When a knee injury sidelined a Saint Andrew’s athlete, he tackled and conquered a new challenge: Bagpipes

Senior Chris D’Angelo leads the Saint Andrew’s football team onto the field in August while playing Scotland the Brave. While recovering from knee surgery, he learned a new skill, becoming an inspirational part of the team. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

On Oct. 15, 2024, Theo Loucas, a goalie on the lacrosse team at Saint Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, was scrolling through his phone in the athletic training room when a TikTok video stopped him.

In 1996, the University of Notre Dame had a lacrosse player named Sean Meehan who also played the bagpipes. When his teammates found out, they insisted he play them onto the field with Scotland the Brave.

 A tradition was born, and to this day a member of the Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team leads his teammates out, piping that rousing march.

Theo, who lives in Ocean Ridge, watched the TikTok video, and had an awesome idea.

His best friend, Chris D’Angelo, had messed up his knee really bad in a football game against Somerset Academy Key the day before. He wouldn’t be playing football or lacrosse for at least nine months, and the Saint Andrew’s lacrosse season would begin on Feb. 15, 2025.

“Hey, Chris,” Theo called to his friend, “do you think you could learn the bagpipes in four months?” 

Christopher D’Angelo, 17, is the captain of Saint Andrew’s lacrosse team. He is captain of its football team. He plays trumpet in the pep band. He has been a homecoming king. In ninth, 10th and 11th grades, he was the class president. This senior year, he’s the Student Government president over the whole school, and if that school had a Mr. Saint Andrew’s, he would no doubt be that, too.

“He’s an absolutely outstanding young man and a great student,” says Tony Seaman, the head lacrosse coach. “He does anything he says he’s going to do.”

•

In an essay for his ethics class on the topic, “A Story That Shaped You,” Chris described the football injury he suffered:

“It was the district championship game. Third down in the red zone, everything on the line. The crowd was roaring, and the lights were shining on me like a Broadway play. We needed to score here.

“I lined up at left tackle, locked in and ready to go. I kick-stepped back into pass protection. Then I planted and reset my feet and just like that I heard a pop. I felt it and heard it at the same time. A snap in my knee. My leg buckled and I went down. The most pain I’ve ever been in. For a second, everything blurred. The crowd noise faded, my helmet started to get tighter pressing into the grass. I knew right away this wasn’t just a ‘just going to put ice on it’ scenario.”
Saint Andrew’s defeated Somerset Academy Key that day, 35-8.

Weight training takes on added importance as Chris D’Angelo strengthens his scarred left knee and gets back into football shape.

The pipes are calling

Chris considered Theo’s challenge.

Saint Andrew’s School is named for the patron saint of Scotland. Its sports teams are the Scots. In years past, bagpipes had been part of the music program. They’re heard at graduations, chapel and homecoming.

Could he learn Scotland the Brave for the opening game of the lacrosse season only four months away?

When life hands you a lemon, they say, make lemonade.

Football had handed Chris D’Angelo’s left knee a torn ACL and meniscus, so he would make music instead.

After all, he thought, how hard could it be?

•

On Oct. 16, 2024, two days after the injury, Chris approached Emily Nichols, the school’s director of symphonic and advanced bands.

“Notre Dame does this cool thing,” he told her. “Do you think I could learn to pipe?”

Nichols jokes that she can make any instrument sound like she knows what she’s doing. Except the bagpipes.

“How about you play reveille on your trumpet?” she suggested.

But Chris was insistent, so she called Bill Paul, who had taught the pipes back when they were part of the school’s music program.

“It takes years,” Paul told her, but he agreed to meet the boy.

When his new bagpipes arrived in the mail, Chris sent Nichols a video of himself.

“He was making some kind of sound,” she recalled with a smile.

D’Angelo marches on the streets and docks of his Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club neighborhood in Boca Raton to practice playing bagpipes. He says the timing with his feet is important.

Taming ’a wild animal’

Pat Crowley played bagpipes with the Palm Beach Pipes & Drums for 25 years.

“The melody isn’t all that complicated,” he explains. “It’s nine notes. Once you get the balancing between the air and squeezing the bag to disperse the air, it’s a rhythm. But it does take upper body and arm strength. I set my pipes down four years ago, and I just wanted to die when I picked them up again. It’s like having a wild animal tucked under your armpit.”

•

Chris did not come to the bagpipes as a complete musical neophyte. In third grade, the school let him try out instruments to choose the one he wanted to learn.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, “what do you think about the tuba?”

Mom said, “No.”

He moved on to the trumpet, which he’s played for nine years. He knows how to finger a wind instrument, and he can read music.

Now he set to work taming the wild animal tucked under his armpit.

“With the trumpet, you blow air into the mouthpiece and sound comes out,” he discovered. “With the bagpipes, you blow air into the mouthpiece, it goes into the bag, and then you have to squeeze the bag, the sound comes out and you have to finger the notes while marching in step.”

•

On Oct. 29, Chris had surgery on his injured left knee at Boca Raton Regional Hospital.

“I was really nervous because I’d never had surgery before,” he recalled. “They had to give me some extra calm-drug, and then it was 10, 9, 8, and I was out.”

The surgery lasted two hours, followed by crutches for four weeks, then a brace, and physical therapy three times a week for 11 months.

When Bill Paul begged off more lessons for health reasons, Chris kept practicing. He couldn't march, so he lay on the couch with his leg up, until he could walk again. Then he practiced at home until bedtime.

“My dad was definitely bothered by it,” he says, “but Mom was very supportive.”

Chris has two brothers. Nicholas is 19 and attends Boca Raton Community High School. Matthew, 14, is a freshman at Saint Andrew’s.

“He would wake me up at 10:30 or 11 at night,” Matthew recalled. “Morning and night he’d march right into my room and not even knock.”

On weekends, Chris marched up and down his street in the Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club.

“The neighbors loved it,” he recalled. “Old people said, ‘You’re getting better,’ and then they’d go back inside.”

•

And he did get better.

He mastered a recognizable Scotland the Brave and moved on to Amazing Grace. And then Tartan Tapestries, a piece commissioned by the school’s arts foundation and composed in 2016 by Larry Clark, who specializes in musical arrangements for schools and universities.

“The hardest part is the lung capacity,” Chris said. “It takes a lot of air, and the timing with your feet. Every step is a different note.”

Did he ever despair?

“The lacrosse team told me, ‘You got this. Keep going.’”

D’Angelo leads the Saint Andrew’s football team onto the field in September while playing Scotland the Brave. He did the same for the lacrosse team earlier in the year while his knee was recovering. 

Chris the Brave

The goal had been to lead his teammates onto the field for the opening game of the lacrosse season. But he beat it.

Two weeks before that game, he’d been practicing with a friend when the Rev. Ben Anthony, the school’s chaplain, asked if he could play in the chapel.

On Feb. 4, 2025, he led the processional for the weekly Tuesday Mass. His public debut was not Scotland the Brave, but Amazing Grace.

Scotland the Brave arrived that same afternoon, when he led the girls’ lacrosse team onto the field.

“For being nervous, I think I sounded pretty good,” he said.

•

When the 2025 boys’ lacrosse season began on Feb. 15, Chris did not play lacrosse. He played the bagpipes.

