, we needed to make sure the dune would work for us,” she said. “We need everything we can get to protect the property.”

With work nearly complete, the dune behind Penthouse Towers has become a model that others along the town’s three miles of oceanfront are starting to notice.

And in other coastal municipalities, word is continuing to spread about the benefits of restoring dunes and their natural ability to protect property and stave off beach erosion during storms and other high-water events.

“Mother Nature has the ability to heal herself,” says Lee Gottlieb, the founder of Adopt a Dune and the consultant who worked with Penthouse Towers to design a sustainable dune and find plants that can help build sand as a barrier against storm surge.

With climate change and the inevitability of continued sea level rise, Gottlieb sees a renewed sense of urgency in restoring dunes and is working to create a sustainable dune along the entire coastlines of Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

“We need to adapt to the inevitable,” he said. “How do we live in this environment that’s about to come?”

Dune restoration, he says, is a cost-effective and efficient answer.

“The dune system gives you the best and strongest defense against storm surge and hurricanes,” he said.

A strong dune, he pointed out, can protect sea walls, in many cases, by absorbing some of the wave action that comes with storm surge’s powerful energy before it hits the reinforced concrete. A revitalized dune also offers natural habitat for birds and other wildlife including sea turtles.

In Highland Beach, concerns about beach erosion and the condition of the dunes behind private homes and condos encouraged town commissioners in May to authorize a $30,000 beach feasibility study update of a 2013 review.

As part of the study, the consultant will look at the dunes in front of oceanfront properties and make recommendations on what can be done to strengthen them if necessary.

“It’s critically important for us to look at beach erosion but also at the health of the dune structures, because there is an intrinsic link to the overall health of the beach,” Highland Beach Town Manager Marshall Labadie said.

Commissioners agree dune restoration is critical to ensure beach properties are secure.

“All these properties on the beach will have a problem if the dunes are not maintained,” Commissioner Evalyn David said.

Faced with having only private beaches and few options for any sort of federal- or state-funded renourishment project, commissioners two years ago had enlisted the help of the town’s Natural Resources Preservation Board to begin an education campaign focused on dune restoration.

“It’s our main priority,” says Barbara Nestle, co-chair of the board, which has been promoting dune restoration through material online and held a public forum in March with dune restoration as the topic. “It’s important to educate the public so people understand the impact of a major storm if they don’t restore their dunes.”

During the forum, residents listened to longtime South Florida dune restoration guru Rob Barron of Coastal Management and Consulting, who encouraged installing the right plants, especially sea oats and other native species that form deep root systems and can collect sand and build up dunes.

“You’re better off if you do something than if you do nothing,” Barron said. “If you do nothing the forces of nature will work against you.”

Barron, whose work with Delray Beach resulted in a dune success story, explained that in 1984 the city planted a 10-foot-wide strip of sea oats which today is about 160 feet wide and has captured about 12 vertical feet of sand.

At Penthouse Towers, board members had taken steps a decade ago to restore the dune but some plants died and others got forced out by exotics — mainly scaevola, a ground cover with shallow roots that grows quickly and crowds out more beneficial native plants.

With the help of its beach raking contractor, Penthouse Towers cleared out much of the exotics earlier in the year and with Gottlieb’s guidance enlisted the help of residents to begin planting sea oats.

Last month, Gottlieb brought in a wide variety of native plants to add to the dune, including beach sunflower, beach creeper and sea purslane, as well as two threatened and endangered species — bay cedar and sea lavender.

In all, Barron says about 200 native plants can be used to help restore dunes.

“The dune has to be functional but it also has to be attractive,” Prentice said, adding that residents of the 136-unit building are now taking pride in the dune. “Our owners love looking at the dune and appreciate that it will help protect us from storm surge.”

Prentice points out that her building like others on the beach has to carry extraordinarily high property insurance deductibles. She sees the dune restoration project with a price tag of under $15,000 as a very cost-effective way to protect the property.

Soon after the exotics were cleared, she and the residents of the building discovered a surprise.

Burrowing four o’clocks, an endangered species also known as beach peanut, appeared from out of nowhere and began spreading quickly throughout the dune. Found only in South Florida, the beach peanut will disappear almost as quickly as it came, leaving behind a seed bank that will explode again with a good rain next spring.

Though its impact on restoring the dune is minimal, the four o’clock return each year is a welcome sign of a dune’s return to its natural state.

As word has begun spreading throughout Highland Beach through the efforts of the natural resources board and through town communication efforts, several other buildings, individuals and communities are either restoring their dunes or looking into making the effort.

