Stores had a feel for the fabric of a community 

Fran Prescott buys fabric at Joann’s in Riverwalk Plaza in Boynton Beach. ‘It’s a disaster,’  she says of the impending closings. ‘There are no other stores like this.’ Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Tao Woolfe

Fran Prescott pushed her cart past bolts of fabric on a recent Thursday afternoon, noting the yellow paper signs taped to shelves announcing deep discounts on Joann’s fabrics, buttons and trim.

Prescott, of Boynton Beach, is a microbiologist who has been sewing for 70 years — “since I was 4”— and who has shopped regularly at Joann for decades to create costumes, pillows and blankets for her grandchildren.

“I’ve made everything for them, from snowsuits to wedding dresses,” Prescott said. “I like coming to Joann’s to look at the fabric and get a feel for it. Sometimes I don’t have a project in mind, but I’ll come in here and look around and get ideas. I don’t like ordering online.”

Prescott has a highly developed sense of whimsy. She made a surgical mask and surgical gown for herself peppered with images of COVID molecules, for example, and once spent five years making a hockey-themed quilt for her grandson.

“I work the night shift for a commercial microbiology lab, and when I get home, I like to work on my projects,” she said.

But on this day, she was navigating the aisles with a heavy heart. The Boynton Beach store — and the 800 or so other Joann fabric and craft stores across the country, including ones in Pompano Beach, Wellington and West Palm Beach — will close their doors forever in the coming weeks.

“It’s a disaster,” Prescott said. “There are no other stores like this.”

Other shoppers share Prescott’s dismay.

Rosemary Mouring, of Lantana, is a community volunteer and a Joann’s regular. 

Mouring said that although people can buy fabric at big box stores like Hobby Lobby and Walmart, the fabric is sold in pre-cut packages and the staff, for the most part, does not have the level of expertise that Joann’s staff offers.

“I’m going to have to rethink the Christmas bags we make for the children at St. Mary’s Hospital,” said Mouring.

She explained that she and other volunteers discovered about 10 years ago that the patients at Palm Beach Children’s Hospital at St. Mary’s Medical Center — the only dedicated children’s hospital between Fort Lauderdale and Orlando — had been keeping their belongings in trash bags. 

The volunteers replaced the plastic bags with big, fluffy fleece pillowcases sporting red, holiday trim to hold the kids’ toys and clothes. 

The project was so popular with the children that volunteers serving in the West Palm Beach hospital now make those gift bags every year — but with Joann’s going under, the fleece will be hard to find, Mouring said.

“Most crafters are a little upset with Joann’s corporate office for shooting themselves in the foot,” Mouring said. “And the company that bought it and paid off all the debt, cares only about the bottom line.”

Joann, which is based in Hudson, Ohio, filed for bankruptcy in January after operating for more than 80 years. The Boynton Beach store, at 1632 S. Federal Highway in the Riverwalk Plaza, was previously located on the west side of Federal in the Publix plaza. It has had a presence in Boynton Beach for decades, including since 2007 at its current location.

“The last several years have presented significant and lasting challenges in the retail environment, which, coupled with our current financial position and constrained inventory levels, forced us to take this step,” Michael Prendergast, interim chief executive of Joann’s, said when announcing the second bankruptcy filing in a year.

Prendergast said he was hoping the struggling company could find a path that would enable Joann’s to “continue operating as a going concern.” But in February, the company was put on the auction block, and GA Group, a financial services firm, was the winning bidder.

Amanda Hayes, spokeswoman for Joann’s corporate office, said the company does not yet have a closing date for the Boynton Beach store. She did not respond to a question about whether the company could emerge from bankruptcy.

A website dedicated to the company’s restructuring says closeout “sales will be held for 12 weeks, until the end of May, until supplies last.”

The website also says: “We have been proud to serve as a destination for creativity for more than 80 years and thank our dedicated Team Members, customers and communities across the nation for their decades of support.”

Christine Burtch, of Lantana, has been a manager at the Boynton Beach store for nine years. She’s also the executive vice president of the Lake Worth Beach-based Hibiscus Quilt Guild of South Florida, which has some 50 quilting enthusiasts around Palm Beach County.

Before the coronavirus sent everyone home in 2020, Burtch taught sewing and quilting classes to Joann customers. 

The classes never resumed at the Boynton Beach store, she said, so she got involved with community outreach. She is among the volunteers who make fleece bags for the children at St. Mary’s and, along with her colleagues, has been stocking up on fleece from several South Florida Joann stores.

Like a toy store for crafters

Customers say they love the stores’ selection of fabrics, art supplies, home decor, yarn, sewing supplies, buttons, beads, baskets, paper goods, and artificial leaves and flowers for making wreaths and centerpieces.

“It was like being in a toy store for me,” Burtch said.

Lisa Ritota, a longtime Ocean Ridge resident, agreed that perusing the store’s notions was as much fun as choosing fabrics.

“They had a little bit of everything. It was a great, great store for last-minute thread, needles, buttons, zippers, holiday decor and seasonal stuff,” Ritota said. “I’m incredibly sad. There’s nothing else out there like it in this country.”

Ritota is a member of the American Sewing Guild who has owned an upholstery business for 30 years. She said she is switching now to the less physically demanding practice of creating handbags.

“I hope Michael’s will pick up the slack,” Ritota said, speaking of other stores and online sources for fabrics and fasteners. “I try not to use Amazon. Etsy is better.”

Debbie Sprague, president of the Hibiscus Quilt Guild and Lake Worth Beach resident, said quilters have options that other crafters and seamstresses will forfeit when Joann’s closes.

Smaller quilt shows, quilting stores, and big area quilting expos offer fabrics for sale, she said, and quilting clubs like Hibsicus can also offer community, expertise and inspiration. 

“If you’re a quilter, we’re here for you,” Sprague said. “If you’re a dressmaker or a home decorator, we can’t help you.”

Faith Thelwell, of Delray Beach, unaware that Joann’s days are numbered, cruised a well-searched row of fabrics hunting for light green tulle and satin to make a skirt.

Beneath her cap of silver sequins, Thelwell’s face crumpled when she heard the news. 

“I’m going to miss this store,” she said quietly. “I have been shopping here for 40 years. I am very sad.” 

Purchases in tens of millions of dollars aren’t immune from the wrecker’s ball

David MacNeil paid $38.5 million for an oceanfront house in Manalapan only to raze it, leaving the empty lot to the left. Now, he plans to buy the partially completed house on the right and raze it, too, to make way for a single home on a combined lot. Both lots are ocean to Intracoastal. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Jane Musgrave

Those looking for evidence that the luxury real estate market is hot in coastal Palm Beach County should start their search in Manalapan.

A year after car accessories magnate David MacNeil paid $38.5 million for an oceanfront house south of Town Hall only to tear it down, he’s poised to do the same thing on the lot next door.

This stunned builder Robert Farrell, who has spent a year rebuilding the 14,000-square-foot house with plans to expand it and put it on the market for $95 million. But MacNeil made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

If all goes as planned, MacNeil in late May will pay Farrell’s company $55.5 million for the house that is basically a shell and the adjacent guest quarters and level them.

The combined $94 million land buy will give MacNeil, founder of Chicago-based WeatherTech, roughly 340 feet of beachfront on a nearly four-acre parcel that extends from the ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway.

