By Jane Smith

The Downtowner open-air vehicle company has officially parted ways with the City of Delray Beach.
The transportation company rankled the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency when it reduced the number of vehicles it would provide for its point-to-point service from nine to seven and pulled its bid for the fixed operator contract that would replace the current trolley system.
The reason? The $5 million liability insurance policy that the CRA required for the transportation service.
“I feel like I’ve been had,” said Adam Frankel, CRA board member and a city commissioner. “The commission received a lot of criticism last September that we had run you out of town, when it was you who had changed your business model.”
CRA Chairwoman Shelly Petrolia agreed. “I thought the cars were already ordered,” she said.
“Our other contracts in Florida require only $1 million in insurance,” said Mike Monaco, chief technology officer for the Downtowner. “We underestimated the cost of the $5 million policy.”
For example, the Downtowner’s contract with the Tampa Downtown Partnership requires a $1 million policy, said Karen Kress, transportation and planning director for the group.
The Downtowner uses Teslas and Chevy Bolt electric vehicles in Tampa because their charges last longer than in the global electric motorcars that are popular in Delray Beach.
Because the Downtowner changed the terms of its $591,985 point-to-point bid, the Delray Beach CRA board members voted 6-0 to award that service to BeeFree Holdings. Board member Ryan Boylston had left the meeting before that vote was taken.
The BeeFree firm, based in Miami, operates under the name Freebee. The company had been ranked first by the selection committee when the original bids were considered.
The company provides point-to-point service in Coral Gables, where its contract calls for $3 million of liability coverage.
Jason Spiegel, managing partner of Freebee, declined to comment until the firm has a signed contract.
Like the Downtowner did in Delray Beach, Freebee will use GEM vehicles. The two firms also offer apps for smartphone users that promise to say when the vehicles will arrive.
But unlike the Downtowner, Freebee will have to find a place near downtown to store and charge its vehicles. The firm’s bid was $401,560 annually for five GEM vehicles with a sixth that will be wheelchair accessible.
The Downtowner has four electric vehicle charging sites adjacent to its offices on Northeast Fourth Avenue. Downtowner open-air vehicles have not operated in the city since October 2018.
With the Downtowner pulling out of the fixed-route proposal, the CRA voted 6-1 to award that contract to the competitor, First Transit, with Frankel voting no. He is opposed to the large vehicles.
First Transit, which provides drivers for the city’s diesel-fueled trolleys, will offer two Starcraft Allstar Ford vehicles that carry 20 passengers and are powered by propane gas. A backup vehicle will use diesel fuel, considered more polluting than propane gas.
The mini buses each will have a DriveCam running to record both sound and video, but First Transit wants to charge $70,000 extra to equip the vehicles with passenger counting and other technology. The firm’s initial $512,606 bid was accepted. The advanced technology system costs will be decided separately.
The departure of the Downtowner and subsequent agreement with First Transit for fixed-route transportation means the CRA will likely have its current diesel-fueled trolleys running past June 30. The point-to-point service, set to begin Sept. 1, also is delayed.
“That means another 100 days,” said Petrolia, also the Delray Beach mayor. “I’m not happy.”

Briny Breezes resident Ed Manley, a World War II veteran, received a hero’s welcome from hundreds of well-wishers at Palm Beach International Airport after returning from a daylong trip to Washington D.C. courtesy of Honor Flight volunteers. ‘There must have been 100 veterans on the flight,’ said Mark Madden, Manley’s guardian on the May 11 trip. They visited Arlington National Cemetery and the memorials for World War II, the Vietnam and Korean wars and the Air Force before boarding the return flight, which landed about 10 p.m. The highlight for Manley, 97, who served in the 101st Airborne Infantry Division, 502nd Parachute Battalion, was the reception and send-off veterans received at the airports. ‘I was losing confidence in the country because I didn’t think anyone really cared,’ he said. ‘But the young people made me feel like I had been in church for a year and a half. It was really well done.’ Photo provided by Holly McCarthy