“We are now seeing activity,” says resources board member Nestle, who is coordinating a planned dune restoration project behind her own small condo community.

“Dune restoration is not only good for private property owners but it’s also good for the town as a whole because it protects the town from large storm events,” Labadie says.

Deputy Donna Korb (with life ring) assists Irina Bereslavska from the surf after rescuing her in South Palm Beach. BELOW: Korb and Bereslavska meet again a couple of days after the rescue. Photos provided

By Faran Fagen

South Palm Beach, which has no public beach, doesn’t have lifeguards. But it does have Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Deputy Donna Korb, and residents feel grateful — and safer — with her on patrol.

Especially thankful is Irina Bereslavska, who was visiting the area from New York. Korb saved Bereslavska’s life on May 8 when, during a normal day on her shift near 3520 S. Ocean Blvd., the deputy shed her uniform and dove into the ocean to rescue the struggling 68-year-old.

Just after 5:30 p.m., Korb witnessed Bereslavska enter the water. Her police training teaches her to look for anything out of place, and she grew concerned due to the current and the swimmer’s age.

Once Korb saw that Bereslavska was struggling to make it back to shore, she notified dispatch, shed her gear, and entered the water to rescue the swimmer.

“It was like any other day on shift until I saw Irina in need of help,” Korb said. “That’s when years of dive experience seemed to kick in, knowing the danger she was in if not reached quickly.”

Korb worked with residents to obtain a pool rescue ring float, swam out and handed the float to the distressed swimmer, then guided her back to shore.

Once out of the water, Bereslavska was assessed by Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. Because she had low oxygen levels, it was determined that she needed to be transported to JFK Hospital.

Without the intervention of Korb, who sustained no injuries, the likelihood Bereslavska would have drowned was high, authorities said.

“When I reached Irina, I felt the immediate need to calm her and get her to focus on my instruction,” said Korb, who had never attempted a beach rescue like this before — although she was a certified scuba instructor and rescue diver before she began working for the Sheriff’s Office in 2000.
In high school and college, she encountered some swimmers in distress while working on dive boats.

“After grasping the rescue ring and calming down, Irina seemed almost frozen as we worked our way into shore,” the deputy said. “She was extremely tired and exhausted once we finally set foot on the sand.”

Deputies assigned to PBSO District 19 South Palm Beach have a presence on or about the beach as much as possible when not patrolling the roadways, Sgt. Mark Garrison said.

He wasn’t surprised when he heard of Korb’s heroics.

“I’m extremely proud of her and the great work she does in the community,” he said. “Her efforts every day are a true representative of what we do and why we do it.”

Korb was not specifically monitoring the beach surf like a lifeguard that day. She was patrolling throughout town on an ATV and stopped to chat with a resident while overlooking the beach.

A deputy on an ATV serves and protects the public however needed, just as deputies do on the roadways, Garrison said.

As for Korb, she was greeted with a pleasant surprise on her patrol not long after the rescue.

“The satisfaction for me was running into Irina two days later, at the same location, with a big smile,” Korb said. “I’m just glad she is in good health and back out enjoying the water.”

By Steve Plunkett

Richard Jones, the town’s new police chief, kept busy in his first 30 days on the job: alerting residents to a purse-snatching and stolen vehicle, setting guidelines for investigations of officer-involved shootings, and being feted in a meet-and-greet session at Town Hall.

“It should be noted that every stolen vehicle reported to Gulf Stream Police Department since 2019 involved an unlocked vehicle that contained keys,” Jones wrote in an April 28 letter that he labeled “Release to Residents Only.”

The car was reported stolen around 11:30 a.m. April 15, a Saturday, from an open garage on Banyan Road. The victim had been getting ready to leave but reentered her house with a package that was just delivered. When she returned to the garage her vehicle was gone, Jones wrote.

That night at 9:27 p.m. a woman’s purse was snatched from her shoulder after she pulled into her garage on Old School Road and got out of her vehicle. She was not harmed or threatened, the chief said.

“I am actively and directly working with staff to generate leads and/or suspects in these cases as your safety is our primary concern,” Jones wrote.

As for officer-involved shootings, Jones told town commissioners on May 12 that such incidents “aren’t common and they’re not prevalent in our community.”

Nevertheless, he asked them to approve signing a “memorandum of understanding” with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that he called “a best-practice MOU related to any type of in-custody death that could potentially take place.”

“That could be an in-custody death relating to someone who’s potentially suffering from a drug overdose situation but happens to be in our custody, which could be as simple as a traffic stop, or it could be more elaborate to an officer-involved shooting incident that takes place,” Jones said.

