By Brian Biggane

Long after being identified by authorities, the driver of the car involved in a fatal hit-and-run crash in South Palm Beach was booked into the Palm Beach County jail Tuesday morning.

Amneris Ramos, 43, of Boynton Beach was charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving the death of another, tampering with physical evidence and driving with license under suspension.

A Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office investigation determined South Palm Beach resident Hatixhe Laiqi, 73, was crossing State Road A1A around dusk on Nov. 10 when Ramos, driving a 2016 or 2017 GMC Terrain in the northbound lane, crashed into her. Ramos fled the scene but was identified within days.

Laiqi was pronounced dead at the scene, just north of the Barclay condominium where she lived, and the incident resonated with residents, who packed a meeting with a Florida Department of Transportation engineer two months later. The speed limit has since been lowered in the town from 35 mph to 30 mph and several signs have been erected urging drivers to be careful and share the road.

Efforts to install a crosswalk at the south end of town are ongoing.

Police and emergency rescue officials at the scene of the Jan. 4 crash on State Road A1A in Gulf Stream. The driver of the 2020 Kia Soul (right) crossed over the center line and hit a pack of cyclists heading in the other direction. Photo provided

By Anne Geggis

The three traffic citations a Lantana woman received after driving her 2020 Kia Soul into a pack of cyclists on State Road A1A in Gulf Stream in January — injuring three critically — won’t leave any marks on her driving record after a judge dismissed them April 3.

The judge’s ruling came after the Florida Highway Patrol officer who wrote the tickets for Betty Ann Ruiz, 77, did not appear for the April 3 hearing. The dismissed citations would have carried a $116 fine for failing to have proof of insurance, $166 for driving unknowingly with a suspended license and $166 for failing to keep to a single lane.

A report on the crash shows that Ruiz was not tested for drugs or alcohol after the incident. It attributed the crash to “seizure, epilepsy, blackout.” Ruiz, who court records say attended both a March 20 pretrial hearing and the April 3 hearing, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Five people were taken to the hospital as a result of the crash and the sheer number of casualties prompted a discussion throughout the coastal areas about the tight space drivers and cyclists share. Several municipalities have pledged to find a way to make the scenic route safer for cyclists.  

One of those critically injured, Diego Rico, 37, of Coconut Creek, said that no investigators contacted him to hear his view of the crash that broke his femur, dislocated his shoulder and shattered his pelvis. He expects that his injuries will keep him out of work for another two months.

“Literally, they are leaving us with nothing,” said Rico, who had 20 stitches to his knee and 39 staples to his hip and racked up medical bills totaling more than $1 million.

An FHP spokeswoman referred questions about Trooper Andy Ong’s absence from court and the citations’ dismissal to the State Attorney’s Office [Update: On Wednesday, the FHP spokeswoman said she was later told by Ong's supervisor that Ong was on approved leave the day of the hearing]. A spokesman for State Attorney David Aronberg said that the office doesn’t get involved in noncriminal cases.

The crash report on the Jan. 4 predawn incident found that Ruiz was heading south when she crossed the center line of North Ocean Boulevard alongside the Gulf Stream Golf Club course.

The most severely injured person had to be revived before being taken to Delray Medical Center via the county’s medical helicopter. He was released from the hospital nearly two months after the crash and has not fully regained his ability to walk and talk, Rico said.

Rico said that Ruiz has never contacted him or any of his fellow bicycle club members. He was part of the club Galera do Pedal, which is Portuguese for “Pedal Guys,” that regularly cycles along A1A from Deerfield Beach to Lake Worth.

“She never tried to get in touch with us or say or do anything,” Rico said. “She’s acting like she’s not at fault.”

That Ruiz is not being held responsible in any way rankles Michael Simon, president of the Boca Raton Bicycle Club.

“It should be taken seriously, especially with something like this,” said Simon, whose law practice is focused on civil litigation and corporate transactions. “Even if she had a medical incident. She shouldn’t have been on the road to begin with.

“She shouldn’t have been driving with a suspended license — we learn that in driving school,” Simon said. 

By Rich Pollack

A year-long State Road A1A improvement project through Highland Beach and part of southern Delray Beach has been delayed and now isn’t expected to start until late May or early June.

In an email to elected officials in both municipalities sent out late Friday, Florida Department of Transportation officials said that the $3.3 million project was expected to begin this month but was delayed and rescheduled “based on the latest coordination with the contractor.”

The project, which is expected to result in major traffic delays, will now most likely continue through summer of next year and perhaps longer.

Included in the project is the repaving and widening of A1A from Linton Boulevard to the Boca Raton line. It will also include 5-foot-wide bicycle lanes on both sides and significant drainage improvements through much of Highland Beach. 

One area where the improvement will be most noticeable will be at the intersection of A1A and Linton Boulevard.

For years, Highland Beach leaders and residents have complained about the lengthy backups caused by a long line of cars turning onto the Linton Boulevard bridge from northbound A1A.

The new project will more than triple the length of the left-turn lane from 75 feet to 275 feet.  The turn lane now accommodates only about three cars. That will expand to about 11 cars once the work at the intersection is complete, meaning that few cars will be blocking traffic heading north through the intersection, FDOT representatives say.

Highland Beach Town Manager Marshall Labadie believes that while there will be much disruption, there will also be visible benefits once the project is complete.

“My hope is that all the frustration resident experience will be well worth it when we have a newly paved road, a better intersection at Linton Boulevard and improved drainage,” Labadie said.

Delray Beach police search Black men parked at the beach in 1956. Officials did not allow Black people on city beaches until 1962, slowly relenting in the face of negative national publicity. Photo provided by Delray Beach Historical Society

How coastal cities have dealt with written remnants of Jim Crow era

By Anne Geggis

Laws that kept Black residents separate were recently found still on the books in South County, leading Boynton Beach to a symbolic ordinance-burning and Delray Beach to considering how to banish the ghosts of its segregationist past.

This comes decades after Delray Beach stopped using a portion of Ocean Ridge for Black bathers to take a dip because they were restricted from city beaches. It’s happening 51 years after court supervision of Palm Beach County school integration efforts ended.

But debate remains about whether sanitizing city codes is anything more than an empty gesture. In Boca Raton, the discriminatory ordinances disappeared back in the 1990s with no notice taken at all.

Boynton Beach residents gathered in February to march to Sara Sims Park for the burning of copies of three racist ordinances. Photo provided by City of Boynton Beach

Boynton Beach Ordinance 37 and Ordinance 47, both passed in 1924, defined a “Negro District” and a “White District.” Another, 1933’s Ordinance 136, kept Black residents from crossing certain boundaries at night — a “sundown law” that bears a resemblance to rules passed in thousands of other U.S. municipalities, according to scholarly research.

The three discriminatory laws were discovered during a series of community forums.

“I could not believe they hadn’t been repealed already,” said Boynton Beach Mayor Ty Penserga, recalling what came out of forums funded by the Unity Project of the Mellon Foundation, and the subsequent research into the history that activists and senior citizens recalled.

Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, routinely tells his students to read a city charter from back to front and write about what they find.

The exercise sometimes yields surprises, he said.

“What makes this stand out is that we’re now so far into the Civil Rights era that it is somewhat shocking that this wasn’t discovered at some point before,” Jewett said.

Delray Beach sundown law
Delray Beach also had a sundown law passed in 1938 that originally kept Black people west of Northwest/Southwest Third Avenue, according to Delray Beach Historical Society research. The sundown law was repealed in 1963, but an earlier law, passed in 1935, was recently found on the books as city staff investigated the possibility of designating Frog Alley — a neighborhood Black pioneers settled that runs south of Atlantic Avenue between Southwest Sixth and Southwest Fourth avenues — a historical district.

That law, Delray’s Resolution 146, designated Swinton Avenue as the dividing line for where people were limited from occupying buildings, based on race, except for servants’ quarters. And no repeal of it could be found, according to Michelle Hoyland, principal planner for the historic preservation division of the Planning and Zoning Department.

“It says … there was no business to be completed by Black folk on the east side of Swinton … no buildings to be owned,” Hoyland told the City Commission at a Feb. 20 workshop meeting. “This to me is something that’s unacceptable, but I think it’s great that it’s been uncovered so we can give it the attention that it deserves.”

A historian’s perspective
Susan Gillis, curator at the Boca Raton Historical Society, said cities throughout the area passed the same sorts of laws, especially in the 1930s and 1940s.

“The thought, going along with the Chamber of Commerce, was that this is what our visitors want,” she said. Places like Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale also allowed the recording of property deeds with restrictions that the property never be sold to Jews.

And, during that period, it wasn’t unusual to see a hotel advertised as “restricted” — meaning not open to Jewish people, Gillis said.

These practices and racially restrictive ordinances were rendered unenforceable by federal laws. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and then the Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Still, Boynton Beach’s willingness to confront the remnants of its racist past brings it a little closer to realizing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, said Bryce Graham, vice president of the Florida chapter of the National Action Network, speaking at a Feb. 20 Boynton Beach City Commission meeting.

“Out of a mountain of despair comes a stone of hope,” Graham said, quoting King. “And so this gives this community hope.”

Other speakers see an empty gesture in purging what are already remnants of another time. Some speakers at a March 5 meeting suggested Delray Beach write an apology.

“I want you to acknowledge that strategic or structural racism is not a thing of the past,” said resident Chuck Ridley, 66, who has worked on the West Atlantic Redevelopment Coalition and other grassroots organizations. “The fact that government bodies no longer can legally discriminate does not mean institutional racism has ended.”

Mayor Shelly Petrolia said she agreed that the city did need to do more, a sentiment her colleagues echoed.

“We would be making a decision on the fly tonight and I don’t know that would be appropriate for something as important as this,” Petrolia said.

Whatever happens in Delray Beach, Charlene Farrington doesn’t see cause for celebration, like the block party that Boynton Beach had for burning copies of its three ordinances on Feb. 24 at Sara Sims Park.

“I don’t see it (repeal) as an accomplishment,” said Farrington, executive director of the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum. “I see it as something that never should have happened in the first place. But it did. And now it’s time for those who can … to put it in its place in history … like racism and Confederate statues and slavery. It belongs in history.”

‘That wall’ in Boca Raton
Ironically enough, Boca Raton’s code that confined its Black population was repealed without any discussion of its significance. If a 1956 rewriting of the city zoning code didn’t do it, Ordinance 3971, passed in 1991, did. It states that any past ordinance not included in the new code was hereby repealed — and that one was not included.

Steven Abrams was deputy mayor on the Boca Raton City Council back then and just starting his political career.

“I would’ve made a speech, I would have been loving it,” he said. “I’m glad we caught it then and it’s being recognized now.”

Still, relics of the line Black residents were not supposed to cross remain on the landscape — walls in both Delray Beach and Boca Raton still mark the divisions of the past. Marie

Hester was born in Boca Raton’s Pearl City, and few of the Pearl City residents she’s known over her 76 years recognized that the wall was backed by words written in an ordinance.

The wall is still there behind industrial buildings at the corner of Northeast 15th Terrace and Dixie Highway.

The same kind of wall along Lake Ida Road behind Mike Machek Boy Scout Park once stood for the same reason in Delray Beach, Farrington said. The walls were concrete reminders of the enforced separation.

“People were afraid of that wall,” said Hester, who returned to Boca Raton after decades of working in federal agencies, including the Library of Congress. “Your parents would tell you, ‘Stay away from the wall.’”

Now, as of last December, Pearl City is listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service. And the wall is going to stay as a reminder, Hester said.

“Of what my grandparents came through,” she said.

Jordan Nichols and Bill Simons gauge the plan’s suggested channel as too shallow. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

After plan blindsides Hypoluxo Island, lagoon project won’t touch channel after all

By Mary Thurwachter

Bonefish Cove, a long-planned effort to bring a chain of three mangrove islands and oyster reefs to the central Lake Worth Lagoon, encountered stormy waters last month. The stir-up occurred just as construction was about to begin — after some Hypoluxo Island residents realized the project could cut off their boating access to the Intracoastal Waterway.

After serious discussions among state, federal and Palm Beach County officials — as well as the residents on Hypoluxo Island’s northeast side who will be affected by the project — calm has been restored and the project is moving forward. The center island, which would have been built directly over the channel used for decades by the residents, is being removed from the plans, officials said.

The project, a partnership between the county and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will create valuable habitat for flora and fauna that had otherwise been lost or degraded because of past dredge and fill activities, stormwater discharges and shoreline hardening. The islands — named Bonefish Cove after a popular fish that recently returned to the area due to previous county restoration projects — will be formed using 320,000 cubic yards of sand from Peanut Island.

Although the plan has been brewing for years, it took until mid-February for residents of Hypoluxo Island to get wind of it via a flyer sent to their homes.

Boaters were outraged when they realized the project, about a half mile in length and directly north of Hypoluxo Island, would take away their navigational access to the Intracoastal.

Among homeowners spurred into action was former Lantana Mayor Dave Stewart, who reached out to Town Manager Brian Raducci.

Raducci was unaware of Bonefish Cove, but he contacted county and Army Corps officials to set up a Feb. 29 workshop, giving them a chance to detail the $15 million project and residents an opportunity to air concerns.

The Town Hall meeting was flooded with unhappy residents.

Some worried about a reduction in water velocity and accumulation of more sedimentation in the shallow waters along the shoreline on the northeast side of the island.

Larry Robbins, nicknamed “The Dock Man,” said he built most of the docks in the area and feared the lessening of volume of water coming in and out of the channel. “It really gets choked up at Ocean Avenue,” he said. “You’ve got to keep that area from turning into a sewer.”

Matt Mitchell, county division director for environmental enhancement and restoration, said the project was designed “to provide more sea grass habitat, and there are insular benefits to the water quality.”