By Dan Moffett

Problems with building permit processing continue to beleaguer Briny Breezes officials.
Town Manager Dale Sugerman told council members that recent permitting errors by C.A.P. Government Inc., the outside contractor that handles building inspections and plan reviews in Briny, prompted him to meet with the company’s president last month to discuss corrective action.
Sugerman said he gave Carlos Penin at least 11 examples of instances in which C.A.P. made processing mistakes that caused permits to be incorrectly approved, erroneously filed or lost in the electronic system.
“Sometimes C.A.P. was just not paying attention,” Sugerman said. He told the council that he’s concerned the company might have “taken on too much business” and might not have the resources available to give Briny the efficient service it wants.
Sugerman said if C.A.P.’s performance doesn’t improve, the council might have to consider hiring another firm.
Even when the system works as intended, homeowners have complained for months that obtaining permits is unnecessarily complicated and too confusing.
Alderwoman Kathy Gross, during the May 23 council meeting, proposed restructuring the town’s permitting procedures.
“The process is convoluted as it starts with the corporation, then it goes to the town clerk, and sometimes it goes back and forth several times,” Gross said. “Then the town clerk has to deal with C.A.P.”
Gross proposes allowing the corporation to deal directly with building contractors and Briny’s building official at the beginning instead of having applicants come first to Town Hall and the clerk. Unlike the corporate office, which is open daily, the town’s office is open only three days a week, which further restricts the process. The change would fix that.
“It puts the process in one location and it saves money for the town by eliminating excess work on the town clerk,” Gross said.
Donna Coates, the corporation’s general manager, said she was open to considering the change and taking on the added workload. Sugerman said he liked the idea. Town Attorney Keith Davis said the plan could be shaped to satisfy statutory requirements.
The council agreed to study Gross’ proposal and bring it up for discussion at the next town meeting on June 27. “We’ve got some homework to do,” Sugerman said.
In other business, the council unanimously approved a resolution of concern that expresses the town’s complaints about the Gulf Stream Views townhouse project next door in the County Pocket.
The resolution lists four problems:
• Excessive noise, dust and vibration from the ongoing construction project.
• Heavy construction equipment clogging the town’s streets.
• The increased traffic that the project will generate in the area once completed.
• Drainage and flooding problems that could result from losing the roughly 2-acre property as a drain field for surrounding neighborhoods.
The resolution is aimed at Palm Beach County officials, in particular District 4 Commissioner Robert Weinroth, who represents Briny Breezes.

Hal Stern at the Seagate Beach Club, part of the resort his family visited as snowbirds before buying a house in coastal Delray Beach. In retirement Stern is chairman of the city’s Green Implementation Advancement Board. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

Hal Stern remains a do-right kind of guy.
His dad was part of the “greatest generation.” As a Jewish man going off to fight Hitler, he didn’t complain about the conditions. “He did it because it was the right thing to do,” said his son.
Stern, who lives in coastal Delray Beach, took that lesson to heart and looks for areas where he can make a difference.
He was a history major at George Washington University during the height of the Vietnam War protests on college campuses.
Stern, 68, remembers the 1971 May Day protests that shut down Washington, D.C. Thousands were arrested and detained near RFK Stadium.
“Washington was a cool place to be,” Stern said. “You could walk right into the Capitol. There weren’t any metal detectors.”
He saw Richard Nixon be inaugurated as president and met Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon B. Johnson.
He also made it to the Woodstock music festival in 1969. “I came from a summer camp in northeastern Pennsylvania and didn’t get stuck in the mud or on a closed highway,” he remembered. “I saw Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and The Band. I left when Jimi Hendrix was singing the national anthem. But my ride didn’t show up and I was late getting back to camp. I was fired from my counselor position at 9:15 a.m. because I had missed my breakfast post. Then, I had to call my mom to pick me up. My dad wasn’t mad that I got fired, but he wanted me to have a backup plan.”
A retired lawyer from the D.C. area, Stern brings that passion for action to his role as chairman of the Delray Beach Green Implementation Advancement Board.
The Green Board has had two big successes this year.
One was a milestone in its effort to rid the city of plastic straws.
Florida’s new governor vetoed a bill that would have barred a local government from adopting or enforcing a ban on plastic straws until July 2024. Several cities statewide had passed plastic straw bans.
“These measures have not, as far as I can tell, frustrated any state policy or harmed the state’s interests,” Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote on May 10.
Currently, Delray Beach is educating restaurant servers and others to not offer single-use plastic straws, unless requested. In January, the city will start enforcing the ban.
The Green Board also assessed the city’s tree canopy this year. Stern told the City Commission in April that Delray Beach has an overall canopy of 23 percent. Trees help to combat climate change by providing shade on hot afternoons, helping to slow traffic and cleaning the air by absorbing carbon dioxide while releasing oxygen.
To improve the tree canopy, the Green Board wants to plant 10,000 trees in the city by 2035. Its members will organize planting events and help to strengthen the city’s tree ordinance.
In October, the board plans to have a Climate & Art Festival, drawing together Delray Beach art and education institutions.
“We all should leave this world a little better than we found it,” Stern said, quoting a youth scouting motto.

Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A. I grew up in the Jackson Heights area of Queens, N.Y. It was just me and my sister and my parents in a two-bedroom apartment — not many secrets when you live so close together.
I was a history major at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Then, I went to law school at Case Western in Cleveland, but the lure of D.C. called to me.

Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A. I was a general litigator in the Washington, D.C., area for about 10 years. We sold that practice and moved into the corporate world in 1988. We helped poor patients who went to the emergency rooms or had surgery find either Medicaid or veterans insurance to cover their bills. I’m proud that we helped many poor people pay for their care.

Q. What advice do you have for a young person selecting a career today? 
A. Figure out what you’re good at and then explore until you find a place where your skills fit. Don’t be in such a hurry to choose a career. Take time to explore. A lot of young people today pick finance, but when they start working in that field, they hate it.

Q. How did you choose to make your home in Delray Beach?
A. My in-laws and parents retired to Boynton Beach. We explored the area and found Delray Beach. My kids called me, ‘the mayor of Delray Beach’ because I loved it so much. After I retired, we came down as snowbirds and lived at the Seagate hotel on Atlantic Avenue. We walked the barrier island and eventually picked a street where we wanted to live.

Q. What is your favorite part about living in Delray Beach? 
A. What’s not to love? The town has a true sense of place. Just like Washington called to me as a college student, this town calls to me. There are not many beach towns where you can walk down its main street, pass 15 or so restaurants and then end up at the beach.

Q. What book are you reading now?
A. Metropolis, by Philip Kerr. I like it because it’s a historical thriller. Kerr combines the hard-boiled Dashiell Hammett writing style set in the Weimar Republic of Germany.

Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax? 
A. Postwar jazz for both. I like listening to tunes by John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon and early Dizzy Gillespie. There’s no talking, it’s all instrumental.

Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions? 
A. Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena.” I’d rather get beaten fairly than sit on the sidelines criticizing and not getting things done.

Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A. I’ve had two. My parents taught me the value of hard work and being honest. The second was a senior partner in a firm I had joined. I had been a general litigator and joined his firm to set up a branch in the Washington, D.C., area. Bernard Landau had a system that helped hospitals collect payments from uninsured patients.

Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A. George Clooney. What man wouldn’t want him to play his life? I like him because of his intensity and he’s not bad to look at. I also think Jimmy Stewart would fit. He was a genuine person, an honest man. I think of his movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