The chief made the request after realizing his new department did not have an agreement in place. It “definitively defines” what agency has what responsibility, he said.

“And it also sets out a specific guideline that allows for transparency so there’s no question about us typically investigating ourselves in an incident like this and then covering up or hiding something,” Jones said.

After the commission meeting the town held its meet-and-greet, with residents having been invited via postcards in the mail. About a dozen people showed up to nosh on the array of pastries, coffee and juices in Town Hall’s lobby, meaning plenty of leftovers for town staff.

“We’ve been eating well this week,” Town Clerk Renee Basel said later.

In other business May 12, commissioners:

• Approved on first reading an ordinance that requires that all property owners within 600 feet be notified of any construction project that needs Level II approval by the Architectural Review and Planning Board or Level III approval or a special exception or a variance to the building code from the Town Commission. The current code requires notification to neighbors 25 feet away for Level II and 300 feet for Level III and variances.

• Tabled the idea of allowing the property owners on private Little Club Road to deed the street and its maintenance to the town. Town Manager Greg Dunham said Gulf Stream will be busy enough with 18 to 20 months of construction starting in August or September in the core area.

He also said a grant writer thinks the town might qualify for a Resilient Florida grant for the roadwork and drainage portion of the work, part of Gulf Stream’s capital improvement plan that will also replace water mains in the core.

Bee specialists Iam Hedendal and Mark Snellman use a lift to reach a 50-pound hive that had established itself in a black olive tree in Ocean Ridge. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Tao Woolfe

Imagine that you are the queen of a large, peaceful, productive colony and one day, two men in white mesh hats show up wielding sticks and cans of smoke.

These giant, two-legged invaders are obviously hell-bent on destroying your village. You have to think fast. Do you fly away or stay and fight?

On this Monday afternoon in an Ocean Ridge backyard, the queen bee, and all her guards and handmaidens, choose to fight. The insects, as many as 40,000 of them, swarm the men and the cherry-picker crane carrying them 30 feet up to a black olive tree.

The buzzing is intense, like a million tiny kazoos. The air is thick with the defenders’ gold and black bodies.

Hedendal prepares the smoke used to calm the bees during the relocation process.

The panicked bees have no way of knowing that the men — Iam Hedendal and Mark Snellman, of the Florida Honey Bees company — are actually here to save the colony.

“When the bees smell the smoke, they think their home is on fire,” Hedendal says. “In the beginning I felt really bad about destroying the hive. I still do, actually, but I’m taking them to a better, safer place.”

Once aloft in the cherry picker, Hedendal removes the 50-pound hive from the tree by cutting the supporting branches. Back on the ground the two men carry the hive across the yard to a shady spot and then lay it gently on the ground.

The bees, which followed the hive into the shade, quickly discover wooden boxes Hedendal created earlier as temporary quarters. Inside are irresistible commodities: the queen and big honey-covered chunks of hive.

The Florida Honey Bees company was called in after landscapers told the homeowners association that they would not prune trees near such a big, active beehive.

The association, and the homeowner whose yard was home to the hive, split the removal costs. Hedendal declined to say how much he was making on this job, but said the range for such services is $400 to $2,000.

“Once you understand the bees, it’s amazing what you can get them to do,” Hedendal says. “It’s a Zen experience. Very much in the moment.”

As if on cue, the swarming bees turn docile, taking turns flying into the boxes, single file, to eat honey and serve the queen.

Queen and her subjects

As the chaos turns orderly, Hedendal, 42, takes the opportunity to educate about his favorite creatures.

“Most of these worker bees only live three to five weeks,” he says. “The queen can live three to five years.”

The queen is amazing, Hedendal says, and as he talks he is looking for her amid the hundreds of bees now crawling across pieces of comb dripping with honey, and strapped by rubber bands onto small wooden partitions.

On her maiden voyage from the hive, she flies a half mile to a mile up into the sky where she mates — while in flight — with 10 to 15 drones from neighboring colonies. Most queens make this flight only once, Hedendal says, but sometimes, if the hive is threatened, a queen will fly off with her colony in search of a new home.

Before the mating flight, her highness has the nasty job of killing all the potential rival queens before they hatch. It is the only time the queen uses her stinger.

A slice of honeycomb.

Most of the time, though, the queen lives a quiet, peaceful, highly organized life at home, munching royal jelly (specialized food for the queen) and laying eggs.

The queen fertilizes eggs using sperm from her many suitors. That sperm is stored in her spermatheca, a special abdominal cavity organ only she possesses. This store of fertilized sperm, which lasts throughout her lifetime, can be used to fertilize millions of eggs.

By contrast, the other bees have short and sometimes brutal lives.