“Erosion, shoaling, navigation, all these things are included in the permit process,” Mitchell said. “The islands have a limestone rock ring around them. We would not expect that this material migrates closer to the Intracoastal or east closer to the island.”
But the residents’ main concern was the loss of the passageway to the Intracoastal.

“This is a small community focused on water activities,” said Robert Banting. “Fishing is sort of our theme for the town. Tonight’s crowd is evidence that whatever’s been done — and what you did may have complied with your requirements — was inadequate to inform the people who are going to be affected. We support the environmental benefits of this project, but we don’t support taking away people’s access to the Intracoastal.”

Banting said there had to be “a solution that doesn’t eliminate the environmental benefits and also gives people the right that they had for many years to continue access to the Intracoastal.”

Mitchell said the county had done extensive study and determined that the mangrove islands weren’t going to preclude anyone from getting into and out of the Intracoastal.

“I understand from some comments we’ve received and some phone calls that there may be a historic, preferred route directly across from La Renaissance, but that was not a marked channel or anything that was included in any sort of review,” Mitchell said. “When we went through the process, we were diligent in looking at depth, in looking at navigational concerns and without a marked, known channel, the determination was ‘yes, there are islands coming here, but there is area to the north of the islands that would still allow anyone behind the islands to ingress and egress to the Intracoastal.’”

Jordan Nichols used PVC pipe marked at 1-foot increments to demonstrate the shallow depth of the edge of the alternate access channel first proposed for the project.

Boaters’ concerns
Mitchell’s argument didn’t hold water with the residents. Their point of entry to the Intracoastal is what they call La Renaissance channel, directly west of the Palm Beach condo with the same name. Plans called for the middle of the three islands to be built directly over La Renaissance channel.

Bill Simons and his son Hal have been using the channel since 1996. Simons said he was shocked when he received the flyer two weeks before construction was originally scheduled to start. He recognized what the center island would mean to boaters — losing deep-water access to the Intracoastal. He and neighbor Jordan Nichols, a retired civil engineer who once worked for the South Florida Water Management District, went door to door to sound the alarm.

“Right now, we have a channel over 100 feet wide with no navigational hazard,” Nichols said. “What the county is telling us is our access is up to the north. I scaled it off with bathometric maps and the (northern) channel is only 15 feet wide and it has rocks on both sides, so it’s a true hazard.”

Nichols and others filed petitions with the South Florida Water Management District requesting an administrative hearing to challenge the state permit for the work. But some of those petitions were denied because the requests came after the deadline. The notice for the plan was not published in The Palm Beach Post until March 2, and Nichols sent his request on Feb. 29. But the water management district initially maintained the public notice was the Feb. 14 flyers.

Impact on property values
Stuart Fain, who lives on Hypoluxo Island, said the island has many homes on the east side north of Ocean Avenue and that the loss of Intracoastal access would greatly reduce property values. He met with residents who talked about hiring a lawyer but who held off and were “politely working” with the county. He also reached out to U.S. Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio of Florida.

At a March 22 meeting involving Deb Drum, director of the county’s Department of Environmental Resources Management, county administrators, biologists and engineers and a handful of residents, Fain saw that polite worked.

Here is Simons’s assessment of what transpired.

“After dismissing 5-6 letters (petitions for administrative hearings) on grounds of missing the required deadline, they accepted the fact that the public notice in The Palm Beach Post was on March 2, 2024, and the letters indeed were timely,” Simons explained. “Forcing a hearing would have put in jeopardy the whole project and, of course, the loss of federal money that was funding the project.”

(Residents who asked for hearings have been asked to withdraw the requests.)

“They offered to save the channel and instructed the Corps of Engineers to leave a 125-foot-wide channel unfilled,” Simons said. “They will redraw the islands not to lose any square footage by changing the two outer islands’ size. They will begin filling the northern island first until they redraw the site. There shouldn’t be any disruption of navigation during construction.”

Simons said officials “were surprisingly accommodating as I thought they were going to try to stick to the original plan.”

Drum, in an email to The Coastal Star, said the officials looked for an option that would help to keep the project on track while maintaining the current navigation pathway that residents use.

She said the county has sent a letter to the Army Corps requesting that it sequence the current project to not put any fill in the area identified by the neighbors as their navigation pathway until there is a redesign of the project to avoid that area. 

While Drum wrote that some administrative and technical discussions are still needed with the Corps, “we are confident that we will be able to satisfactorily go through that process to result in a project that meets all of our habitat and resiliency goals while maintaining the navigational pathway that the neighbors have used in the past up to now.”

Reactions to the resolution
“The islanders affected are ecstatic, as you can imagine.” Simons said. “I had already arranged a Tampa law firm specializing in this to represent us pending the results of the [March 22] meeting. It was going to be quite an expense.”

Fain said the state “was fair with us as they should be. We were happy to have U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and Congressman Brian Mast behind us. Jordan Nichols’ knowledge of the system was priceless. Hats off to him. My wife, Martha Fain, was the catalyst to bringing Sen. Scott and Rep. Brian Mast on board.

“This was a victory for everyone on Hypoluxo Island,” Fain said. “Our property and riparian rights should not ever be infringed.”

Stewart was pleased, as well.

“I’m very appreciative of Palm Beach County and the people involved in this project who listened to the concerns of the Hypoluxo Island residents and came up with an amicable agreement to where we don’t lose our deep-water access,” he said. “Jordan really spearheaded this.”

Why the late notice?
Discussions for Bonefish Cove — which is being constructed in the town of Palm Beach north of Lantana’s Hypoluxo Island — began in 2016, so why did it take so long for Lantana residents to find out about it?

County officials said they met with local entities including the mayor, town manager and town engineer in December 2016 and January 2017, and all were very supportive.

Problem was, the town officials they talked to were not from Lantana. Stewart, who was mayor at the time, and Deborah Manzo, who was the town manager, said neither met with anyone about Bonefish Cove. Lantana didn’t and doesn’t have a town engineer. So, clearly the entities were from another town, likely Palm Beach.

In February 2017, the Army Corps released the draft environmental assessment for agency and public review. The document was posted to the Corps website and provided at two county public libraries, the Lantana Road Branch in Lake Worth Beach and the main county library in West Palm Beach. In fact, Lantana has its own public library and it’s likely few, if any, Lantana residents viewed the draft.

The current Town Council first heard of the project after residents contacted Raducci. At the town’s March 11 meeting, council members directed the town manager to send letters declaring their support of residents to the county commissioners and U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel.

A Palm Trail Grill crowd hails Tom Carney’s win in the mayoral race, to go with City Commission victories for Juli Casale and Tom Markert. ABOVE: (front, l-r) Tony Petrolia, Phil Pepe, Kelly Barrette and Casale; (back) departing Mayor Shelley Petrolia with her hand on Carney’s shoulder. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Departing mayor hails clean sweep by candidates she supported

Note: This story updates what was published immediately following the March 19 election.

By Anne Geggis

Delray Beach voters spurned a real estate-backed slate of candidates March 19 in choosing Tom Carney as their new mayor along with two new commissioners: one a first-time candidate and the other returning to the dais a year after losing a re-election bid.