By Rich Pollack

Since it opened just about a year ago, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in Boca Raton has had close to 7,000 aircraft passengers come through its doors.
They have come on almost 1,500 planes and arrived after departing from 40 countries, including Italy, Germany and England.
They have brought with them warm-weather clothing and sometimes pets. They’ve also brought trash — lots of it.
Between May 31, 2018, and May 20 this year, 2.35 tons of trash collected from aircraft arriving from overseas has been burned to ash in a special incinerator installed at the Boca Raton Airport. The trash includes everything left over on the plane, especially food or foreign material that could bring disease or blight.
The statistics help document the need that customs facility advocates had been talking about for years.
“The usage has exceeded our expectation,” said Airport Authority Executive Director Clara Bennett.
Bennett said the number of passengers using the facility is close to double what had been predicted in a feasibility study done to justify the construction of the $3 million, 4,200-square-foot facility.
Customs officials say that the station in Boca Raton sees an average of four or five flights on weekdays with 10 to 15 flights on Saturdays and Sundays combined.
Sundays are the busiest day of the week, according to Boca Raton Airport records, accounting for about 25 percent of all arriving international flights needing to clear customs.
The overall number of planes coming into customs increases significantly, however, when President Donald Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, since Palm Beach International Airport is closed to international general aviation aircraft while temporary flight restrictions are in effect.
The busiest seven-day period of the year, for example, was Feb. 12-19, which included Presidents Day and a presidential visit. During that time, 83 flights and 406 passengers passed through customs in Boca Raton.
The week also included the busiest day of the year — Feb. 15, the Friday before Presidents Day, with 27 flights and 114 passengers traveling through customs.
In general, the customs facility is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and operates from only 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., but pilots can request after-hours clearing for an additional fee.
Overall, inspectors at the facility have not seen any problem with passengers attempting to bring contraband into the country.
“Traffic at the Boca Raton Airport tends to be 99 percent law-abiding travelers,” said Jennifer Connors, U.S. Customs and Border Protection port director at the Port of Palm Beach, which includes the facility at the Boca Raton Airport. “So far, it’s been a reasonably easy operation to manage.”
Connors said the newness of the facility and the relatively light traffic make the Boca center a desirable location for customs inspectors. “It’s a nice place to work,” she said.
Pilots and passengers — especially those coming from the Bahamas as well as the Turks and Caicos — are also finding it a convenient place to clear customs.
In the past, planes coming into Boca Raton from out of the country would likely clear customs either at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport — which has one of the busiest general aviation customs centers in the country — or at Palm Beach International.
That would often mean an additional landing and fuel-consuming takeoff.
With the customs facility in Boca, that step is eliminated.
Bennett points to the case of a pilot with a plane at the Boca airport who flies to the islands frequently. With customs in Boca, he is able to save about an hour flight time and about $100 in fuel costs.
The dollar savings are negated a bit by a fee the Boca airport charges to help offset the costs to build, operate, maintain and staff the customs facility.
The fee, based on the size of the aircraft, ranges from $50 for a single-engine plane to $425 for a large jet.
In addition to aviation traffic, the customs facility is available to boats coming in from overseas. In the first year, 34 vessels and 77 passengers have cleared in Boca Raton.
Bennett said that the airport’s goal in requesting a customs facility was always to provide a valuable and convenient amenity for the customers.
“That has in fact been truly borne out,” she said.

By Sallie James

DELRAY BEACH — Delray Beach fashion designer Marjorie Scott Ott, a devoted mother and entrepreneur whose stylish line of resort wear garnered national attention, died on May 3 at home. She was 97.
Mrs. Ott created the Toby of Palm Beach line of clothing in the 1960s that was carried by upscale stores such as Neiman-Marcus, Bonwit Teller, Peck and Peck and Jane Spencer. The popular clothing line, initially sewn by local seamstresses in their Florida rooms, was eventually manufactured in Miami. When ultimately Saks Fifth Avenue picked up the line, it stipulated that no store within 50 miles of any Saks could carry the line, except for Jane Spencer of Delray Beach.
Despite Mrs. Ott’s fame as a fashion designer, her sons remember her as a humble optimist, a bold adventurer who loved to sail, a devoted mother and a lover of life who kept things in perspective with her heartfelt sense of humor.
“She was the sweetest, funniest, warmest person,” recalled her son Richard Tobias. “She was an art major and she was very creative. The designing thing sort of was a fluke. She had these shifts you could put on over your bathing suits — our grandmother liked it and she told Mom, who had a dressmaker, make one for my mother. My grandfather said this could be good business.”
Born on Oct. 4, 1921, in Queens, New York, Marjorie Scott attended Kew-Forest School, Skidmore College and the University of Arizona, graduating with a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1941 at age 19.
She worked as a draftswoman for American Export Airlines, plotting out its flying boat-conducted trans-Atlantic surveys. Her foray into fashion came when she became a senior stylist for Macy’s in Manhattan.
She married Richard Tobias Jr. in 1950 and lived with their three sons near Nyack, New York, until they decided to move to Palm Beach in 1957. But their journey there was somewhat unconventional: The family — with two dogs and three very young boys — cruised south on their 63-foot yacht until arriving in Florida, where they decided to stay.
“It was crazy. I was only 2 months old when they decided to come down to Florida by boat. My brother Scott was 2 and brother Richard was 5,” said her son Charles Tobias. “It was a big boat with one engine and we were in the ocean sometimes and in the Intracoastal Waterway sometimes.”
By November 1957 they’d had enough and decided to settle permanently in South Florida. The family lived in Palm Beach and then Delray Beach, where Mrs. Ott launched Toby of Palm Beach.
She created the apparel lines Toby Tanner and Marjorie Scott, both produced by Tanner of North Carolina, and designed a fashion line for David Crystal/Izod of New York, her sons said. She traveled often but was devoted to her family. She never lost her sense of humor.
The Tobiases divorced in the early 1970s. He died in 2005. She married Carl Ott in 1975; he died in 2004.
“My mother, in the most serious of times between my brothers and I, would look up at us and give us cross-eyes and try to make us laugh. She would give the hat off her head to anybody,” Charles Tobias recalled.
Her motto? “To thine own self be true,” from Shakespeare, Charles Tobias said.
Her son Richard Tobias, an artist, remembered what his mother did when she learned that one of his close friends was traveling to New York for the first time.
“Mom said to her, you have to have an LBD if you are going to New York — a little black dress. My mom gave her this little black cocktail dress and my friend said it made her trip worth it,” Richard Tobias recalled. “She was fun. She was so cool — she wanted to bring out the best in everyone.”
After retiring from the fashion industry in 1973, she purchased a knitting and needlework boutique in Delray Beach, purchased the historic Pittman House, which was later donated to the Delray Beach Historical Society’s historical village, and operated two other specialty shops in Delray for several years.
Her children said she remained sharp to the end.
“She was humble and she was funny, had a great sense of humor and just welcoming to people always,” Richard said.
Memorial services were pending.