“On game day, I put on my jersey, tuned the pipes and walked my team out playing Scotland the Brave. I didn’t touch the ball once that season, but in that moment, when I physically couldn’t play, I had never felt more connected to the team.”

•

And what about Theo Loucas, who threw out the bagpipe challenge that October day in the training room? Did he really believe Chris would meet his goal?

“Not until he actually said he was taking a lesson and started practicing,” Theo said. “But that’s the guy Chris is. He’s been my best friend since seventh grade, and he’s a go-getter.”

•

On Monday, Sept. 15, Chris returned to the football field for his first game since his injury nearly a year earlier.

“I played the second and third quarters,” he reported the next day in the midst of another physical therapy session. “I wanted to limit myself the first game back, and to be honest I was really nervous. I was sweating even before going in, but then after that, I just thought, if I’m scared and nervous, that’s how I’ll get hurt.

“I made a couple good blocks. I didn’t let anyone through, and that’s my job, so I did my job.”

Saint Andrew’s beat Saint John Paul II Academy, 47-8.

D’Angelo (second from left), a senior captain, lines up at guard on Sept. 19 for his second game in five days, marking his return from the knee injury he sustained almost a year earlier. He had limited playing time and wore extra support on his legs. The Scots beat North Broward Prep, 31-9.

•

Next May, Chris D’Angelo will graduate, leaving the school he’s attended since kindergarten, and leaving its lacrosse and football teams without a bagpiper to lead them onto the field.

At Notre Dame, when a piper graduates, he chooses a younger member of the men’s lacrosse team to carry on the tradition.

Matthew D’Angelo is a freshman at Saint Andrew’s, and a member of the junior varsity lacrosse team.

“Hearing Chris practice was a little annoying at first,” he reflected one afternoon as he watched his brother pipe the football team onto the field.

“But the bagpipes are definitely exciting and fun. I also want to learn.” 

Rebuild underway after salt corroded inferior fasteners 

Damaged wood and corroded fasteners are now exposed on the structure. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Musgrave

Since Delray Beach built its first beachside pavilion more than a century ago, the popular gathering spot has been damaged, destroyed or washed out to sea by deadly hurricanes.

But, its latest iteration, built in 2013, came to a far less dramatic end. Its downfall was a simple human mistake.

The iconic pavilion at the end of East Atlantic Avenue is being rebuilt at a cost of $817,400 because the wrong fasteners were used to hold it together and it began falling apart, said Cynthia Buisson, the city’s assistant director of public works.

Instead of top-grade 316 stainless steel fasteners, a lower quality was used. 

“The previous engineers thought it would be sufficient, but obviously that turned out not to be the case,” she said.

In the 12 years since the $249,000 pavilion was built, the salt air wreaked havoc on the substandard screws and bolts. While the lumber held up well and will be reused, corrosion that defied coats of rust inhibitors threatened the integrity of the building.

“We’d been keeping an eye on it,” Buisson said. Ultimately, it was clear it had to go.

“It’s heartbreaking to me,” she said. “I hate to see inefficiency. But some things don’t work out the way you want them to.”

Participants in a series of history tours sponsored by the Delray Beach Historical Society gather last winter at the beach pavilion. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star 

A top priority

Like its predecessors, the 2013 pavilion was built with community support. 

In 2009, the Beach Property Owners Association held a series of public meetings to develop a beach master plan. Residents agreed their top priority was replacing a small rotting pavilion that had been built in 1984.

Looking at postcards of the pavilion’s glory years, they said they wanted the new pavilion to mirror the picket-fence Americana style of the one that had been built in 1929, complete with the green-striped roof.

Architect Bob Currie, whose mark is on many Delray Beach landmarks, agreed to design the pavilion for free. “This will be pretty nice. It’s got some character to it,” Currie told The Palm Beach Post in 2011. Currie, a member of the association’s board, died in 2019.

But, even with Currie’s gift, plans for the pavilion stalled. City officials said no construction money was available.

Hoping to jump-start the project, the BPOA began raising money. It held a $100-a-person benefit concert at Old School Square, featuring seven Delray Beach area bands. Local businesses kicked in as well.

Ultimately, $60,000 was raised. The city contributed the rest and finally construction began.

Historic community support

Such a grassroots effort was nothing new. The first pavilion, built between 1902 and 1912, was funded by donations from the Ladies Improvement Association, said Tom Warnke, archive coordinator at the Delray Beach Historical Society.

When it was destroyed by the 1928 hurricane, one of the deadliest on record, Delray Beach residents began pushing for a replacement.

But the Great Depression hit. City coffers were bare. So, residents and businesses, led by the local Kiwanis Club, raised the $720 needed to make the new pavilion a reality.

It lasted until 1947 when it was washed out to sea by a hurricane. A smaller one was built in 1950, Warnke said.

It was replaced in 1984 with one that was modeled after the Orange Grove House of Refuge. The first known building in Delray Beach, it was an overnight stop for the “Barefoot Mailman” on his delivery route up and down the coast.

Delray Beach residents enjoy the pavilion at an event in 1916. Photo provided by the Delray Beach Historical Society 

Beach improvements

Buisson said she didn’t know why the correct fasteners weren’t used 12 years ago. Those who were involved in the project no longer work for the city and records aren’t available.

Still, she acknowledged, the building should have lasted at least 20 years, possibly longer. And, while Buisson can’t control Mother Nature, the one now under construction won’t suffer a similar fate, she said.

If all goes as planned, the new pavilion should open in March.

In the meantime, other improvements are underway along the beach. By the end of October, city officials said they expected to have installed new concrete benches at 17 beach access points along with new showers and drinking fountains.

Bob Victorin, a longtime president of the property owner association, said he is glad the city is replacing the pavilion that his group worked to make possible.

“I’m just glad they are rebuilding it to make it safe,” he said. 

Contractor failed to curtail invasive pests, town says

This AI image was displayed at Manalapan Town Hall during a discussion about using a Police Department sharpshooter to cull iguanas. The town’s mascot is a heron. Image provided

 By John Pacenti

Let’s face it: It’s the iguanas’ world; we just live in it.

The South Florida iguana invasion is quite impressive. 
With apparently few predators save for birds of prey and the occasional house cat, the lizards have set up shop in municipalities throughout Palm Beach County and the rest of the region.

As a result, cities and towns have had to wrestle with how to control the reptile population. 

Unless our eyes deceive us, they are losing the war.

“They do cause a lot of property damage to docks, banks and areas that they like to burrow,” said Manalapan Police Chief Jeff Rasor.

Manalapan commissioners decided at their Sept. 22 meeting to shift the burden from a private company — which officials said wasn’t helping much — to the Police Department. Police will task their top sharpshooter to use a pellet gun to shoot the critters on sight.

Talk about cold-blooded. “I think we will do a better job than hiring an outside company,” Rasor said.

Giving police the ability to go hand-to-hand with the iguanas makes more sense than one might think at first blush. It’s not like officers will be driving down State Road A1A taking aim out of the driver’s side windows of their squad cars when an iguana is sighted.

First off, let’s talk about the problem with using a private contractor. The wily iguanas — they are particularly plentiful on Point Manalapan — would just move onto private property when they were being hunted. 

Worse, residents saw men with what looked like long guns lurking around their homes.