To builders and real estate agents who have watched the stratospheric rise in coastal home prices, MacNeil’s buy-and-bulldoze approach was greeted with yawns.

“I wasn’t surprised,” said Christian Prakas, who specializes in high-end real estate as founding agent of Serhant in Delray Beach.

“It’s where everybody wants to be,” agreed Dorian Hayes, a luxury home specialist with Coldwell Banker Realty in Delray Beach. “Palm Beach County is on fire.”

Hayes said some of her wealthy clients have paid top dollar for adjacent lots just to have bigger yards or to protect their privacy.

Prakas said one of his clients recently scored a record for the most ever paid for a vacant lot in Florida.

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s $173 million purchase of the 16-acre former Ziff estate at the south end of Manalapan in 2022 still holds the record for most ever paid for residential real estate in Florida. But, Prakas said, his client’s purchase was noteworthy as well.

While he declined to divulge the exact amount that was paid, Prakas said a company plunked down somewhat less than Ellison’s eye-popping price for roughly two acres in Palm Beach that was once home to a 36,000-square-foot mansion owned by Estée Lauder heir William Lauder.

When the French Normandy-style house that Lauder paid $110 million for in 2021 was reduced to rubble in 2022, it was the most expensive teardown in town history.

Since then, teardowns of multimillion-dollar mansions have become ubiquitous.

Gulf Stream demolition

In Gulf Stream for instance, billionaire Robert Sands and his wife, Pamela, recently got the go-ahead to demolish a 30-year-old, 17,000-square-foot house to build a new home.

When the couple, through RSPS 3223 North Ocean LLC (presumably their initials), spent $39 million last year for the home, it was the most expensive residential sale in Gulf Stream history.

Sands is executive chair and former CEO of Constellation Brands, a beer, wine and spirits company founded by his father in upstate New York.

Like MacNeil, Sands also owns the house next door. In 2016, he paid $16.34 million for the 11,000-square-foot, four-bedroom house on roughly an acre.

But, unlike MacNeil, he doesn’t plan to tear down both houses to build an even bigger one. Only the house the couple purchased last year will be demolished. And, according to plans approved by the Gulf Stream Town Commission in February, at 14,642 square feet the new house will be about 2,400 square feet smaller and have one fewer story than the existing one.

How high will prices go?

Former Manalapan Mayor Stewart Satter, who surprised the real estate world in January by announcing he was asking $285 million for a 55,000-square-foot home that could be built on the four acres he owns next to Ellison’s estate, acknowledged that the recent price tags shock many.

But, having spent 20 years developing real estate in Manalapan, a pursuit he laughingly describes as a hobby, he said he has learned a few lessons.

While the thought of buying a $40 million house to tear it down sounds crazy, many home buyers make similar decisions.

He likened it to people who buy an average priced house and immediately renovate the kitchen. People have specific expectations of what they want when they buy a home. If a house doesn’t meet them, they act.

Like homes in other coastal areas and beyond, many of the homes in Manalapan are old.

“They’re OK houses but they aren’t up to the standards most people expect today,” Satter said.

Take the house MacNeil tore down. Built in 1955, it was dated. At 10,000 square feet with six bedrooms, it was relatively small. It had low ceilings. It didn’t have a palatial entryway, a master bedroom suite or other features that have become must-haves in estate homes.

“It was not a house you would have on a $30 million piece of dirt,” Satter said.

MacNeil’s plans to buy the lot next door, tear down the half-built house and combine it with his existing holdings is wise from both a personal and business standpoint, Satter said.

MacNeil can build the house he wants. And the two lots, once combined, will be worth far more than what he paid for them individually, Satter said.

“It’s hard to find a lot with more than 150 feet of oceanfront,” he said. “It’s a rarity.”

And as with all things rare, that means the value skyrockets.

Satter noted that New Jersey lawyer and real estate investor Nathan Silverstein is asking $200 million for two acres of vacant land he has owned for decades along Sloan’s Curve in Palm Beach. The ocean-to-Intracoastal lot includes 155 feet of beachfront, but it’s across South Ocean Boulevard from the main property.

MacNeil’s soon-to-be new homesite, which also extends from the ocean to the Intracoastal, is directly on the ocean and will have more than double the amount of oceanfront footage.

“I thought it was a great acquisition,” Satter said. “I thought it was very smart.”

Limited supply of lots

Satter and Prakas said there are various reasons the luxury home market has exploded in recent years.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are well known. Tired of lockdowns and mask-wearing mandates, wealthy people from New York to California flocked to the state where Gov. Ron DeSantis eschewed such health restrictions. 

With no income tax and relatively low property and sales taxes, it became a magnet. The state’s weather didn’t hurt.

“There was a huge migration of wealth,” Prakas said, noting that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was one of them when he moved in 2023 from Seattle to his hometown of Miami. At the time, he said the move would save him $600 million in taxes.

Scarcity is also a factor, Prakas said. There’s a limited number of oceanfront lots, so when one becomes available it commands a very high price.

“There are no comps for these houses,” Prakas said. “It becomes a matter of how much do you want it and how much are you willing to pay.”

Satter agreed. “It’s simple,” he said. “Demand is high, supply is low, so prices go up.”

The Ellison effect

Satter said another force contributed to rising prices in Manalapan: the Ellison effect.

When the man who is the fourth-richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, bought the Ziff estate in 2022, people took notice. Ellison doubled down last year by paying $277 million for the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa at the north end of Manalapan.

Long in the shadow of Palm Beach, Manalapan was suddenly on the map, Satter said. People who had never heard of the tiny town began looking into it and liked what they found, he said.

How long the boom will last is unknown.

Both Satter and Prakas said they suspect luxury housing prices are at or very near their peak and will begin leveling off.

But Satter, who hopes they stay strong enough long enough for him to sell his proposed $285 million spec house — with its 350 feet along both the ocean and Intracoastal — for close to his asking price, said crystal balls are hard to come by in the real estate business.

When he began buying lots in Manalapan in 2005, he said people thought he was crazy.

“If I had known what the marketplace was going to do, I would have bought the whole town,” he said. 

Leneita Fix, executive director at The Reef Institute in West Palm Beach, with a miniature version of the Atlantic Ocean. The institute is advising Delray Beach on which coral to use to restore its reef. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star  

By John Pacenti

In a cramped office space in West Palm Beach’s Northwood neighborhood, in a room bathed in blue light, the ocean not only lives, it thrives.

“So everything that you see here mimics the healthiest version of the ocean that we can have,” said Leneita Fix,  executive director of The Reef Institute, whose topaz eyes are literally the color of the Caribbean ocean. 

“These lights follow sunrise and sunset every day and the seasons. So this coral thinks it is 12:35 on March 4th in Palm Beach County.”

The baby coral will end up offshore of Delray Beach under plans hatched by a little-known committee on reef restoration. Delray Beach Sustainability Officer Kent Edwards asked the City Commission at its March 11 meeting for $117,000 annually to fund the effort.

But this is Delray Beach, right? Nothing is so simple and the request ran straight into the teeth of Mayor Tom Carney — who insisted the amount initially requested was $40,000, not $117,000.

Carney claimed at one point that he felt it was a “bait and switch,” and that he didn’t expect a request for $117,000.

“I love reefs. Seriously. I fish the reefs all the time. So to the extent that we can improve marine life, I’m 100% for,” he told The Coastal Star.  