By Sallie James

BOCA RATON — Jon Randal “Randy” McDonald loved to go barefoot, throw parties, chat up his neighbors and spend time with his beloved sheepdogs. He was also a talented investment professional, recently named one of the top brokers in Florida.
When he died on April 17 after a brief illness, leaving behind his wife, Lori, those who knew him said the community lost someone who was “everybody’s best friend.” He was 63.
Mr. McDonald was born in Racine, Wisconsin, and spent most of his childhood in St. Croix. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison with a degree in finance and most recently worked for Morgan Stanley. He rose through the ranks to become a senior vice president, a wealth adviser and a corporate client group director during his tenure there.
He was also a member of the Riviera Civic Association and a keen supporter of the neighborhoods on the barrier islands, said fellow Riviera board member Katie Barr, who had known Mr. McDonald for years.
“Randy was always right there, always ready to serve or to have a party. Whatever it took, Randy was the guy,” Barr said. “He is really leaving a big void. He was 63 but he was like 23 in spirit. He had a very youthful persona.”
The McDonalds often walked their huge sheepdogs around the neighborhood and chatted with people along the way, friends recalled.
“Besides the fact that he was fun and had a generous heart and spirit, he was extremely smart so he was a huge asset,” Barr said.
He was “always the voice of reason” when it came to making decisions for the neighborhood, Barr added.
Kevin Meaney, president of the Riviera Civic Association, said the community lost a good guy with a great sense of humor, who knew how to focus when it came to neighborhood issues.
“If we needed to rally over some things that were going on in the neighborhood he would get involved,” Meaney recalled.
George O’Rourke, Mr. McDonald’s neighbor and a former co-worker, remembered him as someone who truly loved life.
“He was very much a community activist. He was multidimensional: professional in his work as a community activist and a true friend to many in the city,” O’Rourke said.
He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Mark. He is survived by his wife, his three sheepdogs and three sisters.
In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory can be sent to Abandoned Pet Rescue, at www.facebook.com/fund/AbandonedPetRescue, or Animal Aid Inc., at www.animal-aid.com.