“We get calls all the time because some people think that they’re out there with an AR-15, but they’re really out there with an AR — with an air rifle — exterminating,” Rasor said.

The commission’s discussion on the issue was lighthearted while recognizing the iguanas are a menace that need to be addressed. There was even an illustration, created using AI, displayed on the overhead screen that showed a young cowboy abreast a heron — the town’s mascot — trying to lasso smiling iguanas. 

And, as Chief Rasor said, they do cause a lot more damage than just trimming grass. A single iguana can lay as many as 50 eggs, he said.

The iguana young are ravenous, easily taking down a large hibiscus in just days. 

The lizards are not native to Florida but were introduced to the state as stowaways on cargo ships and through the pet trade, starting in the 1960s. 

Rasor said he will put his best shooter on the mission: Sgt. Tracey Merritt. He is the department’s firearms range master and expert.

Merritt will be in uniform, so that should put residents at ease when they see him with the air rifle. The town is sending an email to homeowners asking if they want to "opt in" to the new iguana eradication program.

Vice Mayor Simone Bonutti suggested that bulletins be put up at the guard house leading into Point Manalapan so residents know when an officer is on iguana duty. She also suggested that one day a week could be designated as iguana hunting day.

Bonutti also said her dogs may be of help. “What if the dogs get ’em? My dogs bring me one every day,” she said. 

By John Pacenti

Ocean Ridge commissioners passed a $14.8 million operating budget smoothly on Sept. 15 — a contrast to recent years, where elected officials clashed with the town manager and the math didn’t add up.

But Ocean Ridge is in the Michelle Heiser era, the new town manager brought on in May.

The budget, though, is hefty by Ocean Ridge standards, representing a 9.6% increase over the Fiscal Year 2025 budget. It is also more than $1 million higher than what Heiser originally proposed back in July.

The budget includes $4.36 million allocated for capital projects, with a notable focus on infrastructure improvements, including potential design and construction of changes to the town's aging water pipe system in the southern part of town to address hydrant-related challenges.

All this will be done with 4.7% less revenue, in part because of the sunsetting of a local sales tax initiative that expires in December, Heiser said. Gov. Ron DeSantis also vetoed a $600,000 state grant for the town’s water main replacement program.

Operating expenses have increased by 7%, driven by contract obligations, insurance costs, and utility expenses.

Which brings us to property taxes — the money coming directly from residents and businesses. Let’s play good news, bad news.

The good news is that the tax rate will stay the same, at $5.40 per $1,000 of taxable property value. The town is using almost $2 million from its reserves to balance the budget and cover the added capital projects.

The bad news is that residents' taxes are still going up, thanks to a 10.14% increase in property values.

Homesteaded properties won’t see more than a 3% increase thanks to the Save Our Homes state law. The increase for commercial properties and non-homesteaded residential properties is capped at 10%.

Heiser said the extra $1 million added to the budget from estimates in July is due to the commission's decision to address the water main issue and an emergency caused by poor hydrant pressure along State Road A1A from Ocean Avenue south to Thompson Street.

In July, she said, a $13.3 million budget estimate for 2025-2026 fiscal year reflected that the town was just going to design what is called Phase 4 of the project, but now shovels will pierce the ground in January.

Jon Pearlman (center,front) and other Save Boca supporters bring petitions to Boca Raton City Hall on Sept. 23 to give to the city clerk. The petitions seek a vote on a city charter change regarding the sale or lease of city property. Photo provided by Save Boca

Ideas to downsize don’t sway critics

Related: Voters to be asked to OK financing of new police headquarters

By Mary Hladky

Despite Terra and Frisbie Group’s substantial revisions to its plans for redeveloping Boca Raton’s downtown campus, resident opposition has reached fever pitch.

United under the banner of Save Boca, opponents have brushed aside Terra/Frisbie’s downsizing of the project — designed to overcome their objections — and insist that it should be scrapped entirely.

The city, they say, should assume control and finance limited changes itself.

They want no part of residential and office buildings on the city-owned 30 acres where City Hall and the Community Center now sit.

Instead, they say the city should simply rebuild both old, crumbling buildings and keep the existing recreational facilities on the site.

The sustained pressure, with overflow crowds of residents speaking up at every council meeting, has yielded wins for Save Boca.

The City Council fast-tracked the project earlier this year after deeming it the top city priority, and set Oct. 28 as the date to approve a master agreement with Terra/Frisbie.

The council on Sept. 8 postponed that vote indefinitely.

“I think it is clear we will not have an Oct. 28 vote on this matter,” Mayor Scott Singer said.

What will voters decide?
Council members also acceded to Save Boca’s demand that voters should decide the fate of the project.

They directed City Attorney Joshua Koehler to draft a referendum question that will appear on the March 10 city election ballot.

“The council has already said there will be a vote,” Singer reiterated at the Sept. 22 meeting. “We will have a vote.”

Terra/Frisbie has voiced no objection. “We welcome that process,” Frisbie Group principal Rob Frisbie said on Sept. 8.

“We are not trying to force this on anyone. We are trying to collaboratively design something that is truly in the best interest of the community.”

The council acted after it became obvious that Save Boca would be able to gather enough resident signatures on petitions to force the city to allow a vote.

Save Boca wants ballot questions on a city ordinance change and a city charter change. Both would not allow the council to lease or sell any city-owned land greater than one-half acre without a vote. The city wants to lease its land for 99 years to Terra/Frisbie.

Residents have their say
The council made the tactical retreat after hearing withering criticism from residents who have packed city meetings.

“Get these people out of here,” Save Boca organizer Jon Pearlman said of Terra/Frisbie officials on Sept. 8. “We don’t want to see them anymore.”

Council members weren’t spared in the scorching.

“Three minutes is hardly enough to express my disgust,” said Richard Warner about the time allotted to speakers. “For you, the council, to be this tone deaf? I don’t get it. Nobody wants this.”

“The fundamental problem here is we don’t trust you,” Becky Tucker told the council.

If the project has any significant support, it is not readily apparent. Only a handful have spoken in favor at council meetings or on social media.

A majority of council members still favor redevelopment through a public-private partnership, although they say they are open to additional changes to respond to residents’ concerns.

Singer described the plan as “evolving” in a Sept. 29 email to residents.

Only Council member Andy Thomson is opposed, and has repeatedly voiced that for months. He wants to terminate negotiations with Terra/Frisbie for a master agreement and says the project is too dense and has been pushed forward too rapidly.

He also has insisted that residents should have the final say at the ballot box, and that the council suspend any action to move ahead with the partnership unless a majority of voters endorse the project.

Lots of revisions
Terra/Frisbie’s revamped redevelopment plan, presented on Sept. 8, reduces the project’s density and preserves more green and recreation space.

The changes would come at substantial cost to the city.

Under the original plan, the project would have generated $3.1 billion for the city over the span of the 99-year land lease. That now would drop to $2.1 billion, according to Terra/Frisbie calculations.

Now eliminated are a hotel and one office building and one residential building.

The number of residential units, which Terra/Frisbie had decreased earlier, are downsized again from 912 to 740.

Retail square footage has dropped from about 140,000 square feet to 80,000.

Eight clay tennis courts will remain on site and the number could increase to 10. Other recreation facilities have been incorporated into the plan.