“I clearly understand the importance. It was just something different than I expected.”

Still, the $40,000 eventually approved is enough to get started. “The hope is that this only will be the start of the funding,” Fix said. “Their fiscal year starts in [October] and so we will seek to put in the budget for that year and there will be additional fundraising, as well.”

Fix and her team planned to assess sites on April 2. “The focus is going to be on getting coral in the water,” she said.

Staghorn coral grown at The Reef Institute in West Palm Beach. Staghorn and elkhorn are often called the divas of the coral world because of their fast growth, importance in reef building, and role as a vital habitat for marine life, making them a cornerstone of Caribbean reefs. 

Living creatures

A quick background on coral.

Coral is an animal and it’s not doing great due to pollution, ocean acidification, ocean temperature increases (last summer was devastating off South Florida’s coastline) and disease. 

Marine biologist Sylvia Earle “has a statement. She says, ‘We don’t even know what will happen when all the coral is gone,’” Fix said.

Florida’s coral reef is 350 miles long, extending from the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lucie Inlet in Martin County.

Some corals have nearly gone extinct in the wild, like pillar coral; however, they live in Fix’s lab. Fix explained that certain corals in her lab are not out-planted, referring to them as a “living biobank” that will act as a baby factory to continuously produce new offspring.

The restoration effort

Enter Delray Beach’s little committee that could.  Organized by Jim Chard, a former commissioner and chairman of the city’s Historic Preservation Board, the committee also includes Vice Mayor Juli Casale, Edwards, Fix and stakeholders such as the Sandoway Discovery Center.

“I am excited to be moving the reef restoration initiative forward,” Casale said. “This is truly a cutting-edge conservation effort with long-term benefits.”

Another member of the committee — Chard likes to call it a consortium — is Jason Bregman of Delray Beach’s Singer Studio, which has invented a substrate that looks to revolutionize artificial reefs. 

“The artificial reef, once it’s placed and populated with life and corals, will start to help replenish the beach naturally,” Chard said. “The main thing it would do is prevent the beach from being washed away.”

Bregman wanted to place a test off Delray Beach and see if Fix’s corals would spawn and land on his substrate, but Palm Beach County ended up being too much of an impediment. 

“As of right now, we’re more likely to deploy in the Caribbean than in Delray,” he said. “The county right now has the permitted sites.”

The benefits of coral

Corals provide vital ecosystem services like food security through fisheries, coastal protection from storms and erosion, and a significant source of income through tourism related to diving and snorkeling activities.

Singer Studio’s substrate hopes to save beaches — and thus millions of dollars spent to replenish them. It is full of nooks and crannies to attract coral, but the individual pieces fit together to create a spine that not only fosters coral growth but stops beach erosion, Bregman said.

Delray Beach is looking at spending $29 million to keep its world-renowned beach and dunes pristine through a renourishment project. Renourishment projects dump sand — either dredged up or trucked in — on beaches.

Some municipalities have embraced artificial reefs, such as Hollywood, which has sunken concrete mermaids and Greek gods. 

“It’s going to be a tourist attraction,” Bregman said of that city’s efforts. “The thing that’s interesting about it is, they don’t even see it as coastal protection at all. They barely see it as an environmental thing. They see it as a tourism project.”

Delray Beach isn’t going to be a diver’s destination. The current is too swift. Fix is looking to save corals and hopes — prays — the city is a willing partner.

Various types of coral in the coral nursery. 

A growing process

Back at The Reef Institute, the staffers know when certain types of corals spawn. They scoop up the eggs and the sperm and place them in what Fix calls the “cradle.” At this point, they are no more than mere specks, but those specks grow on little pieces of tile and eventually get to the point of being ready to be placed in the ocean.

“Up until now, it has been two years. But now we are playing around with the idea, ‘Could we put them in at a smaller size?’” she explained.

New tanks await coral inside the institute’s future home, which is much larger. The institute and Delray Beach planned to assess sites for coral starting this month.

The Reef Institute is preparing to move into a ginormous new facility in West Palm Beach — at 23,000 square feet, the size of almost half a football field. The mammoth project of moving corals will soon be underway. By the way, staghorn and elkhorn are the divas of the coral world, Fix informs, and need to be moved last. Another fun fact is that brain coral gets its coloring from the symbiotic relationship it has with algae.

Fix says the importance of a partnership with Delray Beach and The Reef Institute cannot be understated.

“Delray backing us opens the eyes of the rest of the county. They’re pioneering. They’re paving the way,” she said. “And I’ve thought that for a long time. Local cities can go, ‘OK, we get it. We’re going back to do it as a city.’ It just opens the gates.” 

Women relax under the buttonwood tree in this 1928 photo. The tree still stands at the center of the park in Boca Raton’s Por La Mar. Photo provided by Boca Raton Historical Society BELOW: Sherry, Joshua and Ken Lerner (l-r) with the tree during the annual neighborhood picnic in March. They live in the adjoining Riviera section. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Neighborhood is ‘last vestige of Boca’s beach town ambience’

By Ron Hayes

Por La Mar’s royalty was already present and waiting in dignified silence when members of the Riviera Civic Association began arriving March 8 for their annual picnic in the neighborhood park.

Truly, if this little enclave — “By the Sea” in Spanish — can claim any royalty at all, it’s that tall green buttonwood tree at the center of the park.

The venerable Conocarpus erectus was there before the neighborhood was born a century ago, and it shows no sign of abdicating anytime soon.

“The City Council passed an ordinance declaring it a historic tree on Jan. 14, 1992,” said Keith Nelson, a member of the association’s board of directors and the city’s parks and recreation advisory board.

A Por La Mar resident since 2003, he pointed up Park Drive toward Spanish Trail.

“Capt. Tom Rickards built the first house in Boca Raton right about there in 1897. He wasn’t a real captain, but he was a civil engineer who’d come down to do surveying for Flagler’s railroad extension,” Nelson said. “Everybody talks about Addison Mizner, but Capt. Rickards was Boca’s true founding father.

“I love history,” he added.

Nelson had positioned a couple of easels by the picnic check-in table. One bore a 1928 photograph of ladies relaxing under that same buttonwood tree. The other offered the original platting map for Por La Mar, filed on April 7, 1925, a hundred years ago this month.

The street layout is unchanged today. Park Drive is still Park Drive, Spanish Trail still Spanish Trail, and the little piece of land in the center designated “Park” was still there to welcome the picnickers.

A Boston fern grows from the bark of the buttonwood tree that is the central point of the park. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

“We’re a small town with a beach flavor,” said Katie MacDougall, the Riviera Civic Association president, “yet just across the bridge you’ve got the downtown. This is the last vestige of Boca’s beach town ambience.”

The RCA represents about 400 homes in three adjacent neighborhoods. Sun and Surf, arriving in the 1950s, stretches south from Red Reef Park to Northeast Sixth Street, where the Riviera neighborhood was established in 1945, turning into little Por La Mar south of Palmetto Park Road.

On this afternoon, about 100 residents of all three neighborhoods converged in the park to meet and mingle, dine on chicken, seafood, or veggie paella, and tell a curious visitor how much they love where they live.

“I’ve lived in Sun and Surf since 1971, when I was 9 years old,” boasted Dan Schauer.

Dan and Mary Schauer love the neighborhood so much that two years ago they had their house on Coquina Way torn down to have another built on the same lot.