The male drone bees die after mating and the female worker bees die after stinging an attacker, Hedendal says. The males that survive the mating flight, but do not connect with the queen, are forced out of the hive by the females in the fall. They have, after all, served their purpose.

Hedendal, who is a chef by trade and owns a trade show sales business, took up honeybee removal services in 2020 when COVID closed the convention centers. He says he saved one hive and found the experience fascinating and deeply addictive.

“One hive was not enough,” he says. “It went from hobby to passion to obsession.”

He has since removed more than 400 hives, found new homes for the rescued bees with other beekeepers, and kept about 100 hives himself, which he keeps at his property and on neighboring properties in Delray Beach’s Lake Ida neighborhood.

By cutting branches, Hedendal and Snellman remove the entire hive without killing the bees.

Thrills outweigh the stings

In Florida, commodity crops like blueberries, watermelons, cucumbers and onions would produce little to no fruit if it were not for the honeybee (Apis mellifera), according to the Florida Department of Agriculture’s website.

Honeybee populations have dwindled as civilization has encroached and pesticide use has increased.

Hedendal says homeowners who discover a hive on their property are not always aware they have a choice between saving the bees or killing them.

“A large percentage of pest control companies go right to the killing,” Hedendal says. “Professional hive removal experts, however, will remove the hive and allow the bees to live out their lives in a sanctuary yard.”

Snellman, Hedendal’s friend and colleague, is a landscaper by trade. He says he, too, has been drawn inexorably into the world of bees.

“The thrill of having to get that hive down is what keeps me coming back,” says Snellman, 29, who moved to Boynton Beach from Connecticut during the COVID pandemic.

Hedendal sells honey and honeycomb products at local green markets while he waits for more assignments to save honeybees. He’s building a website for his business, but now relies on referrals.

Many times, Hedendal can remove hives without getting stung, but other days he’s not so lucky.

“I’ve gotten stung, but I’ve gotten used to it,” Hedendal says. “If you’re patient and calm, the bees will teach you everything.”

Florida Honey Bees can be reached at 561-572-6202.

South Palm Beach Town Manager Robert Kellogg says his goodbyes to (l-r) Maj. Christopher Keane, Lt. Christopher Caris, Sgt. Mark Garrison and Deputy Donna Korb of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. In 2019, Kellogg and attorney Glen Torcivia negotiated a 10-year merger agreement for the sheriff to police the town. Mary Thurwachter/The Coastal Star

By Mary Thurwachter

Robert Kellogg hadn’t prepared a farewell speech for his last meeting as town manager of South Palm Beach. In a spur-of-the-moment decision, he rose to his feet and made his way to the podium.

“As you know it’s my last meeting,” he said near the end of the May 9 gathering. “My shelf life expired. And those of you who know me, know the most important thing in my life is my family. I got an email from my wife Saturday at 6 o’clock in the evening. The message said that Jeremy, my son-in-law, called.

“He and Kelly were in an active shooting at Allen, Texas,” Kellogg said, referring to his daughter. His grandson Britton was also present during the May 6 mass shooting at a Dallas area mall.

“Fortunately, my son-in-law, daughter and my grandchild were not injured,” Kellogg continued. “My daughter and grandson were in the bathroom when the shots were fired. My son-in-law was in a store nearby. A short time later, I got a picture of what my daughter saw when she came out of the bathroom.”

Kellogg showed the photograph on his phone that his son-in-law sent of Mauricio Garcia — the suspect in the shooting — dead on the floor after he was shot by police.

“After all of this, I think I’m out of gas,” Kellogg said, his hands shaking. “It’s time for me to leave. I wish you well.”

Town Council members were moved by his words.

“It’s a crazy world we’re in,” said Vice Mayor Bill LeRoy. “I wish you all to be careful. Avoid crowds. Take care of yourself.”

LeRoy had kind things to say about the retiring manager.

“I want to thank Mr. Kellogg for his 41/2 years with us,” LeRoy said. “You might recall, he was our manager through the pandemic. We all remember what that was like — big, scary and unknown. I was getting a giant Q-tip shoved up my nose here in the parking lot. He’s done a very fine job and I thank you for what you’ve done for us, Bob.”

Kellogg has been the full-time town manager since 2019. His successor is former Loxahatchee Groves and Ocean Ridge manager Jamie Titcomb, who will begin June 5.

In a discussion with The Coastal Star after the meeting, Kellogg said he wants to spend as much time as he can with family in Dallas.

“My wife and I will be doing a lot of traveling and spending time in Europe,” he said. “We will become snowbirds living in Cleveland in the summer and here in the winter.