Terra/Frisbie no longer will move two of the site’s large banyan trees, a process the trees might not have survived. All six of the existing banyans will be preserved, and a children’s playground will be located near five of the trees.

To counter criticism that Terra/Frisbie’s plan would dishonor fallen World War II veterans, the 17 acres within the site known as Memorial Park would include a monument to them.

Veterans groups would help design it.

Terra/Frisbie has proposed that the former Children’s Museum, which was housed in a historic building, remain on site. The city had planned to move it to Meadows Park.

A 200-by-300-foot multi-purpose field would now be included on the site, which could accommodate a host of activities.

Another feature would be a mobility hub that would include electric vehicle chargers, bicycle racks and a ride share location.

Flexing their muscles
Save Boca has not credited Terra/Frisbie for any of the changes and has continued to find fault.

For example, some of its supporters complained that while the six banyans will be saved, other less significant trees will be cut down.

All the while, their efforts are infused with high drama.

They cheered wildly when Pearlman dramatically strode to the podium on Aug. 26 to hand over to the city clerk a tall stack of signed petitions for the ordinance change.

A similar scene unfolded on Sept. 23 when Pearlman and a group of supporters marched into City Hall to drop off two banker’s boxes full of signed petitions for the charter change.

As Pearlman called city clerk office employees to tell them that he was delivering more petitions, supporters cheered in triumph.

Save Boca now has met the requirements for a ballot question on the city ordinance change.

Save Boca collected 5,200 signed petitions and needed 3,676 valid signatures to qualify for inclusion on the ballot. On Sept. 22, Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link certified 3,689, or just barely enough.

The next day, Save Boca members submitted to the clerk about 7,700 signed petitions for the charter change. They need 6,112 valid signatures.
Link’s office is now reviewing them to determine how many are valid.

Save Boca prefers the charter change because the City Council could repeal its ordinance. Only another vote could reverse a charter change.

Pearlman has wanted both the ordinance and charter change considered in a special election to be held as soon as possible after all the ballots are certified.

But Link’s office said that the supervisor is not able to schedule a special election before March 10, the long-standing date for the city’s election when residents will vote for a new mayor and on two City Council races.

So, barring some other development, that is when voters will get their say.

Terra/Frisbie is gathering additional feedback from residents. It held a public meeting at the the Studio atg Mizner Park on Sept. 29 and will hold another one at the Spanish River Library from 4 to 7 p.m. Oct. 6.

Frisbie said the developers plan a “reset” and will revise their plans by taking into account what residents want to see.

“The goal is to bring everyone together,” he said at the Sept. 29 session.

Residents had the chance to speak directly with the Terra/Frisbie team. They were engaged and cordial and their comments ran the gamut.

Many want recreational space preserved on site. Others feared the project would increase traffic, asked that the area become more walkable, or said they opposed adding tall buildings.

Frisbie estimated that the plans could be revamped yet again by mid-October.

The summer of ’25 will be remembered as a time when the heat — political heat, that is — reached a boiling point along the coast here.

In Delray Beach, impatient Florida officials demanded the city remove its colorful Pride intersection in downtown’s Pineapple Grove, originally installed as a memorial to the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.

Florida Department of Transportation workers (who had already painted over a similar memorial outside of Pulse in August) rushed in again to do the job in Delray Beach in September when the city didn’t move fast enough.

In Boca Raton, meanwhile, residents mounted a successful petition drive — that may force a referendum — after they felt the City Council turned a deaf ear to their concerns about a massive public-private project moving forward downtown using city-owned property.

Delray Beach officials bristled at the bullying tactics the state used over the city’s intersection. They demanded, unsuccessfully, a fair hearing and reluctantly cried “Uncle” when it became clear the state was the state and was going to do whatever it damn-well pleased — and woe to anyone standing in its way.

Boca Raton residents bristled as well at their government leaders, but they weren’t in Delray Beach’s helpless state. They demanded a vote on the future of city-owned properties — and collected signatures to get it on the ballot, probably in March.

What happens next as autumn settles in? This is South Florida, after all, where the heat tends to linger. 

Delray Beach officials are looking now for another way to honor the Pulse victims, acknowledge the city’s LGBTQ residents and show everyone that Delray Beach remains a welcoming city.

There are ideas about what could be done, including renaming part of Northeast First Street as Pride Street or hanging rainbow banners from downtown lamp posts.

Whatever is decided, I hope part of it focuses on the Pride intersection itself. Not on the pavement where the state made its stand, but alongside it or above it — some fitting rebuke to the state’s overreach.

As for Boca Raton, officials there have some big decisions coming up. They have said the proposed referendum would be draconian and have far-reaching negative consequences if approved. It would require a taxpayer-financed city election anytime there’s a planned sale or lease of virtually any city-owned property — anything more than a half-acre in size.

Terra and Frisbie Group, the developer for the city’s downtown campus project that also includes a new City Hall and Community Center, has made changes that would reduce the project’s density and increase its park space, but they are still nowhere close to overcoming residents’ objections. 

Boca Raton should determine the best plan it sees for its 30-acre campus, which now includes the 17-acre Memorial Park, and put it on the same ballot as the petition referendum. That would give voters the say they want on the downtown project — and maybe make them more receptive to the city’s concerns about the petition referendum. 

But city officials may discover they haven’t done enough to turn down the heat, with residents’ frustrations still at the boiling point. 

A tie-the-city’s-hands-forever referendum may be exactly what residents desire. They saw how the state was ruthless in using its power in Delray Beach. They may want that same kind of power for themselves when it comes to decisions about their city’s future. 

— Larry Barszewski,
Editor

Hailey Clark, a marine biology student at Florida Atlantic University and a Coastal Stewards volunteer, releases the group’s last turtle patient into the ocean on July 10. The patient is Sparrow, a green sea turtle. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Gumbo Limbo’s sea turtle rehab may never return

By Steve Plunkett

Citing “ongoing financial challenges,” the Coastal Stewards, a nonprofit that started out more than 40 years ago as the volunteer Friends of Gumbo Limbo in Boca Raton, has dissolved itself.

The move came three months after the group on June 12 barred the public from its sea turtle rehabilitation area at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and shuttered its gift shop there.

It transferred or released 12 recuperating sea turtles and let its final turtle patient return to the ocean off Red Reef Park on July 10.

City staff is now recommending other uses for Gumbo Limbo’s rehab space.

“My heart is so sad that this group fell apart,” said Michele Peel, a former president of the former Friends.

“Gordon Gilbert would be devastated, I suspect,” she added, referring to the Boca Raton High School teacher who took science students to the beach, founded the nature center in the early 1980s and served on the Friends board of trustees.

In a Sept. 12 news release, the nonprofit said it would give 75% of its assets to the George Snow Scholarship Fund to endow a Coastal Stewards scholarship.

The remaining dollars were split among the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon and the Marine Animal Rescue Society in Miami, it said.

When the Coastal Stewards decided to close the turtle rehab unit, it had $1,000,012 left in its bank accounts, down from $3.7 million the group reported having in assets to the IRS in 2020 under its former name.

“While this decision is bittersweet, the trustees felt strongly that the best way to honor our history and preserve our mission was through a lasting legacy,” said Shivani Gupta, a corporate wellness speaker and one of the group’s trustees since late 2023. “These gifts to the George Snow Scholarship Fund and several of our valued nonprofit partners will ensure that commitment lives on.”