“We just moved back in after two years in Boynton Beach while the house was being built,” he said. “We wouldn’t have been here so long if not for all the nice people. There’s been a lot of building and reconstruction, but there’s still a lot of old community members, and I’m so happy to be back. It’s nice to get up and walk down the street and put your toes in the sand.”

William Sun was vacationing from Santa Cruz, California, in 2015, when housing was still affordable at the tail end of the recession. He looked up some Realtors on a whim, and wound up buying in Riviera.

“California is very left leaning,” he said, “but here we have a common goal of keeping our neighborhoods development free, so we get in on the ground floor with the City Council.”

Residents enjoy food and friendship at the Riviera Civic Association’s annual picnic for the Por La Mar, Riviera and Sun and Surf neighborhoods at Por La Mar’s park. Por La Mar turns 100 years old on April 7. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

As the afternoon slipped toward evening and more picnickers arrived, you couldn’t help noticing a shortage of younger picnickers, which is why the Lerner family stood out.

Ken and Sherry Lerner had planned to move from west Boca to someplace nearer the ocean once they’d become empty nesters. Their youngest, Joshua, was still in school and living at home.

But then they happened on a fixer-upper in Riviera, one of the modest homes built in 1945, when Boca Raton Army Air Field brought 15,000 service members to a town of 700, along with a huge housing shortage.

Two years ago, they bought the house and had a new nest, not yet empty.

Joshua Lerner is 17 now, and a junior at FAU High School.

“I like it,” he said of his new neighborhood. “It’s definitely different.” He paused. “It’s definitely quiet.” He paused again. “I’ve seen a couple young people around.”

But his father had enough enthusiasm for both.

“The people here are wonderful,” Ken Lerner enthused, “and the vibe is very different. Very chill. This is where we’re going to be.”

By the end of the day, the tables would be gone, the paella eaten, and all the easels and historic photos removed. But the old green buttonwood tree would remain, a hundred years on, still reigning in dignified silence over the little neighborhood park.

“Plans are still not complete, but we’re going to rededicate the tree sometime this year as part of the city’s centennial celebrations,” Keith Nelson promised.

“We’ll sing Happy Birthday to it and maybe have some cupcakes.”

Spring is the season of comings and goings. Winter visitors will soon be leaving South County as they do every year. Even the moon left us, hiding in Earth’s shadow for about an hour on March 14 in the only lunar eclipse we could see here in 2025. 

And many manatees have returned to North Florida and South Georgia in search of less tropical water. Congratulations if you’re among the lucky ones who glimpsed the sea cows either in the wild or in the warm waters of FPL’s Manatee Lagoon at its Riviera Beach power plant, where the gentle marine mammals congregated during our comparatively few cold days this winter. 

But while boaters may see fewer manatees, they now have to look out for our treasured spring arrivals — sea turtles coming here to lay eggs on the same beaches where they themselves were born.

While sea turtle season is usually March 1 to Oct. 31, the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton happily reported finding its first turtle visitor on Feb. 22.

“Exciting news!” its biologists posted on Facebook. “Today our team marked the first leatherback nest of the 2025 season in Boca Raton. … How many do you think we’ll get this year?”

Highland Beach wasn’t far behind.

“This morning we marked our first Leatherback nest,” the Highland Beach Sea Turtle Team said on Facebook on March 6.

Joanne Ryan, who leads the team, said false crawls by mama turtles, when they climb up on the sand but return to the ocean without laying eggs, have been consistently higher in South County the past couple of years.

“This is how everyone can help the sea turtles have a successful nesting season,” she said. “Lights out, leave nothing on the beach, maintain your distance.”

Another threat to sea turtles is plastic pollution in the ocean. Those party cups we drink from won’t disintegrate in our lifetimes; they just break down into smaller and smaller pieces. Scientists first called these bits “microplastics” and now realize there are even smaller pieces: “nanoplastics.”

Something to think about: While plastic bits are increasing everywhere and can fatally clog a sea turtle’s digestive system, nanoplastics are now showing up in larger concentrations in people’s organs. 

In a recent article in Nature Medicine, “researchers examined micro- and nanoplastic (MNP) contamination in brain, liver, and kidney tissue samples collected between 2016 and 2024. In short: People with dementia had up to ten times the amount of microplastics in their brain tissue than those without dementia. Both liver and brain tissues collected in 2024 had significantly higher concentrations of MNPs than those collected in 2016, with the concentration of plastics in brains increasing by about 50% over the past 8 years.”

So please, pick up any plastics when you leave the beach. Reuse or recycle them.

And one last “going,” for those of you who get The Coastal Star thrown in your driveway: This issue is the last to be delivered that way. Coming next month, if you live in a single-family home, you’ll get your copy in your mailbox, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. It will be a welcome change if you’ve ever had your newspaper drenched by a summer rainstorm.

— Steve Plunkett, Managing Editor

Carol Besler is president of the StarBright Civic Collective, a nonprofit that has funded emergency medical training for Ocean Ridge police and classes for residents. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Kathleen Kernicky

Carol Besler was always mindful of her health. After retiring from teaching, she moved to Florida, studied acupuncture and earned a degree in Chinese medicine. She stayed fit, walked daily and ran in races. There was no warning when she collapsed at a friend’s home in 2022, changing her life in unexpected ways. 

Ocean Ridge police officers gave Besler emergency treatment until neighboring Boynton Beach fire rescue arrived. At the hospital, Besler was told she’d had a stroke. 

She later learned that only three Ocean Ridge officers were trained in emergency medical services.  

“If none of those three officers were working that day, the outcome could have been very different,” said Besler, 70, a resident of Ocean Ridge since 2005. “I just collapsed. There was no warning at all.”

 Besler and a small group of neighbors created the StarBright Civic Collective, a nonprofit corporation that would support community programs in need and organize social events. 

One of its first projects was to donate about $45,000 to the Ocean Ridge Police Department to train all officers as certified emergency medical technicians. The funding covered updated equipment for police vehicles, including new defibrillators, fire suppression equipment and Narcan, used to treat overdoses. The department’s existing defibrillators were donated to condo associations. 

“It was a win-win for the whole town,” said Besler, who believes the training will save lives.

“Our concern was that the town and surrounding communities are getting bigger, and the traffic was getting worse,” she said. “If the bridge is up or a train is going by, it could be several minutes before Boynton Beach arrives. Our Police Department arrives first, provides whatever services they can, and stays with the patient until fire rescue arrives.”

Ocean Ridge contracts with Boynton Beach to provide fire rescue services to the barrier island community of about 1,800 people. Ocean Ridge police officers are dispatched to emergency medical calls and arrive more quickly, usually in two or three minutes. 

Boynton Beach borders Ocean Ridge to the west, across the Intracoastal Waterway’s Woolbright Road and Ocean Avenue bridges. 

While residents had talked about forming a social group, Besler’s medical emergency helped push an idea into action. 

“Historically, the only organization around had been the garden club,” Besler said. “Over the years, the makeup of the community changed. We had more younger people, people with children. There had been talk about, ‘Let’s have a group that has more social activities as well as more services.’ Before it was just talk, there were no formal plans.”

Now president and former chairwoman, Besler works with eight board members who manage the collective. Events take place from fall through spring when the seasonal residents are in town.