The new mayor, a lawyer by trade, is expected to lead a new three-vote bloc with the commissioners elected: Tom Markert and Juli Casale. All underdogs to their top competitors in raising money for their campaigns, the trio promoted themselves together, urging voters to choose, “Tom, Tom and Juli.” They campaigned against what they called the city’s “overdevelopment” amid warnings that the city’s motto “Village by the Sea” was at risk.

Roughly 27% of the city’s 40,737 registered voters participated in the municipal election, based on the unofficial results.

Carney, 70, a former city commissioner who served as an interim mayor for two months in 2013, will replace term-limited Mayor Shelly Petrolia, who supported his candidacy.

Even though he received more than $60,000 less in campaign contributions, Carney defeated Vice Mayor Ryan Boylston, who raised more than $155,000 to lead all candidates.

Totals show Carney won nearly 52% of the vote to Boylston’s 38% and former Commissioner Shirley Johnson’s 10%.

At a celebration announced after the votes were tallied, Carney hailed a mandate for change when it comes to managing the city’s growth and spending.

“I’m incredibly honored and I’m even more incredibly humbled,” said Carney, who learned of his victory when he was awakened from dozing by a phone call from his wife, who was visiting England and told him the news. “I plan on stopping this overdevelopment, giving money back to the taxpayers and dealing with the traffic.”

The victory gathering at Palm Trail Grill, outside the city’s bustling downtown, drew two other newly elected commissioners. First-time political candidate and former Nielsen TV ratings executive Markert will replace term-limited Commissioner Adam Frankel, and former Commissioner Casale will move into the seat that Boylston is leaving due to term limits.

Markert, 66, won nearly 39% of the vote. He defeated former Commissioner Jim Chard, a former New York City municipal executive, and Tennille DeCoste, who was recently dismissed from her job as the city of Boynton Beach’s human resources director. Chard won nearly 37% of the vote and DeCoste was a distant third, winning 24%.

“The voters spoke loud and clear that they want change,” said Markert, who campaigned on addressing the traffic residents face on city streets and the need to replace the water treatment plant.

Casale, 55, a retired businesswoman who was defeated in her bid for re-election to the City Commission last year, won a seat against two candidates in the hunt for their first elected office. Casale garnered 42% of the votes to the 37% that Nick Coppola, a retired electrician, won and the 21% for Anneze Barthelemy, a social worker with a private consulting business.

“The message is people want good governing,” Casale said. “This is a big night.”

Petrolia, who supported the winning slate, also took part in the festivities at Palm Trail Grill, where Carney held his kickoff party and his recent 70th birthday party. She playfully pinned on the mayor a button from her previous campaign emblazoned with “Shelly.”

“It’s a great night — unbelievable, unbelievable,” she said. “The city made a decision. I feel like everything is going to be in good hands.”

Following the city elections in March 2023, a new voting bloc led by Boylston had coalesced on the dais and Petrolia found herself on the losing end of a number of votes.

During his election night watch party, mayoral candidate Ryan Boylston reacts to broadcast results showing his defeat.

Over at the Tin Roof, where Boylston had his downtown watch party adjacent to Coppola’s party, the first flash of results showed all of the precincts reporting. The crowd, at first, thought those results would be the early and mail-in votes.

But then reality set in.

“Look at that,” Boylston said, as he gazed up at the screens showing Carney’s substantial victory.

Days later, Boylston had a chance to reflect on his showing.

“On a personal level, I’m absolutely content with the results. My hope is that our city continues to embrace community input and can remain focused on the important subjects that really matter,” he said.

At the polls on Election Day, Lee Cohen, 30, who works in marketing, admitted to an unfamiliarity with the issues facing the city, since he’s only lived there five months. But he checked with his cousin, who has lived in Delray Beach much longer. 

His cousin recommended “Tom, Tom and Juli.”

“I love it,” Cohen said of Delray Beach. “I love that there’s so much to do. It has the vibrancy of a big city but with a small-town feel.”

Statewide reaction
The city’s mayoral election outcome was hailed by state Republicans right up to Gov. Ron DeSantis as a “flip” for a Republican in a Democratic stronghold. But that didn’t exactly fit with how Carney was elected after getting the endorsement of the sitting mayor — a Democrat.

Carney pointed out that the candidate slate he campaigned with had one candidate with no party affiliation in Markert and the other a registered Democrat in Casale.

He said the flyer that the Republican Party sent out to its members probably helped him (but not so much for fellow Republican Barthelemy, also promoted in the flyer). It helped level the playing field for how he was not invited to five Democrat-sponsored candidate forums, he said.

“I really appreciated the help,” Carney said of the flyer. “I was behind because of what the Democratic Party was doing in terms of alerting all their voters who the Democrats were” in the race.

In the future, he said, he’d like to see all the candidates get invited to all forums when they are spotlighting nonpartisan races, as has happened in the past. And there’s no doubt that including a Republican presidential primary vote on the same day was a factor in the amount of partisanship involved in the nonpartisan municipal races.

“I’m not getting into the definitions of what’s flipping or not flipping. … We ran a very good race and we reached out across all parties,” Carney said. “We had a letter that went out that was signed by Democrats, Republicans and independents, talking about why they were supporting me.”

Referendum fails
In another issue on the ballot, nearly 59% of the city’s voters rejected a proposed amendment that would have eliminated the city’s Board of Adjustment and streamlined its functions under the city’s planning board. The board considers appeals and variances to the city’s land development rules and will continue to do so, according to the vote.

Understanding our history is critical in today’s world.

Learning about the past helps us all to recognize our predecessors’ brilliant successes as well as their mistakes. Perhaps most important, we can identify the times when evil darkened the world and study how it was fought and how survivors made it to today.

Along our coast, most history celebrates the successes of the early pioneers: the hardy men who opened shops, established farms and delivered mail along the beach; the enterprising women who created libraries and organizations to support the foundation of local government.

When Henry Flagler stretched his railroad to Miami and agriculture took off, so did pockets of winter paradise: the parties of Palm Beach and polo fields of Gulf Stream.

A string of beautiful hotels rose south of Palm Beach to provide additional respite to Northerners — the Boynton Hotel on the beach in what is now Ocean Ridge, the old Seacrest and Colony hotels in Delray Beach, and of course, the original Cloisters at what is now The Boca Raton.

Maybe most beautiful of all was the oh-so-very-private Mizner-designed Gulf Stream Golf Club. The club celebrated its centennial in March with a week of golf and activities, including a black tie gala that spilled over into a glowing tent along the beach. Happy anniversary.

Exhibits currently at our South County historical societies carry that early history into the years of WWII and the 1960s. Years of innovation, war and social division. All on the home front.

A visit to the “Florida in World War II” exhibit at the Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum brings back memories to those remaining few who recall blacking out their windows and watching seekers of enemy submarines patrol the beach on horseback.

It also showcases the area’s involvement in what was then the new technology of radar. IBM came later.