“We have season tickets to see my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes and can’t wait for football season to start. It will surely beat flying to Ohio every weekend.”

He will miss staff members in South Palm Beach: “They are amazing,” he said.

As a final note, Kellogg said that one of the most frustrating things he has experienced in his 45-year career has been the lack of appreciation people have for those who work for the public.

“On balance, I have had the privilege of working with some of the most talented and dedicated people around, and they all have made me a better manager and person,” he said.  

In other news, Maj. Christopher Keane informed the council of a 3% increase in the cost of the town contract with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for the next fiscal year.

An additional increase may be necessary if Gov. Ron DeSantis signs into law a bill regarding employers’ contributions to the Florida Retirement System that would require PBSO to increase its contribution.

After more than 60 years with its own police department, the town, in a cost-cutting move, merged with PBSO in 2019.

By Mary Thurwachter

Manalapan doesn’t have pickleball courts — although some tennis courts at the five-star Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa have occasionally been transformed for special events. But that could change if the resort decides to permanently turn one of its three tennis courts into two pickleball courts.

And neighbors at La Coquille community adjacent to the resort have concerns about that.

Noise is a key worry, because anyone who knows anything about the nation’s fastest-growing sport knows pickleball is a boisterous affair.

A hybrid of Ping-Pong, tennis and racquetball, pickleball looks different from tennis, and some claim the continuous pop-pop-pop of the hard-surfaced paddle hitting the plastic ball is disruptive.

One of those people is Beverley Murphy, who lives in La Coquille and had a ringside seat to the pop-pop-popping in February when the Eau hosted a four-day pickleball event.

She counted 30-plus pickleball players on all three tennis courts from 3 to 5:30 p.m. and said that when used for tennis, those courts would have had a maximum of 12 players.

The noise far exceeded what would normally happen on a tennis court, Murphy said. “And there was the customary shouting after every point.”

She used a sound meter app on her phone, and it often registered more than 65 decibels. Police came, after she called them, but by that time there were only eight players and the town’s sound meter registered 57 decibels.

Manalapan’s noise ordinance says you can’t exceed 65 decibels at 50 feet.

Experts say the noise made by hitting a tennis ball is in the low frequencies, below the zone to which humans are most sensitive. A pickleball strike, however, has a higher pitch, meaning our ears catch more of the noise it makes. That higher frequency makes the clamor of pickleball clearer from farther away compared with tennis.

Murphy and many of her neighbors at La Coquille say Manalapan needs to address the issue and put an ordinance in place to mitigate the sound and limit the number of players and people gathering on public or commercial courts.

At their May 23 meeting, town commissioners heard from hotel representatives, including Tim Nardi, the Eau’s general manager, who said the resort had a group of guests this year who wanted pickleball to be part of their experience.

Nardi said that after last year’s flooding, the tennis courts at the Eau were destroyed and have been restored for between $55,000 and $60,000.

“As part of that process, we also had group business that was in the hotel, and one group in February did ask for a temporary pickleball court. We also had another group that took nearly every hotel room and they asked that their executives be allowed a temporary pickleball court. We allowed that.”

The resort, he said, recognizes that pickleball is an up-and-coming sport and wants to be considerate to its tennis players and others as to the noise and what could be done for noise abatement. He brought along Jeff McClure from Fast-Dry Courts, a Pompano Beach firm that builds courts for both tennis and pickleball.

Nardi said he didn’t have a plan or cost estimates on building pickleball courts. “This would be something in the future that we might want to talk about,” he said.

“If we did anything,” Nardi said of the resort’s three tennis courts, “we’d probably take one tennis court, keep it a tennis court, but convert it so it could also be used as two pickleball courts.”

McClure said pickleball bridges the gap of many demographics and ages because it’s so easy to pick up. With pickleball comes more conversation, thus more noise, he said.

“The wear and tear of tennis on the body as you get older can become more harsh, and pickleball will minimize the running and still keep you active,” McClure said.

The noise, which he said is primarily the plastic ball hitting the paddle, from 100 feet away registers at about 70 decibels, the equivalent to traffic on nearby State Road A1A.

“When you add in the mitigation of a soundproof barrier,” McClure said, “it takes it down to 60 decibels, the same decibel level of a common conversation.”

If you add landscaping buffers, that can reduce the level to 50 decibels, the equivalent of white noise, he said.

The mitigation system, McClure said, is a soundproofing screen that affixes to the fence. He suggests that a screen be on the south side to send noise away from the homes and back toward the players and resort. He also recommends a partial wraparound screening which would bounce the sound back toward traffic. Another recommendation is a quilted mat that absorbs noise.