“A big part of the mission is to promote socialization,” she said. “We want people to feel connected and involved in the community. We take our cues from what residents want.”

They’ve organized ice cream socials, a popular Bingo Night and seminars on requested topics. They installed a water station for dogs and people outside Town Hall. Their first big fundraising gala was in February at the Eau Palm Beach Resort, organized in just six weeks and selling 120 tickets.

In January, the group donated $48,000 to the Police Department to buy a thermal-equipped drone and three surveillance cameras. The drone will be used for missing persons searches, storm-related mapping during hurricane season, and responding more quickly to swimmers in distress. The live cameras will help monitor foot and bike traffic at the town’s Intracoastal bridges. 

Besler moved to Florida from Princeton Junction, New Jersey, where she spent 25 years as a teacher who later owned and operated state-contracted child-care centers.

“My real love is teaching,” she said. “I started out teaching middle school and did that for two years. But I loved teaching kindergarten. I opened my first nursery school teaching 3- to 5-year-olds. By the time I retired, I had six child-care centers with very young children from 6 months through kindergarten.”  

After retiring and moving with her husband, Philip, to Ocean Ridge, the mother of three and grandmother of five found a way to give back to the community.  “Being in education, part of my personality has always been to be a giver,” she said. “I feel blessed to have good people around me. And this has been a good way to give back to the community. I’ve put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this, and every minute has been worth it.” 

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The Coastal Star is converting all of its delivery to single-family homes, going from newspapers in plastic bags thrown in driveways to having U.S. Postal Service delivery in mailboxes.

We are doing this to improve service to our readers and advertisers. Between sprinkler systems and summer rains, we know we have delivered a few wet papers over the years; hopefully this will bring that to an end.

Beginning with our May 2025 edition, readers in single-family homes should look for their papers in the mail.

Delivery to condos, businesses and other public locations will continue to be handled in bundles as usual.

Those who receive the paper by mail should not expect to see the next edition before Saturday, May 3.

— Jerry Lower
Publisher

I’ve lived in Highland Beach for 26 years. In spite of all the new and improved infrastructure put in place to deter it — the latest of which is pedestrian-activated warning lights installed at no small expense — vehicles continue to fly through crosswalks with pedestrians present. 

Part of the problem, I believe, is that the authorities don’t enforce the law, or not often enough. I’ve witnessed police cars ignore such scofflaws on numerous occasions. It almost seems like policy to do so and that’s a scary thought.

I’m no expert on human behavior, but I think it’s intuitive to conclude that if tickets were given, diligently and consistently, even if with only small fines attached, negligent driving habits would change spontaneously.

—James Sherman
Highland Beach

Firefighter Jesse Rivero was sworn in March 24 by Town Attorney Max Lohman. Rivero’s wife, Kerri, held the Bible. Mary Thurwachter/The Coastal Star

By Mary Thurwachter

Newcomer Jesse Rivero, a 50-year-old firefighter, defeated veteran Town Council member Lynn “Doc” Moorhouse for Lantana’s Group 1 Council seat.

Moorhouse, 81, a retired dentist, has been on the council for 21 years and was endorsed by the Professional Firefighters/Paramedics of Palm Beach County — a surprise and disappointment to Rivero, who has served 20 years with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.

But Rivero said at a candidates’ forum sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce eight days before the vote, “He may have the endorsement of the union, but I have the endorsement of the community.”

Rivero collected more than 58% of the vote compared to Moorhouse’s 41%. Only 733 of Lantana’s 6,131 registered voters cast ballots in the March 11 election.

Reached by phone election night, Rivero, celebrating with family and a few friends at El Bohio Cuban Restaurant, said Moorhouse had already called to concede and extend congratulations. Mayor Karen Lythgoe and Police Chief Sean Scheller also called with best wishes.

“Like I said at the debate, I didn’t get the endorsements Doc got, but the people were behind me and whatever the people decide will happen,” Rivero said.

Rivero said he thought the election would be close because Moorhouse had history in the town and knew a lot of people. “But I know a lot of people, too.”

Moorhouse did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

Asked to comment about the election and what Moorhouse’s departure would mean, Lythgoe said: “Doc possessed a deep understanding of the council’s history and provided institutional knowledge to the council. I look forward to what Jesse may bring.”

With Moorhouse gone, the longest serving council members are Lythgoe and Mark Zeitler, both of whom were first elected in March 2020.

Kem Mason, who holds the Group 2 spot, was elected automatically when no one else filed to run for the position during the election qualifying period that ended Nov. 15.

Mason, 66, is a retired firefighter and is completing his first term.

Rivero and Mason were sworn in during the March 24 Town Council meeting.

Council terms are for three years.

By Steve Plunkett

Briny Breezes Town Manager Bill Thrasher is preparing a budget for fiscal year 2026 that will raise town property taxes to $6.75 per $1,000 of taxable value, up 80% from the current $3.75 rate.

“Its purpose is for covering debt service with a possible loan,” he told town aldermen at their March 27 meeting.

Thrasher said he was developing different budget packages to respond to possible changes in local funding by state lawmakers in Tallahassee, including their potentially doing away with property taxes entirely.

“As far as I know, that hasn’t been picked up,” he said. “I don’t think that’s really going to happen.”

But proposals to increase the homestead exemption by $25,000 or even $50,000 might, he said, so he was preparing budgets to take each scenario into account. The next fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

Briny Breezes has 156 properties that claim a homestead exemption, he said.

Alderman Bill Birch said a $6.75 tax rate would have a small effect on residents’ total property tax bills, which include levies from Palm Beach County, the county School District and other taxing authorities.

He held out his own property tax bill as proof.

“If it went from $3.75 to $6.75 my tax bill would change by $133 a year total coming back to Briny. I would only wind up paying an increase of $11 a month. So it’s not doubling your tax bill by any means,” Birch said.

Fiscal year 2024 was the first time since 2009 that Briny Breezes did not levy $10 per $1,000 of taxable value, the maximum allowed by state law, and levied only $3.75 per $1,000. The maneuver was said to give the town room to raise taxes, perhaps back to the $10 rate, to repay loans it might take out to finance sea walls, drainage improvements and new streets to fight sea-level rise.

Meanwhile, Briny Breezes Inc. paid 70% of the cost of police and fire rescue services in town, which it offset by charging residents of the mobile home park higher annual assessments.

In prior years, the town used the maximum $10 tax rate to enable residents to take a higher deduction on their federal tax returns. 

It took this southbound driver more than six minutes to clear State Road A1A tunnel construction about 5 p.m. March 26, even with signal timing adjustments made for the heavier southbound traffic flow. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Larry Barszewski

Manalapan town commis-sioners say there should be a time for homeowners of lots stretching from the Intracoastal Waterway to the ocean to build tunnel passageways under State Road A1A — just not during tourist season when traffic on the road is at its peak.

A traffic nightmare surfaced in late February and March with the simultaneous construction of two tunnels next door to each other, causing heavy traffic backups on A1A on weekends and during weekday rush hours. The work isn’t expected to be completed until the middle of May, Town Manager Eric Marmer said on March 27.

It’s not as if officials couldn’t see the problem coming. Town residents Mary and Ralph Gesualdo asked commissioners in January to force a delay in their neighbors’ efforts to build the tunnels for properties at 1890 and 1900 S. Ocean Blvd. because of the crush of traffic on the road this time of year.