In the Delray Beach Historical Society’s exhibit “Land of Sunshine & Dreams! Delray Beach: 1950s-1960s,” the growth and progress of the “Village by the Sea” is told while also uncovering a legacy of segregation and racism that, while no longer obvious, still hovers in 2024.

Boynton Beach celebrated the repeal of several old racist ordinances in February with a public parade and symbolic burning of the documents.

Boca Raton’s discriminatory ordinances disappeared quietly from the books in the 1990s. And although most of Delray Beach’s segregationist laws had been repealed in the 1960s, the city recently discovered a 1938 sundown law still on the books and is discussing its removal. All of these moves are to be applauded. Boynton Beach in particular deserves praise for bringing its divisive history into the light and publicly erasing these mistakes from the past. Far better than leaving them buried deep in microfiche. Now, more than ever, is the time to learn from our history.

— Mary Kate Leming, Executive Editor

Capt. Jo Wagenhals on the job in Pompano Beach. BELOW: Wagenhals wears a ‘tuxedo suit’ while taking part in lifesaving competitions around the state. Photos provided

By Anne Geggis

Ocean Rescue Capt. Jo Wagenhals had 18 miles to go on State Road A1A to her job saving lives on Pompano Beach when she found herself in the middle of an emergency in Gulf Stream.

With decades of experience and training, Wagenhals knew there was no time to gawk at the wreckage of bicycle parts and bodies revealed in the predawn light of Jan. 4. Her car was only seconds behind the southbound compact SUV that plowed into a pack of nine northbound cyclists.

Wagenhals, heading from her Lake Worth Beach home, quickly pulled over and was immediately drawn to one of the seven injured who wasn’t groaning in pain. Just a gurgling noise came from the cyclist covered in blood, she said.

“It’s kind of like when a baby’s born — when it cries, that’s a good thing and when it doesn’t cry, now we get to work,” she said.

There was no time to take in the sheer scope of the disaster: “You know what needs to be done and then you do it,” Wagenhals said.

What she did as the sun rose that morning meant the difference between living and dying for that cyclist, said Diego Rico, 37, of Coconut Creek, who was part of the cycling pack and was also hospitalized for treatment of trauma.

“She stopped the bleeding, started giving him CPR,” Rico said. “If it weren’t for her it only takes 3½ minutes to bleed out” from an artery “and it took five or six minutes for the first responders to get there.”

Based on the counter on a cyclist’s camera and 911 calls, it’s estimated Wagenhals was working on the patient within two minutes.

“She saved him,” Rico said.

That cyclist — the most severely injured patient and a father of three — was released from the hospital in late February. Having suffered a brain injury, he’s still on the road to recovery, with no end in sight, Rico said.

But no one died.

Delray Beach Fire Rescue officials praised Wagenhals in writing for her compassion and professionalism. Her boss, Pompano Beach Fire Chief Steve Hudson, said: “I am very proud of the efforts and quick reaction of Capt. Wagenhals and am pleased to see the lifesaving work of our ocean rescue lifeguards receive recognition.”

Wagenhals, 51, says her involvement was just happenstance — as has happened in other emergencies. One Christmas Eve she chanced to see a man in a motorized wheelchair struck while barreling across the street without the help of a traffic signal or a crosswalk, and was ready to render first aid.

“I’m no hero,” Wagenhals said. “It’s what we do.”

It also highlights how today’s lifeguards are ready to handle almost every emergency. For an agency to get certification from the U.S. Lifesaving Association, as most South Florida ocean rescue agencies do, lifeguards must have earned credentials as emergency medical technicians.

Running on the sand to train for her college soccer team at Florida Atlantic University sent Wagenhals, a 1991 graduate of Spanish River High School in Boca Raton, into her lifelong profession.

She was sold on the sand, sun and salty air.

“I thought, ‘Man, I could do that,’” Wagenhals said.

Her first lifeguarding experience was in Boynton Beach. She was later hired full-time in Delray Beach, where she was named the Florida Beach Patrol Chiefs Association lifeguard of the year for 2004. She was there for 11 years before going to Pompano Beach.

Wagenhals said she has come to dread holidays as magnets for disaster. One Mother’s Day involved a child buried in the sand, she recalls. On Thanksgiving 2012, she was part of Pompano Beach’s rescue team responding to an overturned vessel that threw 23 people in the water and resulted in one woman’s death.

“You don’t forget those calls,” Wagenhals said.

She insists it’s not just an individual effort that saves trauma patients’ lives. Uniform training had her working seamlessly with a bevy of agencies at the Gulf Stream crash site, she said.

Plus, it helped that the patient could get a whole blood transfusion at the scene, Wagenhals said.

“There’s a whole lot of things that went right,” she said.

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

A recent incident on A1A in South Palm Beach has cast a spotlight on a grave issue that demands our immediate attention. An elderly citizen was struck and killed by a vehicle, a tragedy compounded by the driver’s decision to flee the scene. The subsequent comments from local law enforcement suggest that had the driver remained, they might have faced no penalty, as the victim was not in a crosswalk at the time of the accident.

This rationale is deeply troubling. It implies that pedestrians are at fault for their own injuries or death if they are not within the confines of a crosswalk. Yet, in South Palm Beach, where the median age is 67.6 years and many residents face mobility challenges, the lack of crosswalks is not just an inconvenience — it’s a life-threatening oversight.

Consider the message this sends: Without crosswalks, our community’s most vulnerable members are left unprotected, their safety seemingly less important than traffic flow.

The comparison to a squashed iguana, unable to use a crosswalk, is a stark and unsettling metaphor for the disregard shown to human life in these circumstances.

We must confront the reality that our current infrastructure and legal framework do not adequately protect our citizens. The absence of crosswalks not only endangers lives, but also strips away legal protections from victims and their families.

It’s a situation that cannot be allowed to persist.

The question of why we need crosswalks is not one of logistics but of moral imperative. We need them to safeguard our residents, to preserve the dignity and rights of pedestrians, and to ensure that no one else suffers a similar fate. The implementation details — how many crosswalks we need, where they should be placed — are secondary to the fundamental need for their existence.

Until we address this issue, every pedestrian in South Palm Beach is at risk, their legal standing no better than that of an iguana. It’s a harsh reality that we must change.

Let’s come together as a community to demand the safety measures we desperately need. Let’s ensure that the tragic loss of life on A1A is not in vain but serves as a catalyst for positive change.

In closing, remember this: The next time you cross the street in South Palm Beach, the law views you as little more than a jaywalker, regardless of where you cross.

It’s a sobering thought, one that should spur us to action. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to create a safer, more just community for all.

— Rafael Piñeiro
South Palm Beach

As you may already know, the Gulf Stream School has applied through the town of Gulf Stream to have an amendment approved that would allow them to enroll 50 more students at the school.

Fifty more students means 50 more cars twice per day as most of their students are from outside the neighborhood. This is an area that is already extremely crowded with cars and will soon be undergoing Core roadway construction.

To make matters worse, the George Bush Boulevard bridge will soon undergo rebuilding for two to four years, A1A will be resurfaced and the Ocean Avenue bridge will also have work done.