USA Pickleball, the game’s governing association, is working on developing balls and paddles that reduce the noise, McClure said — although changing those things could affect the play.

Town Manager Linda Stumpf said staff had reached out to six municipalities to see what implications pickleball has had and what sound-mitigating strategies are available. Of the six municipalities that responded, only one, Gulf Stream, had sound measures in place. Another three commented on how popular the courts were.

The discussion at the May 23 commission meeting, Stumpf advised, “was just informational.”

Mayor Stewart Satter said the Eau had always been a good neighbor and he thought the town would be able to work out a plan that would be amenable to all parties involved.

Related: When 'The Monster' came over the bridge

By Rich Pollack

Word spread quickly through south Palm Beach County after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant for Duane Owen last month.

Owen, who was convicted in the gruesome 1984 murders of 14-year-old Karen Slattery — who was babysitting at a Delray Beach home east of the Intracoastal Waterway — and of Boca Raton mother Georgiana Worden, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on June 15.

DeSantis had issued a pause on the execution in late May, pending a mental health examination of Owen, but revoked the stay after the investigation showed Owen “has the mental capacity to understand the death penalty and the reasons why it is to be imposed on him.” Though Owen has been on death row for 37 years, the news reopened a wound for some whose lives were touched by his crimes.

“It was a horrible time in our lives,” said former Delray Beach detective Marc Woods, who, at Owen’s request, took the killer’s confession, along with other investigators. “We suffered trauma from all of this and you defer that for a later time.”

Woods said he first heard from a former colleague that DeSantis had signed a death warrant. “It took time to process,” he said.

Woods says he takes no joy in hearing that someone will be put to death, but accepts the way the judicial system operates.

“If he had been executed in 1986, it would be different,” he said. “Now, after all this time, it’s just more numbness.”

Woods says that while Owen’s death will provide some closure, it will never heal the scars many still carry.

“This is a book entitled Pain and this is just another chapter,” he said. “The execution won’t close the book because of the pain that everyone carries today. The book never closes, only the chapter does.”

The violence of Owen’s crimes shook Delray Beach and surrounding areas for weeks.

Karen Slattery was stabbed 18 times after Owen broke in through a window of the home where she was babysitting.

Georgiana Worden was beaten to death with a hammer, while her two children slept in another room at their Boca Raton Hills home south of Spanish River Boulevard. Both victims were raped.

A fingerprint that was extracted from a book Worden was reading — Mistral’s Daughter — led to Owen’s arrest for carrying a false military ID, a long two months after Karen Slattery’s death put many in Delray Beach on edge.

It would be a couple of weeks before Woods and detectives from Boca Raton were able to extract a confession from Owen and file murder charges as he sat in the Palm Beach County jail.

Attorneys for Owen have appealed his death sentences several times, bringing him back to Palm Beach County more than once.

In the latest court action, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen in mid-May denied a stay of execution sought by Owen’s attorneys.

Several former Delray Beach police officers are planning to stand outside Florida State Prison in Raiford if and when Owen is executed.

“We’re going to show our support for the Delray Beach Police Department and in support of the law of Florida and in support of the Slattery family,” said retired officer Jeff Messer, who grew up in Delray and joined the department after the murders. “It’s not a celebration, it’s just finally putting this thing to bed.”

By Mary Thurwachter

Residents who have expressed much interest in Lantana’s master plan will be able to get a detailed update during a Town Council workshop set for 5:30 p.m. June 14.

Town Manager Brian Raducci, during the May 22 council meeting, said that Dana Little, urban design director for the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, will present a final draft during the workshop. The planning council is a public agency the town is paying $169,800 to assemble the master plan.

Little and his team have been working for the past year with experts on marketing, real estate, and architectural design, as well as with town staff and about 60 residents who took part in a charrette last July.

Although the Town Council is not obligated to do anything with the proposal, Little says that by adopting it the town would send a message to the development community, investors and residents that it has a game plan to move forward.

The workshop will take place in council chambers.

In other news, the Town Council:

• Authorized paying $53,000 to Zambelli Fireworks Manufacturing Co. for a July Fourth fireworks display on a tugboat in the Intracoastal Waterway beside Bicentennial Park. As it has done in the past, the town of South Palm Beach is contributing $1,500 to the cost of the celebration. South Palm Beach doesn’t have its own display and officials there say residents enjoy watching Lantana’s fireworks from their balconies.

• Set its first budget workshop for 5:30 p.m. June 12 in the council chambers.

GULF STREAM — Dr. John Roland Westine died May 13 while swimming in the warm Gulf Stream waters in front of his home of 50 years. He was 91.