Merchandise left over from gift store operations was donated to the Sandoway Discovery Center in Delray Beach and Friends of MacArthur Beach State Park Inc., in North Palm Beach, the group said.

Earlier, it had donated turtle hospital equipment to Loggerhead and commissary items and furniture back to the city.

New approaches
On Sept. 3, meanwhile, two former Gumbo Limbo workers opened a “behind-the-scenes” hospital for sick or injured sea turtles at the Palm Beach Zoo in West Palm Beach.

And in an August memo to the City Council, then-City Manager George Brown urged that the city discontinue sea turtle rehab and veterinary hospital operations at Gumbo Limbo “and instead repurpose the former hospital/rehab space to expand marine education exhibits and enhance public programming.”

That expansion might eventually include installing a shark and stingray tank, he said.

Driving Brown’s recommendation: a proposal from the Loggerhead Marinelife Center that it open a satellite rehab center at Gumbo Limbo in return for a $750,000 annual subsidy from Boca Raton.

Council members have not publicly discussed Brown’s ideas.

His memo also discussed the search for someone to reopen the popular gift shop at Gumbo Limbo. Deerfield Beach-based surf shop Island Water Sports “expressed interest in the retail opportunity,” Brown wrote, and the city then issued a Request for Letter of Interest to qualified vendors.

The city is just now evaluating responses to the request.

Programs still in place
The closure of the Coastal Stewards rehab center did not affect Gumbo Limbo’s three “resident” sea turtles housed in outdoor tanks, which remain on display and available for public viewing because they could not survive being released. Also still open are the city-run turtle nesting and hatchling programs, youth camps and community education, the butterfly garden, boardwalk and observation tower.

The ex-city employees at the new West Palm Beach turtle hospital, Whitney Crowder and Emily Mercier, lost their jobs at Gumbo Limbo in March 2023 as Boca Raton transitioned turtle care at the city-operated nature center to the Coastal Stewards.

Along with fellow Boca Raton resident Samantha Clark, they started their own nonprofit, Sea Turtle Care and Conservation Specialists LLC, two years ago.

“Our hospital isn’t open to the public, but that won’t stop us from bringing you along on this journey. We’ll be sharing patient updates, recovery stories, and moments of hope, while also connecting with so many of you at our outreach events,” the group said on Facebook.

It also has a website, careandconservation.org.

Leaving a void
The nonprofit Coastal Stewards shifted from being strictly volunteer-run in 2020, hiring John Holloway as its president and chief executive officer to guide the transition.

Holloway’s salary was $122,323 in 2023, according to Internal Revenue Service records.

Peel, the past Friends president, said the city from the start “didn’t really want rehab,” which was added to the mix in 2010.

“I got questions like, ‘if a sea turtle in rehab came from a beach in Delray, shouldn’t we charge Delray for its care?’” she recalled. “They also questioned why Friends should fund education and scholarships of children who were not city residents.”

Peel praised the Snow fund for administering Gumbo Limbo scholarships for years. “But donating all their assets to Snow seems to be a violation of donors’ wishes,” she said.

And, she added, “Who is funding the (field trip) busing for the less fortunate school kids? Friends used to do that.”

She foresees someone starting a more volunteer-friendly group to fill the void left by the Coastal Stewards.

“There will likely be a new nonprofit, styled like the Friends of the Library, with little real activities of their own. And that’s a good thing,” Peel said. “It will never be as strong as the Friends of GLNC was because times have changed. Boca isn’t the little city it was in the 1980s when a handshake was how you did business.” 

By Mary Hladky

Save Boca’s battle against the city’s plans to redevelop 30 city-owned acres in the downtown campus now has impacted city politics.

Save Boca supporter Meredith Madsen is challenging incumbent Boca Raton City Council member Marc Wigder in the March 10 city election.

Madsen, founder and CEO of Sunshine & Glitter, which sells sunscreen products, has spoken out against the city’s plans to redevelop the downtown campus in partnership with Terra and Frisbie Group.

Residents “are telling you, please, let’s fix the things we have. Let’s make better parks. But we do not want you giving away our land to developers…,“ she said at the council’s Aug. 26 meeting.

In an interview, Madsen said she was propelled to seek a council seat because most council members are proving to be poor stewards of the city’s land.

“We need to protect the town from seemingly endless development,” she said.

She is opposing Wigder — who she said seems like a “nice guy” and wants to do “civic good” — because he “is always on the side of development.”

Rather than team up with developers who will profit from redeveloping the property, the city should pay the cost of rebuilding the government buildings where they now sit and scrap plans for residential and office buildings, she said.

Like many residents, Madsen said she was unaware of the scope of what the city was planning, and only learned the details because she plays tennis at the city’s tennis center next to City Hall and the Community Center. Tennis advocates have pressed the city to maintain 10 clay courts on the downtown campus.

The election is shaping up to be contentious.

Deputy Mayor Fran Nachlas and Council member Andy Thomson are facing off to become the next mayor, replacing Scott Singer, who is term-limited from running again. Joining them in that race is perennial candidate Bernard Korn.

Korn and former candidate Christen Ritchey are vying for Nachlas’ seat.

Former City Council member Robert Weinroth is seeking Thomson’s seat.

In addition, there will be a referendum on the ballot on funding a new police headquarters and one or more questions allowing residents to have a say related to the proposed redevelopment of the city’s downtown campus. 

Robert Certilman of Highland Beach teamed up with Big Brothers Big Sisters in August to take children shopping for school supplies and clothing, spending about $12,000. He contacted the local chapter because he wanted to continue a practice he started in New York. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Robert Certilman saw the need in his community firsthand while living on Long Island.

During a Christmas party he sponsored for children served by the local Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, he noticed a little girl in tattered jeans that were on the brink of being unwearable. 

“I said, ‘How would it be if I sponsored 50 kids and we took them shopping?’” Certilman recalled.

That was the beginning of a tradition that Certilman, the retired owner of a couple of car dealerships up North, is carrying forward in Florida. 

A recent transplant to Highland Beach, he teamed up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Palm Beach and Martin Counties in August to take 80 kids shopping for school supplies and clothing. 

Certilman initiated the shopping spree with an unexpected call to the local organization. 

“I called them up and told them I wanted to take kids in need to buy school supplies and clothing and help them succeed in school by feeling good about themselves,” he said. 

Each child, who was accompanied by a parent or Big Brother or Sister, was given a gift card worth $150 and then sent shopping for clothes and supplies. 

Certilman would often be close by, checking in with the shoppers and learning more about what they had gathered. 

“The kids would show me what they got,” he said. 

Being there was an important part of the day, Certilman said. 

“Anyone can write a check, but it’s more effective to have a conversation with the kids,” he said. “I get satisfaction out of seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces.”

The financial support for the shopping spree from the former owner of Honda and Acura dealerships was much appreciated by leaders of the local Big Brothers Big Sisters chapter.  

“The back-to-school season often brings added pressure for many families but thanks to Robert’s support, our ‘Littles’ this year started with not only the supplies they need but also a sense of excitement,” said Yvette Flores Acevedo, the CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Palm Beach and Martin Counties. 