These will result in a traffic nightmare and construction gridlock for our quiet, peaceful town. A meeting is scheduled on April 12 at 9 a.m. at the Gulf Stream Town Hall.

Residents must speak up to protect our community and sanity! If you would like to electronically add your name to the petition to stop the school amendment, please go to Change.org, online at https://chng.it/2JDJFZKDnM.

— John Arscott
Gulf Stream

As a resident of Ocean Ridge, I feel compelled to address a persistent issue plaguing our community this season: overflowing garbage cans. The situation has become increasingly problematic, particularly along Old Ocean Boulevard, where pedestrians navigate around overflowing trash receptacles while cars maneuver through the congestion. Weekends exacerbate the problem as beachgoers contribute to the overflow with their refuse, resulting in a disconcerting scene on Monday mornings.

Despite numerous complaints voiced at town meetings, little has been done to address the issue. Blame has been shifted to individuals crossing the bridge, limitations of third-party vendors, and even unwarranted concerns about workman’s compensation claims preventing our Public Works Department from intervening effectively.

The consequence is not only unsightly but also unsanitary, attracting pests and wildlife to the area.

It is imperative that we prioritize practical solutions over costly excuses. I advocate for reverting the responsibility of monitoring and emptying the trash cans back to our capable Public Works Department, who can manage the task efficiently on a daily basis.

With only two out of eight trash cans routinely overflowing, the solution is well within reach. Let’s empower our Public Works team to uphold the cleanliness of our community.

Ocean Ridge residents deserve better — we deserve actionable solutions, not endless excuses.

— Victor Martel
Ocean Ridge

By Steve Plunkett

Briny Breezes’ efforts to fix its drainage system to minimize future flooding received a boost in March when the federal government awarded the town $1.38 million to install new stormwater pumps.

“Residents of Briny Breezes have often faced the devastating impacts of floods, causing permanent damage to their residences and their property, and at times putting their safety at risk. The new stormwater pumps will help keep drain systems working properly and prevent future flooding,” U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel said in announcing the grant.

The money was included in the $1.2 trillion package of spending bills that President Joe Biden signed March 23 to avoid a federal government shutdown.

Town Manager Bill Thrasher said Briny Breezes will have to provide a local match of roughly $350,000 to get the federal dollars. He then expects to use the combined $1.75 million to secure an equal match from the Resilient Florida fund, or about $3.5 million in all for the new stormwater system.

The town originally applied for $2.7 million, about twice what the federal government approved, Thrasher said.

With his eyes set on securing a total $7.2 million from Resilient Florida, to be evenly matched by the town and to pay for the stormwater system and raising the town’s sea walls along the Intracoastal Waterway, Thrasher was reluctant to say much about the federal money.

“It is still way too early for this type of questioning,” he said.

A Flooding Adaptation Plan completed in April 2021 made several recommendations, including installing a multi-pump drainage system, pumping station and discharge pipes to help eliminate flooding of the roadways and prevent damage to personal property and homes.

Briny Breezes’ consultants are currently busy producing construction drawings for the project.

In a report to the Town Council on March 28 on how the budget for next year was shaping up, Thrasher said he would recommend holding property taxes at the same rate as this year, $3.75 per $1,000 of taxable valuation, provided the co-op corporation agrees to fund 70% of police and fire rescue services like it is now.

At the start of the meeting, Council President Liz Loper called for a moment of silence to mark the passing of resident Ira Friedman, a longtime member of the Planning & Zoning Board who continued to bring the council ideas for improving the town.

“He always had something to say, always had a smile on his face. He was Ira,” Loper said. “Ira’s (woodcarving) creations were legendary throughout the town of Briny, and we will miss him so much.”

Related: Special Report: Condo costs: A sudden storm

South Palm Beach — Southgate

Highland Beach — Coronado 

Boca Raton — Mayfair

By Rich Pollack

A few South Florida state legislators are quietly working on creating a “condo caucus” to consider future legislation aimed at addressing myriad issues facing condominiums, including those outlined a month ago in a special report by The Coastal Star.

While details are still being worked out, the proposed bipartisan caucus will include representatives from house districts that contain an abundance of condominiums.

State Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman of Boca Raton says plans are in their early stages. She thinks the caucus members can have greater impact by working together on pressing issues.

Those issues include condominium governance and financial challenges due to rising insurance premiums and strict legislation requiring inspections and potentially costly renovations ­— as well as mandating reserve funds to address future projects. The laws are a reaction to the collapse of Champlain Towers South in 2021 in Miami-Dade County.

A caucus is an informal group of legislators created to share expertise and ideas prior to formulating and filing bills. Traditionally, legislation created through the caucus process navigates the Legislature more easily because nuances are fine-tuned and details are ironed out, according to Gossett-Seidman and state Rep. Mike Caruso, whose district includes much of coastal Palm Beach County.

“You can focus on the issues of that caucus and create legislation that addresses those issues,” Caruso said.

He said the caucus likely will receive input from condo residents and listen to their concerns.

“We’re going to know what these condos are facing and get ideas on what they think needs to be fixed,” he said.

Rising costs are likely to be a major topic of discussion.

In its special report, The Coastal Star looked at the cumulative impact that rising insurance premiums and mandates for structural integrity recertification and reserve funds is having on coastal condominium residents in southern Palm Beach County.

The report detailed how the multiple factors combined into what some labeled a tsunami, forcing condo boards to raise maintenance fees and impose special assessments to levels that are driving longtime unit owners to consider fleeing their homes.

Condo owners in one Highland Beach building are facing an assessment of more than $200,000 per unit. Many condo boards can’t find insurance that will cover the full replacement cost of their buildings.

With mandated costs expected to continue rising, in part because of the requirement to have enough money in reserves to cover replacement of critical items once they meet the end of their useful lives, some condo leaders are hoping the state can help out.

In a letter to Gossett-Seidman, the president of the Beach Condo Association of Boca Raton, Highland Beach and Delray Beach asked for help in getting the state to create a long-term low-interest loan fund that would provide financial relief for residents.

“We cannot help but believe that if we got hit with a category 4 or 5 storm that the state and cities would be here aiding,” wrote Emily Gentile, who sent copies of the letter to Florida House Speaker Paul Renner as well as the mayors of Boca Raton, Highland Beach and Delray Beach.

For condo residents on fixed incomes, “they can no longer afford to stay or pay,” she wrote.

Gentile, who included copies of The Coastal Star report with her letter, acknowledged that the state has made progress in assisting condos. During this year’s session, House representatives unanimously approved a bill that would create the My Safe Florida Condominium Program, which would provide condos within 15 miles of the ocean with up to $175,000 for roof, door and window improvement projects.

Legislators have set aside $30 million for the pilot project, which has already passed the state Senate and awaits the governor’s signature.

Gossett-Seidman says the caucus will tackle issues head-on but that no immediate miracle solution exists.

By Anne Geggis

Palm Beach County will continue to put out Manalapan’s fires and provide emergency hospital rides via ambulance, the Town Commission decided.