Although Dr. Westine was born into humble circumstances to two Swedish immigrants on Chicago’s South Side, he quickly proved to be extraordinary. While growing up, his motivation, talents and work ethic secured him a variety of jobs from playing jazz piano in Windy City nightclubs, to serving as captain of the lifeguards on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Despite never reading a book until his college years, Dr. Westine was academically gifted and graduated as salutatorian of his high school. That, along with his swimming talents, earned him a scholarship to North Central College. His motivation to learn expedited his graduation from North Central and subsequently Dental School at the University of Chicago.

He became a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force and was one of the first oral surgeons to be trained by the USAF.

Tiring of the cold Chicago winters, Dr. Westine moved to Delray Beach in 1962 and established one of the first oral maxillofacial surgery practices in Palm Beach County.

His meticulous and compassionate work over more than 60 years, covering Bethesda Hospital, Delray Medical Center and JFK Medical Center, earned him admiration and respect from colleagues and patients. His leadership was evident in many ways, such as his writing and advocating for the passage of state laws to protect patients, and in the creation of the American College of Oral Maxillofacial Surgeons, where he served as president during its early years and continued as editor of its newsletter.

Through writing and innovative ideas, Dr. Westine influenced and helped develop the future of the surgical subspecialty. His impact reached internationally as a founding member and past president of the International College for Maxillofacial Surgery. Two days before his death, Dr. Westine had returned from the Maldives, where he chaired a panel during the organization’s 50th-anniversary activities.

A kind and giving spirit pervaded all of Dr. Westine’s endeavors, including his philanthropic efforts like the creation of the International Foundation for Children with Cranial-facial Disorders, a 501(c)(3) organization.

Dr. Westine traveled to Asia, Africa and Latin America, collaborating with colleagues to help children in need and providing badly needed supplies and equipment. Last fall, he returned from Nigeria, where IFCCD donated a blood bank and a generator for a hospital and an operating room where electricity was not reliable. Dr. Westine also procured anesthesia equipment, donated last year by Delray Medical Center, for use by the WE CARE organization in Cameroon.

IFCCD also supports CLAYPA, a Mexican not-for-profit organization that performs surgical repairs on children with cleft lip and palate deformities.

After returning from each of his mission trips and adventures to his home on the beach in Gulf Stream, he frequently reaffirmed that he lived in paradise. Nowhere in the world could compare to his backyard, where he enjoyed almost daily swims in the Atlantic Ocean.

Dr. Westine continued to be a voracious reader and lifelong learner and to run his practice and take trauma calls at two hospitals until his death.

Dr. Westine — fondly known as Big Bad Dad, or BBD — boldly lived his life on his own terms with no regrets, and appreciated and loved his family, friends, colleagues and co-workers. 

Dr. Westine was predeceased by his parents, John Emanuel Westine and Greta Margret Westine (Larsson), and his sisters, Lorraine Westine and Mary Jane Westine.

He is survived by his four children, Lynn Valerie Westine (George Fleeson), Lezlee Jean Westine, Lauralee Ganson Westine (Robert Gualtieri), and John Ganson Westine (Tina).

In addition he leaves nine grandchildren, Nicole Leyton Rosser (Jay), Jennifer Leyton Armakan (Eric), Taylor Lynn Cramer (Ben), John Ganson Westine II, Grayson Kim Westine, Marin Elise Westine, Lauren Ganson Westine Gualtieri, Jordanna Linne Gualtieri, and Christina Leigh Gualtieri; and six great-grandchildren, Noelle Rosser, Sam Rosser, Beau Rosser, Eliana Armakan, Valentina Armakan and Camila Armakan. 

He will also be dearly missed by his loyal friends and office staff, Kelley and Lisa; his Tuesday doctors’ lunch group; and Marley, his grand-dog. 

Please join us at a celebration of his life, 4-8 p.m. June 17 at the Seagate Beach Club, 400 S. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach.

In lieu of flowers, Dr. Westine’s family is requesting consideration of a contribution to IFCCD, 250 Dixie Blvd., Suite 100, Delray Beach, FL 33444, www.ifccd.org, where his family will continue his passion for providing care for children with cranial facial disorders.

— Obituary submitted by the family

By Rich Pollack

DELRAY BEACH — For 32 years, until he retired in 2017, Bruce Gimmy’s name was synonymous with the Trouser Shop, a unique business he ran on Atlantic Avenue that evolved with the times, yet never quite changed enough to lose its “old Delray” charm.