However, at that meeting, Town Attorney Keith Davis said the property owners, Jagbir and Sarla Singh, had permits approved in July for the work and that the town had no authority to stop a valid permit.

The tunnels originally were to be completed in November, but the owners ran into delays with Florida Department of Transportation permitting for the project and then the town requested work be postponed so it wouldn’t cause traffic problems around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Marmer told commissioners at their March 11 meeting that at least three or four more tunnels are being planned for under A1A, which allows property owners to connect the houses where they live on the west side of A1A with the beach and their beach houses to the east — without the owners’ having to cross the roadway.

Marmer asked commissioners what they want to see done.

“We do have somebody over there part time that monitors the traffic and has dealt with some road rage incidents over there,” Marmer said.

Commissioners are interested in creating an ordinance that only allows the tunnel work from April 15 through October, possibly limiting construction to one tunnel at a time.

Typically, in the past, the affected two-lane section of road was closed for a week while crews worked near nonstop to put in a tunnel. It was also possible to close down one lane of traffic at a time to build a tunnel, adding another week to the timeline.

In the recent situation, the state required the homeowners to build a “bypass road” on their property to allow a lane of traffic to continue during construction. The new requirements can create a bigger nightmare, affecting traffic for six weeks or more, town officials said.

“If they close the road down it takes five days. If they do half the road (at a time) it takes two weeks. So now it’s taking six weeks (or longer). I don’t understand,” Commissioner Cindy McMackin said.

Marmer said the town is checking with FDOT to see if it would allow homeowners to go back to the previous ways of building the tunnels.

The recent traffic problems have been exacerbated by portable street signals that have been giving equal time for northbound and southbound traffic to access the single-lane bypass — no matter the difference in the length of the car lines.

“My experience is almost always a one-way problem. Like, we’re coming up and there are 10 cars going north and 125 going south, things like that,” Commissioner Dwight Kulwin said. “They’re during predictable times and I think if you had somebody there to readjust things and move things along, I think that would go a great way.”

Marmer said it should not be police handling the timing of the signals, but construction crews. “We’re not looking for the police to be flagmen, though. We’re looking for them to be present at the site,” Marmer said. The cost of providing police should be picked up by the applicant, officials said.

Police Chief Jeff Rasor, who had implied a traffic-oriented role for the police earlier in the meeting, backed what Marmer said.

“Obviously, anytime you have a traffic congestion problem, people’s patience becomes very thin, for lack of better words,” Rasor said. “A police presence there obviously has a calming effect on everybody.”

And Vice Mayor Simone Bonutti said there were safety concerns as well. “I even had a runner coming at me this morning, going through that bypass. It’s like a death wish,” she said. “I just want to prevent an accident from happening.”

By Steve Plunkett

Town residents, acting as shareholders of Briny Breezes Inc., strongly endorsed allowing the town government to proceed with its plan to make “material alteration” of Briny Breezes, meaning its drainage and sea wall project.

The Feb. 26 vote was 65% in favor and 12% against, with 23% of shares not voting. The measure needed 51% to pass.

“I’m so thrilled that we were allowed to go forward with this project,” Council President Liz Loper said at the council’s regular meeting the next day.

But a month later, at their March 27 meeting, the aldermen were dismayed by news of the status of the town’s $1.4 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“Our federal grant is paused,” Town Manager Bill Thrasher said. “I’ve received a letter from the Treasury Department that our grant is in pause. Our grant has not been denied or pulled back as of this moment.”

Thrasher did not consider the federal action to be a setback.

“We’re not quite ready to move forward anyway,” he said. “The Resilient Florida grant, we’re trying to modify it to achieve some of our purposes. … But there is a pause on the federal side. I’ve not been given any notices whatsoever from the state side.” 

Briny Breezes qualified for a $7.2 million grant from the Resilient Florida program. The town hopes to build a comprehensive, townwide drainage system and raise its sea walls to fight perennial flooding and expected sea-level rise. The total project cost is $14.4 million.

In February, Palm Beach County rejected the town’s request for a $5 million grant to help pay for the project.

But County Commissioner Marci Woodward “was very impressed with your dedication and efforts, and asked our resilience team to continue exploring other potential options for the town moving forward,” Caitlin Joyce, Woodward’s chief of staff, wrote in an email to Thrasher. 

By Brian Biggane

The South Palm Beach Town Council heard 30-minute presentations March 13 from a pair of engineering firms regarding the long-awaited construction of a new lift station.

As Mayor Bonnie Fischer put it after the vote at the special meeting, “I was impressed with both.” The tally reflected that statement as Mock Roos of West Palm Beach edged out Holtz Consulting Engineers of Jupiter in a 435-433 vote.

Each of the five council members received a scoresheet and awarded points — up to a maximum of 100 for either applicant — covering different criteria. The two most significant were “ability and experience” and “successful past performance,” with each of those criteria eligible for up to 35 points from each member.

Replacing the aging lift station has been a priority for several months. Earlier this year, the council approved a measure authorizing a payment of more than $7,000 to address the latest emergency repairs. 

The lift station receives sewage from the town’s condos and sends it to the Lake Worth Beach treatment plant. The station is between the Brittany and Concordia West condominiums.

Town Manager Jamie Titcomb issued a request for bids in late 2024, but failed to receive the required three bids. After a reissue of the request still left the town with only two bids, the council decided to go ahead and choose between those two.

Holtz Engineers, led by Vice President Christine Miranda, went first, pointing out that while it is on the small side, with just 22 employees, 13 of those are professional engineers. Miranda said she has 25 years of experience in the field dating back to working with the Loxahatchee River District, which is the wastewater entity for the town of Jupiter.

Next up for the team was Steve Fowler, who would serve as project manager. He described constructing lift stations as “our day-in, day-out business.” Fowler said he has 20 years of experience and has worked extensively for Palm Beach County, as well as for Lake Worth Beach, the Loxahatchee River District and Palm Beach Gardens.

The third and final member of the group was Kristin Feko, whose expertise is in the area of grant management and grant application. She expressed confidence she could find ways to mitigate the town’s expenses.

Titcomb said while many factors play into the cost of the project, he expects it to come in between $500,000 and $1 million. 

Next up was Mock Roos, whose four-man contingent came with the expectation it would be participating in an ask-and-answer session rather than a presentation, but regrouped quickly.

Senior Vice President Garry Gruber introduced the quartet and stressed the experience they would bring to the project.

Prospective project manager John Cairnes, whose 17 years with the firm was the shortest tenure of the four, said he has become “one of the most experienced, top-notch lift station engineers in Palm Beach County,” having designed more than 100 such rehab projects. He said he has evaluated more than 1,000 lift stations for the county Water Utilities Department and more than 100 for the village of Wellington.

Cairnes said the significant change his team would make from the existing lift station would be to put in a slope rather than a flat bottom.

That would mean all the refuse and debris “goes right into the pump and it gets sucked out, so there’s less maintenance there,” he said. “So, if a storm came through … you’d be able to just continue normal operation.

“You really wouldn’t have to do anything, kind of a ‘set it and forget it.’”

Cairnes added that with the improvements, materials and technology, “you wouldn’t have to touch it, hopefully, for another 50 years.”

Cairnes said the firm is contracted to build new lift stations for Manalapan and the town of Palm Beach, with those being the two closest pump stations to South Palm Beach.