Big Brothers Big Sisters provides children facing adversity, ages 6 to 18, with volunteer mentors who serve as positive role models. In the past year, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Palm Beach and Martin Counties has served 446 children, and the organization is seeking adult volunteers to be mentors. 

For Certilman, who supported several causes in New York and now supports a few other organizations in Florida in addition to Big Brothers Big Sisters, said helping those in need is something he enjoys. 

“It feels good,” he said. 

His advice to others is to find something you love and then support it. 

“It doesn’t matter how you support it, as long as you support it,” he said.

Certilman says that he’s glad he is in a position to help others. 

“I feel fortunate and blessed with what I’ve accomplished and this helps complete the circle,” he said. 

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By John Pacenti

Animal Farm and 1984 author George Orwell once wrote, “There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all.”

When it came to the Delray Beach LGBTQ Pride rainbow intersection, the city showed plenty of fight — putting it in the spotlight as it pushed back against Gov. Ron DeSantis’ edict to erase its symbol of inclusion and tolerance.

DeSantis may have won the battle by using the cover of night for his Department of Transportation to paint over the intersection, but the right-wing governor — who has also targeted the LGBTQ community on other issues — may have lost the war.

Civic engagement was off the charts when it came to the intersection of Northeast Second Avenue and Northeast First Street in downtown’s Pineapple Grove. The haters stayed home. And members of the LGBTQ community showed they are organized and more than ready to stand up for themselves in these times.

“If Gov. DeSantis believed that by literally destroying and covering over public art celebrating the queer community would diminish us, he has clearly failed,” said Rand Hoch, president and founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council.

A feud over art
Municipalities in urban areas started to dedicate intersections or crosswalks to the LGBTQ community after 49 people were gunned down at Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016.

The Delray Beach intersection, with $16,000 from the Human Rights Council, was painted in Pride flag colors in 2021.

In July, DeSantis’ Florida Department of Transportation ordered cities to paint over them, claiming they were unsafe, even though studies showed intersections with public art are generally safer than typical intersections.

The governor’s move backfired spectacularly as FDOT, to treat other such intersections equally, had to paint over all artistic roadway art — like the iconic checkered flag crosswalks near Daytona International Speedway.

In Delray Beach, it was a roller-coaster ride as the LGBTQ community and its allies came out in force during commission meetings and the elected leaders decided to fight the FDOT order in August and exhaust administrative remedies.

There were two special commission meetings in September on the issue, which also spilled over into the commission’s two regular monthly meetings, as television news crews covered Mayor Tom Carney and company like a sporting event.

Commissioners voted on Sept. 9 to file a petition, as Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale had done, to challenge the new state policy — only to pivot and consider other ways to honor the LGBTQ community once the FDOT crews sandblasted and painted over the intersection after their botched first try.

Community reaction
Now the commission is considering other symbolic gestures, such as wrapping light poles in Pride colors, putting a plaque up at the intersection and bathing the water tower in rainbow lights.

“The municipalities where queer public art was destroyed by DeSantis will replace them with bigger, bolder and brighter tributes to the queer community,” Hoch said.

Vice Mayor Rob Long, who made the intersection a public cause, said there was not one speaker who opposed the intersection who came out to commission meetings.

“I thought for sure there’d be a counter protest or something that would happen, there’d be some sort of reaction. And the fact that there was not, it was actually amazing,” Long said.

The critics lurked on community forums dedicated to Delray Beach, posting on the intersection, saying the intersection issue overshadowed their efforts to mourn the death of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed at a college campus event he was headlining.

“We saw more public engagement on this issue than we’ve ever seen, and every single person who got up and spoke about it was in support of freedom of expression and the LGBTQ community,” Long said. “All the haters, all the people who were against it, it just proved their cowardice.”

Commissioner Juli Casale said the issue allowed residents to engage with their government. “Getting involved with how your government operates, especially on a local level, is encouraged,” she said.

In the cover of night
DeSantis struck after Delray Beach filed an administrative motion following a Sept. 2 FDOT hearing in Orlando, with the city seeking the disqualification of FDOT’s presiding officer who had heard the appeal. The city noted communications that showed bias on the part of the hearing officer.

During an overnight downpour in the early morning hours on Sept. 9, FDOT tried to paint over the intersection, but the rain washed it out. Instead, it looked like the state defaced it, as if the biggest monster truck in the world did burnouts on it with the rainbow still visible.

The commission was furious that the botched paint job belied DeSantis’s cover that declaring war on all LGBTQ intersections statewide was in the name of traffic safety.

Commissioner Tom Markert said the intersection was “dirty, messy and dangerous.”

The commission voted 3-1 to join Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach in filing a petition challenging FDOT’s rulemaking authority and seeking to obtain a stay.

Carney voted no, saying he was concerned that DeSantis would punish Delray Beach by withholding $60 million or more in state funding. Casale was not at the meeting.

“As the arts people learned last year, with a stroke of a pen, $100,000 that was coming to the city of Delray evaporated,” said Carney, noting DeSantis vetoed money for arts throughout the state in 2024.

FDOT returned that same night following the commission meeting and repainted the intersection — this time eliminating any hint of a rainbow. So, the commission held another special meeting on Sept. 11, and after much debate, decided to withdraw its decision to seek litigation.

‘Choose your battles’
Commissioners suddenly were channeling Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler, where you need to know “when to fold ’em.”

“Sometimes you got to play the cards you were dealt,” Carney said.

“Sometimes you have to choose your battles. And, you know, maybe this is just not the one at this time,” Commissioner Angela Burns said.

This time, it was Long who was the lone no vote, urging the commission to stick to its earlier decision.

“When I ran for this seat, I did it because I hate bullies. I hate bullying, and I can’t think of a more obvious example of us being bullied and disrespected,” he said.

Long said he is worried that the commission won’t follow through on replacing the Pride intersection with a new LGBTQ symbol — especially since Carney talked about getting private groups to fund the effort.

“They’re waiting for me to be gone so they can virtually do nothing,” he told The Coastal Star. Long is running for a vacant statehouse seat and must resign his commission seat in December after the special election is held.

Carney told this publication that private groups paid for the rainbow intersection and that he is in contact with a number of people on the issue in the LGBTQ community.

“We’re starting the process. We’re going to be coming back with some ideas,” he said. “There’s going to be some interesting stuff coming forward.” 

Manalapan commissioners moved ahead with a plan to explore building a new Town Hall at the corner of Ocean Boulevard and Ocean Avenue.

At the Sept. 8 commission meeting, they heard from eminent domain attorney Doug MacGibbon, who has been hired to explore acquiring the property — an outparcel at Plaza del Mar — that was once home to a gas station, then a bank that was eventually converted into office space.

MacGibbon also serves as Manalapan’s special magistrate, conducting hearings and issuing rulings related to code violations.

“This is the best time to do this,” MacGibbon told commissioners, explaining that the vacant lot presents a unique opportunity for town expansion. He recommended hiring an appraiser to conduct a comprehensive valuation, with initial property assessments suggesting a value around $1.3 million.

However, he cautioned commissioners, “This is an expensive adventure.”

“It’s going to be more expensive than usual, because this is a barrier island and all your values are going to be higher than most other places,” MacGibbon said. He said professional fees from the seller’s attorneys could add $1 million. He also encouraged the town to start negotiating with Plaza del Mar’s owner to purchase property around the site for parking.