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue won the 10-year contract to provide service to South County’s smallest coastal municipality at its March 26 commission meeting. Commissioners opted for continuing the town’s current contract instead of switching to Boynton Beach Fire Rescue.

Palm Beach County has been providing fire rescue services to Manalapan since 1997 and commissioners decided to stay with that despite Boynton Beach’s lower price and more extensive rescue watercraft located in closer proximity to Manalapan. The county’s individual rescue watercraft are in Lantana and must be brought in by trailer to Boynton Beach and launched from there to reach Manalapan.

Palm Beach County, however, has more specialists in its department and the highest rating from the independent organization that evaluates fire rescue departments nationwide.

The rating from the Insurance Services Office affects insurance rates, which should mean lower rates for Manalapan property owners.

In a last-ditch effort, after the motion to approve Palm Beach County’s fire rescue proposal was made and seconded, Boynton Beach Fire Chief Hugh Bruder called his department the “Bentley” of fire rescue departments.

Manalapan staff approached him to make a proposal, he said.

“When time means life or death, Boynton Beach Fire Rescue has a two-minute average faster response time,” Bruder said. “Boynton Beach Fire Rescue has one of the largest marine capabilities in South Florida, which is especially important for the large amount of waterfront property and people in Manalapan.”

And, he added, the contract with Boynton Beach would add up to about $3 million less than what the county is charging over the 10-year life of the contract.

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue officials were late to the meeting and not there to offer any counterpoints, but Bruder’s comments did not spur any further discussion on the commission.

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Chief Patrick Kennedy, who arrived later in the meeting, said he was glad that his department could plan on another 10 years of serving Manalapan. It will mean finding a way to expand the current facility at Town Hall to meet the industry standard of four responders to each rig.

“We’re going to be working with the town to make that happen,” Kennedy said.

The county’s fire rescue contract is a continuation of its current terms, starting at $2.1 million and set to rise according to the taxable value of South Palm Beach’s property, reflecting how Manalapan’s terms for fire rescue services are connected to the town a half-mile north of Manalapan Town Hall. The utilities credit for the county’s use of town facilities that Manalapan can apply to its fire rescue bill will increase from $8,000 to $25,000 annually, however.

The conversation at the March 16 town workshop indicated a strong desire for continuity, as the commission has five new commissioners who have joined since December because new state financial disclosure requirements prompted resignations. Town Manager Linda Stumpf is also expected to retire in September after 14 years in her position.

“I realize that there is a value proposition here,” Mayor John Deese said, alluding to Boynton’s lower price and the staff and commission turnover. “I just think it would be wise and important for us to strongly consider staying in a relationship with Palm Beach County.”

Had Manalapan opted to switch to Boynton Beach, the county would have been faced with a conundrum because the Manalapan fire station supports service to Lantana and South Palm Beach.

Asked before the vote what plans Palm Beach County Fire Rescue had in place if Manalapan switched, a spokeswoman released a statement from the fire chief.

“It is Palm Beach County Fire Rescue’s intent to continue delivering excellent service to the barrier islands (Manalapan & South Palm),” the prepared statement from Kennedy read. “Our goal is to continue working with the Town of Manalapan to find ways to accommodate increased staffing.”

New commissioners sworn in — Mayor John Deese was sworn in, along with four other commissioners who came on board after five commissioners resigned rather than comply with new state financial disclosure requirements for elected municipal officials.

Deese had already been on the commission but moved to the mayor’s chair after Stewart Satter’s resignation. He bemoaned the effect of the law in his first comments as mayor.

“That’s an issue that we’re still concerned about … it was a real challenge that we lost almost all of our commission,” he said.

Joining him in the swearing in were Commissioners Elliot Bonner, Orla Imbesi and Dwight Kulwin, all starting new terms. Commissioner Cindy McMackin also took the oath of office for a term that lasts until March 2025. Another new appointee to the commission, David Knobel, had already been sworn in for his term that continues until March 2025.

IT check-up passed — Manalapan’s town information technology got a check-up from the Palm Beach County Office of Inspector General and was largely found up to the mark in preventing hacks. However, the report said the town needed written policies for assuring only a limited number of employees had network access, on disposing of and sanitizing data, and on responding to a cybersecurity incident. Town officials addressed those gaps during the review process, the report said.

Municipal government’s vulnerability to hackers has emerged as a concern in recent years as ransomware attacks have held city systems hostage. In 2019, for example, Riviera Beach had to pay $600,000 in bitcoin to unblock city computer systems.

— Anne Geggis

By Anne Geggis

Mayor Shelly Petrolia’s service to the city has gotten her sued personally, put her at the helm during multiple city manager firings, never won her the support of the city’s real estate establishment — yet made her popular enough that her preferred successor is taking her seat.

Her last regular City Commission meeting March 5, wrapping up 11 years on the dais (the last six as mayor), was no time to start getting sentimental.

When Vice Mayor Ryan Boylston commented at the end of the meeting about how he had crawled into a pit to shadow a city worker, the mayor raised concerns about the liability the city could have faced had something happened to him. And that had Boylston bristling.

“To throw shade in our last meeting on something that was so valuable to me …” Boylston said in disbelief.

“I am not throwing shade,” Petrolia retorted.

It turned out to be Boylston’s last regular meeting on the commission as well, although he wouldn’t find that out until March 19 when he lost a mayoral bid that Petrolia’s pick Tom Carney won.

All in all, the woman Boylston wanted to replace — and who regularly landed on the opposing side of Boylston in commission votes — has presided over many fireworks. She was term-limited from running for reelection.

Counting interim city managers, Delray Beach has gone through eight managers in the past 11 years. Petrolia chalks that up to her wanting the best for Delray Beach.

Also, Petrolia led controversial efforts to put the Community Redevelopment Agency under the City Commission’s direct control and end the lease with the Old School Square

Center for the Arts. What happens with the management of Old School Square’s cultural arts programming is one of the cliffhangers Petrolia leaves for the new leadership to decide.

“She might be one of the most naturally talented elected officials I’ve ever seen,” said

Joy Howell, who worked in communications for the Gore-Lieberman presidential ticket in 2000, before becoming a close observer of Delray Beach politics in 2015.

With rights to say that she voted to lower taxes for nine years and against Atlantic Crossing, Petrolia is going out with the full slate of candidates she supported elected with convincing margins.

Commissioner Adam Frankel, who is leaving the dais after being elected five times, was often on the other side of the votes Petrolia cast.

“She was always passionate and stuck to her beliefs and while sometimes she and I disagreed she … never wavered from the positions that she thought were best for the city,” he said at the March 28 organizational meeting.

For now, Petrolia is not saying what her next move in politics is going to be, but she will point to what she thinks was her crowning achievement in office: getting Delray’s downtown through the COVID-19 epidemic with minimal damage.

“There wasn’t any manual to tell you how to do that,” Petrolia said.

She said she’s hoping her lasting gift to the city is that no one feels the way she did when she entered politics.