Council member Elva Culbertson said that proximity was a factor in her giving the edge to Mock Roos.

Cairnes said a delay in the availability of materials means the Manalapan project won’t begin construction until early next year. South Palm Beach would face similar delays.

Town Attorney Ben Saver met with the quartet from Mock Roos immediately after the meeting to start negotiations toward a contract. The council said if no deal can be struck it would turn to Holtz next. 

Town commissioners begin new terms — While voters in some towns were going to the polls March 11 to elect town officials, Manalapan Town Clerk Erika Petersen started the day swearing in Mayor John Deese and Commissioners Simone Bonutti, Cindy McMackin and David Knobel to new two-year terms.

Town voters didn’t need to have a say as the four were automatically elected during November’s qualifying period when no one else filed to run for their seats. The swearing-in took place at the regular Town Commission meeting. Commissioners then voted to keep Bonutti as vice mayor and Commissioner Elliot Bonner as mayor pro tem.

Electric lines going underground — Town Manager Eric Marmer announced that FPL plans to underground electric lines on Point Manalapan in about two years. Marmer said he plans to talk with AT&T to see if it could place fiber-optic cables at the same time for better internet access — and Bonutti said she’d like to see natural gas lines installed there as well.

Point Manalapan residents soundly rejected having natural gas lines in 2015, but Bonutti said she thinks current residents may be more amenable to the idea.

Police ATV gaining beach access through South Palm Beach — The absence of public access to the beach in Manalapan makes it challenging for police to use their beach ATV on the north end of town. They have to truck it about 2.5 miles south to near the Boynton Inlet and then head back north up the beach.

Police Chief Jeff Rasor told commissioners a better situation is starting. He said the town of South Palm Beach has agreed to let Manalapan police use a condominium association beach entry point in that town, a short way north of Manalapan.

“It gives us a little bit of extra time maybe to quickly deploy onto the beach. Certainly, it makes it a little bit faster and easier for us,” Rasor said.

Flooding problems to be investigated — The Florida Department of Transportation plans to start a feasibility study regarding perennial flooding problems on State Road A1A, Marmer said. He expects the town should hear something by September, with the state coming up with short-term, mid-term and long-term priorities. The flooding in town is most acute near the intersection of A1A and Ocean Avenue.

“They will present to us at some point their projects that they’re going to do to address all these issues over here, which might come down to fixing the sea wall along here where it floods, the back-flow preventers, raising the roads,” Marmer said.

No more town emails for emergencies — Residents will have to get on board Manalapan’s Code Red service if they want to be notified of emergencies, as the town will no longer be sending out that information through town emails, Marmer said.

Code Red started in the town last year, he said. Gas leaks, road closures and tornado warnings are among the items sent out via Code Red.

“It’s kind of a liability to have those emails go out,” Marmer said of the town’s notices, which will continue for non-emergency items. Residents who haven’t done so can register for Code Red alerts on the town website, www.manalapan.org.

July 8 chosen for crucial budget meeting — Commissioners have to approve a tentative budget and a maximum property tax rate in July, but getting a quorum that month can be difficult as board members flee the summer heat. Last year, McMackin resigned so that the three commissioners at the meeting would be enough for a quorum (instead of the four typically needed). She was then reappointed in August.

“We need a quorum in the room, otherwise Cindy has to resign again,” Town Attorney Keith Davis joked.

The commissioners settled on holding the budget/tax rate meeting on July 8 along with their regular meeting. Marmer had hoped to hold the meeting later in the month, giving him more time to make any needed adjustments based on the final property tax assessment totals. Those are not expected from the county property appraiser until July 1, but he assured commissioners he could meet the earlier deadline. The commission also scheduled a budget workshop for June 5.

— Larry Barszewski

Dog ban persists after split vote — Both the beginning and the end of the South Palm Beach Town Council meeting in March featured moves to rescind an ordinance adopted in September 2023 prohibiting dogs from being on Town Hall property.

Council member Ray McMillan began the meeting with a motion to place a measure on the April agenda to remove the ordinance. It was originally adopted because some dog owners had been bringing their dogs to the back of Town Hall to do their business, and then not disposing of the poop even though there were bags and trash receptacles nearby.

“I already have an idea how to prevent that from happening,” McMillan said, “besides a sign or something expensive. We can make it work.”

Mayor Bonnie Fischer voted with McMillan but the other three council members voted against, killing the proposal.

At the end of the meeting, resident Rafael Pineiro introduced a petition that he said more than 20 dog owners had already signed seeking to rescind the ordinance. 

“This isn’t just about dogs — it’s about people,” the petition read. “The ban excludes dog owners from fully participating in Town Hall activities, eroding the community spirit our public places should foster.”

Fischer clarified the issue, saying that residents have been gathering at the turtle sculpture in front of Town Hall in the late afternoon on a daily basis and the ordinance essentially bans dog owners from participating if they have their pets with them. Pineiro said he would continue the push and hoped to collect 100 signatures or more.

Residents get meeting with Town Hall architects — Council members had their final face-to-face meetings with CPZ Architects regarding the design of the new Town Hall on March 13 and voted to have CPZ present its plans at a public charette on April 3.

Town to dispose of car ­— A 2015 Ford Explorer police car from when the town had its own police force will be put up for sale. It has not been driven in more than two years.

Lighting improvements approved — The Town Council authorized $7,346 be paid to American Lighting & Electrical Services, Inc., for improvements to 19 streetlights and ballasts at the south end of town on State Road A1A.

Trash pickup agreement passes — The council finalized its new five-year contract with Waste Management, Inc., to collect and dispose of the town’s refuse.

Fees for wellness classes dropped — The council decided to discontinue charging fees for regular health and wellness classes. The council determined that tracking the fees had become more trouble than the nominal amounts they were generating.

— Brian Biggane

Ocean Ridge residents are upset that some dog owners are bringing their pets to the beach against town rules. They insist town officials enforce the rules and increase patrols to keep dogs off the beach. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By John Pacenti

Man’s best friend is public enemy No. 1 in Ocean Ridge. The dogs illegally romping in the sand, playing in the surf — and yes, pooping — had town commissioners, residents and police snapping at each other like chihuahuas.

Maybe everybody was a bit tired and a bit hungry after an interminable — and draining — presentation on the town’s comprehensive plan at the commission’s March 3 meeting, but there was a lot of bark when it came to dogs on the beach.

“We hear this every single year at this time, from February 1, around May 1. We go through this every single one of these meetings,” Mayor Geoff Pugh said.

Resident Stella Kolb was rabid mad about the issue.

“This past week, I can’t tell you, there has to be at least four or five times that I have seen dogs poop on the beach, and only one of the owners would pick it up,” Kolb said.

Resident Lucy Brown added, “The worst thing about no dogs on the beach is that there are big signs on every beach access saying dogs are not allowed on the beach. So every single time that a resident or nonresident goes happily skipping past the sign with their dogs, we are saying to them, our rules mean nothing.”

Pugh got consensus on the commission to increase fines for first offenders from $25 to $100 and went one step further, addressing Police Chief Scott McClure.

“What about the next budget cycle, add whatever one of you thinks would be necessary to increase, whatever you have to increase to have somebody patrolling the beach, especially during the weekends, and taking care of it,” he said.

McClure pushed back first on Vice Mayor Steve Coz’s claim that his department wasn’t using its all-terrain vehicle on the beach. “They never left the beach,” he said. “We do one patrol every shift.”