One wrinkle is that MacGibbon’s research showed that gas tanks from the former service station are still on site.

“So that becomes an appraisal issue with regards to the cost to either remove the tanks or to have them pumped full of sand and sealed,” he said.

— John Pacenti

Manalapan commissioners unanimously approved an $18.7 million total budget Sept. 22 for the 2025-2026 fiscal year that started Oct. 1.

The budget includes $10.2 million for the general fund, $97,000 to run the library, and $8.3 million for the town’s water and sewer services.

Commissioners voted to maintain the town tax rate at last year’s rate of $3 per $1,000 of taxable property value. However, taxes overall are increasing because taxable property values for Manalapan increased by 7.6%.

Under state law, homesteaded properties can have their taxable value raised a maximum of 3% each year. All other properties can have their taxable values increased up to 10%.

Key budget allocations will support various town departments, including ongoing projects such as guard house upgrades. 

Regarding the guard house — a signature building for the town on Point Manalapan — Town Manager Eric Marmer said that architects have been hired to design upgrades with the focus on visibility and technological capabilities.

Marmer indicated that once conceptual designs are completed, they will be presented to the commission for review and approval.

— John Pacenti

Delray Public Beach at Atlantic Avenue has the bluest and clearest water of any beach in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, or North Carolina, according to a recent beach.com analysis of 1,346 beaches.

“Florida’s Atlantic coast, particularly Palm Beach County, is home to the bluest, clearest water and highest-rated experiences in the Southeast,” the site said of its analysis that included using NASA satellite data.

The analysis said Delray Beach’s public beach “has the most optically pristine beach waters in the analysis.” 

However, the city’s beach didn’t make the Top 12 overall for beaches in the Southeast. The top three were in the county — Ocean Reef Park in Riviera Beach came in first; Riviera Beach was second, and John D. MacArthur Beach State Park in North Palm Beach and Carlin Park in Jupiter tied for third.

Delray Public Beach tied for 38th place. Gulfstream Park in the County Pocket was the top-rated South County beach. It tied for 23rd. 

— Larry Barszewski

By Jane Musgrave

Beaches from Linton Boulevard in Delray Beach to just south of the Boynton Inlet in Ocean Ridge will be transformed into construction zones this winter as crews work to replace millions of tons of sand that were washed away in 2022 by Hurricane Nicole.

Beach renourishment crews are to arrive in Delray Beach in December to begin pumping 1.3 million cubic yards of sand on a 2.5-mile stretch between George Bush and Linton boulevards, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Roughly a month later, work will begin in Ocean Ridge. Plans call for 500,000 cubic yards of sand to be placed on a mile of beach from roughly south of Ocean Avenue to Ocean Inlet Park, said a corps spokesperson.

When completed in late April, the beach in Delray Beach will be about 250 feet wider; it will be expanded by about 150 feet in Ocean Ridge.

The estimated $19.1 million project in Delray Beach marks the first time in 12 years that the city’s entire beachfront has been renourished, said Cynthia Buisson, the city’s assistant public works director.

That is something of a record, she said. Historically, the city has been forced to replenish the sand every eight years to protect beachfront property and marine habitat and give beach lovers a place to soak up the sun.

While Buisson credited the city’s efforts to maintain its dunes for the beach’s unexpected longevity, she acknowledged that luck was involved. “The storms haven’t been as bad,” she said.

Hurricane Nicole, which made landfall as a Category 1 storm south of Vero Beach on Nov. 10, 2022, wasn’t particularly memorable for South Florida residents. But its strong on-shore winds produced a storm surge that battered beaches from Miami to Jacksonville, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Originally, the beaches in Delray Beach and Ocean Ridge were to be renourished at the same time. The project in Ocean Ridge was delayed because most of its beachfront is privately owned and releases had to be obtained from property owners.

Bids for the Delray Beach stretch were received in early September and a contract will be awarded by Oct. 6, the corps spokesperson said. The contract for the Ocean Ridge project won’t be awarded until December.

While the corps declined to give a cost estimate, when the same Ocean Ridge stretch was replenished in 2020, it cost about $5 million.

Both projects are being funded with a mix of federal, state, Palm Beach County and municipal sources. Sand will be pumped onto the beaches from an off-shore sandbar. 

With the 2026 sea turtle nesting season looming, crews will have to work quickly. While the original plan called for a 210-day project, the work will have to be finished by April 30 before the height of the roughly eight-month nesting season, the corps spokesperson said. 

The season runs generally from March through October, but turtles are known to appear as early as February. Buisson said the city’s sea turtle monitor will check the beaches daily and relocate any nests that are in harm’s way. 

By John Pacenti

Last year, Delray Beach Mayor Tom Carney spearheaded a rollback of the city’s tax rate. This year, it rolled right back on residents and businesses.

And, as usual — as if this commission knows no other way — there was plenty of drama and gnashing of teeth. 

The budget deliberations had City Manager Terrence Moore playing P.T. Barnum to this circus, taking to the high-wire himself to find a way to erase a $25 million deficit that some commissioners blamed on last year’s rollback. Meanwhile, the mayor played the carny, calling out for cuts and hoping someone would take up his challenge.

Ah, September was a taxing month — literally and figuratively — for Delray Beach. First, Gov. Ron DeSantis made good on his declaration to erase the city’s beloved LGBTQ rainbow intersection, and then there was the circus-like Sept. 15 workshop meeting on the budget.

“Please forgive me for being loquacious. I’m just a little excited,” Moore said at the height of debate at that meeting after taking commissioners down a rabbit-hole soliloquy on the consumer price index.

Tax rate rises

In the end, the commission voted 3-2 to approve a $201.5 million general operating budget at its regular meeting later that day. That is up $15 million from the previous year. The city will use $3.4 million from reserves to shore up revenues for the new 2025-26 budget year that began Oct. 1.

Carney and Commissioner Angela Burns were the no votes.

Commissioners set the city’s combined tax rate at $6.19 for every $1,000 of taxable property value by the same 3-2 vote. That represents a 4.18% increase of the previous rate of $5.94 per $1,000 and breaks the city’s streak of 12 consecutive years with a reduction.

“This is just a correction to ensure we can continue providing essential services,” said Vice Mayor Rob Long, who warned last year that rolling back the tax rate would create a deficit.

The commission’s action last year was in effect a “no new taxes budget” that is seldom adopted because it forces a local government — with the exception of taxes generated from new construction — to live on the same amount of tax dollars despite the inflation and population growth that have occurred.

Burns said that even by raising the tax rate, services were still being cut and the city had to borrow from the reserves. 

“I wasn’t in support of the rollback in the first place. Definitely not. And fear exactly what we’re going through,” she said during the Sept. 15 regular meeting, arguing both against proposed cuts and raising the tax rate. “This is just not a good time, in my opinion, to raise any costs.”

Carney later would tell The Coastal Star that the city should have been more proactive in finding ways to reduce expenses and generate additional revenue. He felt the budget process could have been more thorough in addressing financial challenges.

“We didn’t look for enough cuts, and we certainly didn’t look for enough revenue sources,” he said.

Doing the math

Finance Director Henry Dachowitz said that for an average homeowner with a taxable value of $448,000, the city portion of the tax bill would increase $113 from $2,660 to $2,773.