“One of the reasons that I came to get involved in politics was that I had lost faith in my government,” Petrolia said.

By Anne Geggis

A newcomer to the Ocean Ridge Town Commission — who happens to be a relative newcomer to the town — was the top vote-getter March 19 in a four-person race for three seats on the dais.

Voters were asked to choose three candidates and Ainar Aijala Jr., who filled a vacancy on the commission in January, won nearly 30% of the 1,206 votes cast among four candidates. Mayor Geoff Pugh drew 28% support and Commissioner David Hutchins — another recent appointee to the commission — garnered 27%. Nick Arsali, 68, a retired engineer, was a distant fourth with 15% of the vote.

The two top finishers will serve full three-year terms and Hutchins, 75, a retired airline pilot, will serve a two-year unexpired term.

Aijala, 67, who was sunburned from consecutive days campaigning at the polls, said he thinks his message resonated with voters.

“I’m really thrilled to continue as a commissioner for three years,” said Aijala, a retired Deloitte executive.

Ocean Ridge is facing challenges regarding how much improvement in handling water and sewage the town of 2,000 can afford.

Aijala said that although he’s owned a home in Ocean Ridge for just six years, and not had a role on the town’s governance committees, his executive experience was enough to win voters over.

“I think the residents looked at the challenges facing the town going forward and felt that me being here six years and not for 26 years is not relevant,” he said in a comparison with other candidates. “I think they felt that my background could bring a skill to the table.”

Hutchins said his conversations with voters as he campaigned left him with the impression that most are happy with the way the town is running. Still, replacing the town’s old water pipes is rising to the top of his priority list.

“I believe the figure to change out all the pipes would be prohibitive,” Hutchins said. “We have to work it into the budget as we can.”

The election follows a year of turmoil in Town Hall. Two commissioners resigned in early 2023 following a split vote on making then-acting Town Manager Lynne Ladner’s position permanent.

They were replaced by two others who resigned at the end of the year, one citing the state’s new financial disclosure requirements for elected municipal officials. The town’s police chief also resigned in 2023 to go to Gulf Stream.

Pugh, 61, who will have served 20 years on the commission by the time he ends his new term, said that he aims to keep things running steady.

“I think we have a good team and hopefully everything will be nice and quiet,” Pugh said.

Pugh, who owns a pool business, has presided over meetings as mayor the past year.

He will continue to do so. At its April 1 organizational meeting, the commission unanimously chose to re-up Mayor Pugh and Vice Mayor Steve Coz to their positions for another year. Town Clerk Kelly Avery announced the results of the secret balloting to applause from the crowd.

No to hate crimes — The recent rise of antisemitic acts on American soil following the eruption of violence in the Middle East prompted the Town Commission to reaffirm that all people should live free of discrimination, intimidation, threats and fear.

The March 4 resolution passed unanimously without comment, but resident Peter Wolf rose to thank the commission for its stand.

“The issue in the resolution is something that I thought in this day and age would never have to be discussed and yet it is something that must be discussed in my opinion,” Wolf said.

Beach trash piling up — The sight of trash spilling out of garbage receptacles at the beach has some town commissioners wanting to get rid of the contractor hired to take care of it.

Vice Mayor Steven Coz recounted at the March 4 meeting seeing a tarp, a broken board and a chair at one receptacle near his house one recent Saturday. “So there’s a mountain of trash,” he said. “I go down on Monday night and figure the guy will have come on Monday. No, he didn’t.  (That means) he didn’t pick up on Saturday, he doesn’t pick up on Sunday and he didn’t pick up on Monday.”

Town Manager Lynne Ladner said Ocean Ridge contracts with Cayco Landscaping of Oakland Park for the service. Commissioners said they would leave it up to her to see that the trash collection from the public receptacles improves.

Turtle Beach condo sign drama — The results of a Jan. 9 magistrate hearing regarding beach “No Trespassing” signs erected by the Turtle Beach of Ocean Ridge Condominium Association have been delayed as town officials plan to inspect the current setup and consider the association’s application for a sign permit.

Water pipe replacement contract approved — The first 3,000 linear feet of water piping are set to be replaced in the north end of town as the Town Commission at its April 1 meeting awarded a $2.5 million contract to Foster Marine to do the work. It’s the first chunk of 71,000 linear feet of pipe that the town plans on replacing.

— Anne Geggis

Some Democrats turned away because of confusion at polls

By Mary Thurwachter

Soon after the polls closed in Lantana on March 19, incumbent Mayor Karen Lythgoe joined friends at Lantana Pizza to celebrate her 653-385 win over newcomer George Velazquez.

“I’m relieved and I’m grateful that I get to keep working on what we’ve been working on,” Lythgoe, 64, said of the Town Council. “The five of us have got momentum going that I think is phenomenal. I think the town needs what we’re doing, we know what we’re doing, and I’m honored to be able to continue to be a part of it.”

She said she hadn’t slept for 24 hours and would be going home soon.

“I tossed and turned all night long and got up at 3:30 a.m. to start the day even though the alarm was set for 4:15 a.m.,” she said.

Lythgoe was sworn in during the March 25 Town Council meeting.

Election Day did not go without some chaos.

A handful of Democrats were turned away from voting in Lantana, as poll workers were apparently confused that registered voters of all stripes could cast a ballot in the nonpartisan mayoral election.

Lantana Town Clerk Kathleen Dominguez reports that six voters were turned away at the polls and a handful of others who initially were told they couldn’t vote were caught before they left the polling station and allowed to vote.

It’s not known how many of the six that left unable to vote returned later and were able to cast a ballot, Dominguez said.

An official with the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office said one voter called the Department of State in Tallahassee to complain.

Dominguez said the confusion appeared to be confined to two polling places — Maddock Park and Lantana Recreation Center.

Nonetheless, the complaint prompted Elections Supervisor Wendy Sartory Link to send out a notification to all the Lantana precincts clarifying that although there was not a Democratic presidential primary, Democrats were eligible to vote in municipal, nonpartisan election and should be given nonpartisan ballots. Link also came to town to help sort things out, Lythgoe said.

“There was some confusion either with the training or the field clerk,” Lythgoe said. “I am a registered Democrat and when I went to get my ballot for the mayoral race they had to converse and figure out if I was allowed to vote.”

Anne Geggis contributed to this story.

The Institute for Regional Conservation recently held an ecological restoration event at Atlantic Dunes Park in Delray Beach, which focused on coastal conservation education and invasive plant removal. With funding and support from the city of Delray Beach, more than 2,000 cubic feet of invasive Brazilian pepper, as well as snake plant and carrotwood throughout the park, were removed in under three hours. 

It also held an ecological restoration event at Red Reef Park in Boca Raton. A group of 24 volunteers and the institute’s staff worked to restore beach-dune and coastal-strand habitat within the park. With funds and support from the city of Boca Raton, 90 plants were restored. Included were 23 native coastal species such as the inkberry, beach clustervine and sea lavender.

To learn about other volunteer events ahead, check out the institute’s website at www.regionalconservation.org/ircs/Events.asp.