Mr. Gimmy, whose personality was at times as colorful as the slacks and sports jackets he showcased in the Trouser Shop, died May 1. He was 80 years old.

“He was a true downtown force,” said Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Laura Simon. “Although he was the owner of a teeny space, his impact on the community was huge. He was larger than life.”

Even as trends moved away from the flashy to the practical, Mr. Gimmy never surrendered the past and continued to offer slacks and shorts with bright prints, patches and plaids.

In a bit of a contrast, for many years the Trouser Shop was one of the few places in the area customers could find tailored tuxedos, with Mr. Gimmy often working the sewing machine.

A fixture in downtown fashion shows during Delray Fashion Week and during January Art and Jazz Fashion Nights before that, Mr. Gimmy was one of the most impressive models on the stage and one of the few men on the runway.

“He wore the craziest things he could find in the shop,” Simon said. “He loved it and he got the biggest applause.”

Often Mr. Gimmy would be accompanied at the fashion shows by his longtime customer and friend, Steve Miskew.

“I have such fond memories of our walking the runways of Delray Fashion Week — intercepting odd gazes in the wings from the ‘other models’ — and Bruce hamming it up at every turn,” Miskew said.

A character who never missed the chance to find the spotlight if it could benefit the Trouser Shop, Mr. Gimmy was also a serious business owner who was an early champion of Delray Beach’s small downtown businesses.

“He was there from the very beginning of the transformation of downtown Delray Beach in the early ’90s,” said Marjorie Ferrer, who held several downtown marketing leadership roles and was a driving force for its revitalization. “He was part of the dream team, dreaming about what downtown could be and did become.”

A member of the Downtown Development Authority board of directors and the city’s parking board for 25 years, Mr. Gimmy was a fierce advocate for local merchants and for making sure that congestion and parking problems didn’t hamper the downtown’s success.

“He was very passionate about the revitalization of downtown,” Simon said.

A champion for his 400 block of East Atlantic Avenue, Mr. Gimmy was a good neighbor to businesses nearby, welcoming them and offering support.

He was also a good neighbor in Ocean Ridge, where he and his wife, Joanne, had found a home in the 1980s that they lived in — while helping to raise two grandsons — until they sold and moved to Boynton Beach in 2021. “He was a nice person and an excellent neighbor,” said former neighbor Betty Bingham. “He was a character, but he was a good man.”

Bingham said that Mr. Gimmy wore many of his collection of slacks at home, not just in the store.

“I always enjoyed the different pants he wore,” she said. “I guess it was quasi-advertising for his store.”

Mr. Gimmy grew up in suburban Reading, Pennsylvania, and Stone Harbor, New Jersey, attended Michigan State University and held several jobs in the hospitality industry before coming to Florida and taking over the Trouser Shop from then-owner Nick Vitale.

Even though he had retired, Mr. Gimmy continued to own the property where the store sat and continued to support the community.

In a 2010 interview with The Coastal Star, Mr. Gimmy — who loved wordplay — said that one of his favorite phases was “press on.”

“He was a kind, colorful — pun intended — character,” Miskew said.

Private services were held last month.

BOYNTON BEACH — Vicki Cody Mack, gardener, avid Dolphins fan and stranger to no one she met, died May 5. She was 67.  

Born Sept. 24, 1955, to Rayden and Ann Cody in Burlington, Vermont, Vicki Cody attended St. Michael’s College in Essex, Vermont, before relocating to Florida, where she graduated from Barry University with a master’s degree in English. 

On June 21, 1980, Vicki married her great love and best friend, Warren Mack. Over the next 42 years, they enjoyed life and family, raising three children, Colleen, Andrea and Cody.

Vicki was an avid reader, active gardener and enthusiastic Miami Dolphins season-ticket holder, but above all, she was a loving mother, wife, grandmother and sister.

For her children, she was Girl Scout troop leader, room mom, pep-talk giver and confidante. With her husband, she turned their house into a home, a joyous space to raise their children, to celebrate successes, and to mourn losses together.

Mrs. Mack lit up every room she walked into and could make you laugh within seconds. Her warmth and welcoming personality left no one a stranger to her.

Mrs. Mack is survived by her husband; children Colleen Mack Rynne (Josh), Andrea Mack Drawas (Jesse) and Cody Mack; grandchildren Madeline, James, Ruby and Hazel; her loving sister, Mary Ann Cody; her beloved aunt and godmother, Mary (Frederick) Bashara; her aunt Janet Dutil; and her 33 first cousins.  

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to St. Jude Children’s Hospital or the Ann Cody Wekiva Youth Camp Scholarship through the Ocean Ridge Garden Club.

— Obituary submitted by the family