Homesteaded properties are capped under state law at a maximum 3% increase in any one year, but that is not true for businesses or non-homesteaded residential properties, which are capped at a 10% increase.

To Moore’s exasperation, Carney insisted that he did the math and that the increase to the average property owner would be 11%. “It’s not 11, it’s not 10, it’s not 9,” Moore said during the Sept. 15 workshop.

Moore tried to appease Carney somewhat, offering $501,000 in additional cuts hitting about every department. “Half a million dollars is nothing to sneeze at,” the manager said.

Commissioner Juli Casale was confused, saying that at a previous budget workshop, no additional cuts were discussed. 

The cuts were whittled down to $425,000 after commissioners voiced concerns about cutting such services as power-washing downtown’s sidewalks or providing staff with critical training, such as for the troubled Code Enforcement Division.

“I get really worried when I look at the cuts that we’re dialing back here,” said Commissioner Tom Markert, who, along with Casale, had supported Carney’s push for the rolled-back rate last year. “When I sat in CEO roles, I hated when people came in with budgets like this.”

Casale said there just aren’t a lot of areas to cut. “We have commitments that are not flexible in the city, contractual commitments,” she said. “Ninety percent of our allocated expenses are locked in.”

Commissioners feud

Carney had been on the warpath regarding budget cuts, looking to cut youth services or get private philanthropic groups to start picking up the tab. He criticized the Downtown Development Authority’s tax rate and “lack of transparency” and sent out emails criticizing commissioners.

“Do you think I’m not accountable? Do you think I’m not transparent?” Casale said. “Are you saying that Henry isn’t, or my colleagues aren’t? You’re getting people angry with us in an environment where it’s not good to be getting people angry at your commissioners.” 

At one point, Markert took on Carney, saying he just wasn’t living in reality when he suggested budget cuts.

“Let’s just slash the budgets. We’ll slash the people. We’ll slash all of our programs,” he said at the budget workshop on Sept. 15.

“Our property rates are going to drop like a stone in the city because we don’t attract and do the right things that we’ve been doing for years and years and years.”

At the same meeting, Markert and Carney locked horns again over the mayor’s 11% number. “Can you be the mayor for once?” Markert snapped.

“You’re out of order, I’m the mayor,” Carney said. 

A construction worker walks through routine flooding at 701 S. Ocean Blvd. in Delray Beach. The section of State Road A1A from Linton Boulevard to Casuarina Road is undergoing improvement that will include adding and regrading swales to enhance drainage and lessen flooding. RainDrop, an app that provides precipitation data, reports that coastal Delray Beach received an estimated 16.53 inches of rain during September through the 29th. That was almost double the 8.8 inches recorded in August and more than double the 6.42 inches that fell in July. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

WHAT: Autumn is the main season for king tides, when higher-than-normal tides cause spot flooding along the coast, from the Intracoastal Waterway, and from other inlets and canals.

WHEN: The Palm Beach County Office of Resilience says king tides are expected during high-tide periods on the following days, when there is a potential for flooding:

• Oct. 7-10

• Nov. 4-8

• Dec. 3-6

The county office says the worst period is expected to be Nov. 5-7, when it predicts flooding will occur. 

PREDICTION: “King tides for 2025 are not predicted to reach the moderate flood stage or the major flood stage, but various factors, including storms, may cause higher-than-expected sea levels and flooding,” the county office warns.

— Larry Barszewski

By John Pacenti

A popular Delray Beach Facebook group has been paused after supporters of Charlie Kirk began targeting longtime members, according to the moderator.

Delray Matters was suspended Sept. 11 for at least 30 days by moderator Ingrid Lee. It has more than 2,600 members. 

The Coastal Star wrote in the August edition how social media groups like Delray Matters have become essential for residents to interact with their local governments.

Kirk was shot to death Sept. 10 while speaking on a Utah campus, and two of his followers that day signed up to Delray Matters and started to post about it. 

They were particularly irate that Delray Beach was so focused on trying to save its LGBTQ Pride intersection and not sufficiently mourning Kirk, Lee said.

Longtime members of the group flagged the post because it violated the rule that all posts must center on Delray Beach issues.

Mayor Tom Carney said to connect what happened to Kirk to the issue of Gov. Ron DeSantis ordering the city’s LGBTQ Pride intersection to be painted over is “a very long shot. ...People are trying to connect dots that just are not there.” 

Lee said she created Delray Matters to encourage residents to engage with their local government, but the site was being “hijacked by people who just want to be inflammatory or attack those who don’t fit their agendas.”

While the Christian evangelical community passionately supported Kirk, many Americans opposed his views on women, the LGBTQ community and gun control.

Lee said she tries not to block or censor people, but when they start affecting the community’s ability to communicate, she steps in as the moderator.

“They wanted to post, and they loosely tied it to the intersection, like, ‘Why don’t we talk about this instead?’” Lee said.

When Lee told them all posts needed to be about Delray Beach, it “was like kicking a hornet’s nest.”

She tried to explain to the Kirk supporters that they could talk about him in the comments. “They were like, ‘He’s Christian, I’m Christian, I should be able to talk about him,’” she said.

Then the new members started targeting individual people who had made comments about Kirk that they didn’t like. Lee tried to explain that the comments were opinion, “and it’s a free country.”

The Kirk supporters told Lee that she was “complicit” and “vile.”

The comment from one longtime member about Kirk, that “karma paid him a visit,” particularly got the ire of the activist’s supporters, Lee said. 

“They screenshot both of them, went on to their private page and, like, put out a call for their minions to attack,” Lee said. “They were gonna put it on X and report it to (far-right political activist) Laura Loomer, and that they were gonna ruin this woman’s life.”

Kirk had said some gun deaths were “worth it” if it meant preserving the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

This all happened in 24 hours for Lee, who is a private citizen who works a day job. 

Moderating the mayhem became too much when her members were being targeted. 

She suspended the page, saying a “short break” was needed because moderating took way too much energy.

“It was just becoming invasive,” Lee said. “I was facing 60 comments to review, and on top of everything else going on in life, I just didn’t have the bandwidth to handle it.”

She reminded members in a post announcing the suspension, “We can have honest, even passionate conversations, but empathy matters too.” 

Unofficial election results had Maria Zack winning the Republican primary race to challenge Delray Beach Vice Mayor Rob Long, a Democrat, in the Dec. 9 special election to succeed state Rep. Joe Casello, who died in July.

Also slated to be on the ballot is Karen Yeh, who has no party affiliation.

Zack, with 53% of the vote, defeated Bill Reicherter in the Sept. 30 primary, based on the yet-to-be-certified returns. Zack owns and operates Quantum Solutions Software Inc., while Reicherter is a licensed Realtor who lost to Casello in 2022.

— Larry Barszewski

The Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Read for the Record initiative, which directs adults and children through a shared reading experience. Mayors from Palm Beach County municipalities helped kick off the event with a luncheon featuring Marcus Bridgewater — aka Garden Marcus — who is this year’s Read for the Record featured author. The preparations all lead up to Read for the Record Day, Feb. 26.

ABOVE: Bridgewater and Lantana Mayor Karen Lythgoe hold up copies of Bridgewater’s See Marcus Grow, which is the featured book for the celebration. Bridgewater’s works connect gardening with personal growth. Photo provided by Tracey Benson Photography