He tried to explain that officers were giving people warnings as they walked their dogs across State Road A1A to Beachway Drive to access the beach. And they were issuing citations. However, there is a mighty big loophole for dog owners.

“Officers can only ask two questions: Is that a service dog and what service does it provide,” he said. “If they give us an answer of one of the designated services, then they can have a dog on the beach.”

McClure noted that the town has not seen a single stolen car or burglary in two years thanks to street patrols.

He stressed to residents not to confront dog owners on the beach. “Please contact us first because these people are even confrontational with us,” he said.

Lt. Aaron Choban then gave a hard dose of reality, noting that three officers work at a time and sometimes one of those officers is on personal time off.

Dedicating one of those officers to doggy patrol “leaves one officer in town to respond to any number of situations. We saw what happened with the wood chipper incident,” referring to a January incident when a tree trimmer was killed at Town Hall while putting branches into a wood chipper. “We have people in town who have heart attacks.”

Always the pragmatist, Pugh said, “I’m not saying be on the beach all the time. You guys are making it sound like I want some guy sitting there getting baked by the sun the whole time.”

Kolb then returned to the podium, saying it wasn’t just about dogs, but about safety. She and another woman were followed from the beach, she said. “I don’t pay taxes here to live like this. I am very upset. My husband is very upset. This is not about dogs.”

McClure then told Kolb, “In that circumstance you said something to somebody with a dog.”

At the end of a nearly 31/2-hour meeting, Pugh finally found consensus among everyone present: “I am about dog tired right now.”

By Mary Thurwachter

Lantana police officers will add three in-car cameras to their fleet, thanks to the Town Council, which authorized the purchase on March 10.

Cost of the cameras, from Axon Enterprise, Inc., is $36,842 and funds have already been budgeted.

The cameras will be installed in three SUVs. Twenty of the department’s vehicles already have cameras.

Police Chief Sean Scheller said the cameras are “a great tool for police for retrieving stolen vehicles and help with transparency and community confidence.” Police, he said, can share footage to show professional conduct and maintain public communication.

Dash cameras, he said, provide an unbiased account of what really happened.

Many other departments in the county, including in Delray Beach and Boca Raton, use in-car cameras and body cameras.

Lantana police have been using body cameras for police for five years and dash cameras for two years. 

By Steve Plunkett

Work on Phase 2 of the town’s $13 million water main, drainage and road project — affecting homes on the east side of Gulf Stream’s Core area — did not start as expected in March, a delay that will push construction into 2026.

How far into next year? “I think that would be dangerous to give you any kind of date,” Town Manager Greg Dunham said.

The contractor, Roadway Associates LLC, had hoped to reach “substantial completion” of the first phase by March 27 and get permission to start the second, which it then expected would have been finished in mid-December. But the company and the town had widely different definitions of “substantial.”

“I just believe based on historical performances and meeting deadlines that they in fact set for themselves to meet, I don’t feel comfortable moving on and starting a new phase with so much that’s left to do in Phase 1,” Dunham told the Town Commission on March 15.

“We were presented with the idea that we were going to be able to start Phase 2 when Phase 1 was not 100% completed,” Roadway project manager George Perez countered.

The main hang-up was the fact that the Palm Beach County Health Department had not approved the new PVC piping on the west side of the Core as “fit for public use,” nor had it been asked to as of April 1.

Delray Beach, which supplies the town with drinking water, also has to accept the new pipes, Dunham said.

Obtaining Health Department approval could take two to four weeks once the application is submitted, officials said at the March 15 commission meeting. Then 78 homes will need to be connected, at the rate of five homes per day, Perez said, or about 16 workdays.

“You’re not realistically getting this thing wrapped up … till like the middle of June,” Vice Mayor Tom Stanley said.

Dunham said the contractor has continued to restore the landscaping, sprinklers and driveways of homes affected by the first phase.

Gulf Stream has put Roadway on notice “that the date of substantial completion has passed and that we are starting to calculate liquidated damages,” Assistant Town Attorney

Trey Nazzaro said. Those damages are set at $500 for each additional day the project isn’t finished.

And Perez said the contractor will be requesting additional days beyond the date specified in its contract to make up for unforeseen problems it encountered. “It’s about 60 days if you make me try to guess,” he said.

New vice mayor — As the Lantana Town Council reorganized for the upcoming year, Kem Mason was selected by fellow council members to serve as vice mayor. 

Chris Castle was chosen March 24 as vice mayor pro tem. 

Mason is beginning his second three-year term. Castle is serving his first term.

The council also selected Annemarie Joyce to be an alternate on the Planning Commission. Joyce had served previously as an alternate and said she looked forward to returning.

Planning for budget — Lantana will hold its annual visioning retreat from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 11 at Finland House, 301 W. Central Blvd. Department heads will tell the Town Council what their needs and priorities are going into the next fiscal year. This discussion will begin the budgetary process, according to Town Manager Brian Raducci.

Remembering Lantana Lou — Mayor Karen Lythgoe announced that the town will be honoring Louis M. Canter, aka Lantana Lou, with a plaque to be hung on a tree at the public beach. Lythgoe displayed the plaque at the March 24 town meeting.

For many years on Groundhog Day, Lantana Lou, wearing a jeweled crown and snazzy cape and carrying a trident and a large fish, would emerge from the beach to predict “six weeks of sunny weather.”  

He was Lantana’s answer to Punxsutawney Phil.

Canter, 94, a former vice mayor in town, died at his home last December. He retired from his Lantana Lou appearances about 10 years ago.

Egg-citing adventure at Maddock Park — Lantana’s Eggstravaganza Egg Hunt is set for 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. April 19 at Maddock Park, 1200 W. Drew St. The free egg hunt includes photos with the Easter Bunny, prizes, family games, a hayride, face painting, balloon twisting, arts and crafts, and vendors.

Free parking will be available at Lantana Middle School. For more information or to volunteer, contact Nadine Shawah at 561-540-5754 or via email at nshawah@lantana.org.

— Mary Thurwachter

By John Pacenti

With the Florida Department of Transportation starting to repave East Ocean Avenue in March, Ocean Ridge Mayor Geoff Pugh wanted to make sure FDOT officials were aware of flooding on the road — especially during king tides.

The $1.3 million project will repave Ocean Avenue from Federal Highway to State Road A1A and will stretch late into this year. It will include milling and repaving, upgrading signage, adding LED lighting, and improving pavement markings for motorists and bicyclists, said FDOT spokeswoman Silvana Ojeda.

Pugh said at the March 3 Town Commission meeting that his concern is that FDOT already doesn’t maintain a 36-inch pipe that feeds storm water to the Intracoastal Waterway.

“When that happens, during these king tides, and that thing is not cleaned out, it floods the whole road,” he said.

When FDOT mills the road for asphalt, it’s going to be even lower by 4 to 6 inches, “So we will have even more water on the road,” Pugh said.

Tuck Lee, the design project manager, said the 190-day contract builds into it weather delays. Furthermore, the milling will be followed by the repaving before that section is reopened to traffic. Only one lane will be closed at any one time.

Pugh’s additional concern was noise, especially after 5 p.m. “You can’t be milling at night next to these homeowners that are right there,” he said.

The plan currently is to mill during the day and pave at night, Lee told the commission.