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach Public Works staff unveiled the second phase of the beach master plan on May 28.
The work will start July 8 and is scheduled to be finished mostly by Nov. 19, said Aaron Cutler of Mathews Consulting who was hired to monitor the project.
When finished, the beach promenade will have amber lighting on the beach side of State Road A1A that is friendly to sea turtles and pedestrians. The $3.3 million project also includes enhanced crosswalks and dune fencing.
“Finally,” said Bob Victorin, president of the Beach Property Owners' Association. His group has been waiting about 10 years for the improvements.
The amber LED lights will be fitted on 124 poles about 10 feet high to light the walkway. Forty, 4-foot-tall bollards also will have amber lights. Most of them will be placed behind the main pavilion at Atlantic Avenue and A1A.
Between George Bush Boulevard on the north and Casuarina Road on the south, the lights will be on a timer to go on at dusk and shut off at 10 p.m. during sea turtle nesting season.
Separately, Florida Power & Light engineers are working on having amber streetlights installed on their 25-foot poles later this year. Currently, FPL’s lights on the west side of A1A are white LEDs that don’t turn on during sea turtle nesting season.
In mid-April, MBR Construction won the bid to construct the second phase of the beach master plan for the city.
Commissioners approved the Fort Lauderdale firm’s bid, even though at $3.3 million it was about $800,000 more than that of West Construction of Lantana.
Also on the April 16 consent agenda, commissioners approved hiring Mathews of West Palm Beach for $256,000.
Earlier in April, West was sent a letter detailing problems with two city projects they had worked on, including the eight lifeguard stands.
Cutler, vice president of Mathews, said his company will have employees on site daily and post photos each day on Twitter (@beachmasterplan) and Facebook (#beachmasterplanphase2).
He also said a hotline has been set up for residents to ask questions or report problems. The phone number is 833-335-7292.
City staff asked MBR to delay starting the work until July 8 to not interfere with the city’s Fourth of July celebration.
MBR, which signed a contract on May 23, will spend the downtime ordering the light poles, bollards, posts and the steel cable for the dune fencing.
The project will include eight A1A crosswalks with reflective paint. The crosswalks at the intersections at Atlantic and Casuarina will be painted and stamped to look like bricks.

By Dan Moffett

Sandra Foschi owns and operates nine health and wellness centers in the New York City area and wants to expand the company to Manalapan.
When the old BB&T bank building on the northeast corner of Plaza del Mar went on the market earlier this year, Foschi thought it was the ideal place for another of her Health SOS businesses. The center could offer residents physical therapy, sports medicine, nutritional support, massages and acupuncture, pilates and yoga.
“I think it’s something the community needs,” she said. “There’s nothing like that here.”
In April, Foschi, through her Salute Realty LLC, paid $1.6 million for the property, the full asking price, and hoped to begin overhauling it quickly.
That isn’t happening, however. Foschi, a licensed physical therapist for close to 30 years, can’t begin using her property until town commissioners lift the moratorium on business development that they placed on the plaza in October.
Mayor Keith Waters says the town needs time to update and revise language in codes that were written decades ago.
During the commission meeting on May 23, Waters told Foschi that the moratorium needs to stay in place until commissioners “are sure we’ve covered all the bases for the town.” Besides commercial codes for the plaza, Waters said, the town has been reviewing zoning and building rules for residences in Manalapan’s south end.
“We will be as expeditious as we can be,” Waters told Foschi. The mayor said Foschi’s request to remove the moratorium will be put on the agenda for the commission’s next meeting on June 25 and discussed then.
Commissioners have already heard from Foschi’s lawyer, Holiday Hunt Russell of Fort Lauderdale. Russell sent a letter to Waters suggesting the town may be conflicted because commissioners in April had discussed buying the building and relocating the town’s Police Department there.
“As a litigation attorney of more than 25 years,” Russell wrote, “I have significant doubt that the town actually has the legal authority to prohibit previously lawful use of the property within its jurisdiction.”
He said the moratorium “is not a lawful exercise of the town’s zoning authority” because the town is dragging its feet and not moving with “due speed” to remove the ban. Russell called on the commission to end the moratorium, so Foschi can begin renovation.
Town Attorney Keith Davis said Russell is mistaken. “The town is proceeding with due speed, so it is absolutely acting lawfully,” Davis said.
Foschi told the commission she wants to work with the town: “I’d prefer to have cooperation rather than quarrels.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Waters responded.
“I’m very cognizant of appearances and how it would look at the gateway of the town,” she said. “I’m willing to comply with everything that the town wants.”
In other business, the commission’s June 25 meeting will move to the town’s library to make way for renovation of the Town Hall chambers.
Plans call for redesigning the commission dais and seating arrangement to allow officials to face each other.
Town Manager Linda Stumpf said the renovation, which is expected to cost roughly $190,000, also includes a new audiovisual system. Stumpf said contractors hope to have the work done by early July.

By Mary Thurwachter

Although Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa was placed on the market earlier this year, owners have since decided not to sell. The five-star hotel is destined for renovations, however, according to Eau spokesman Nick Gold.
The owners, a family based in London, met with the hotel’s 400 employees on Feb. 21 to announce they had decided that after 16 years they felt “the timing was right to actively market and sell the hotel to a new owner,” Gold said.
But after an extensive search, Gold said, none of the parties that submitted bids met the terms of the owners, the Lewis Trust Group. The asking price was not disclosed.
Gold said employees were relieved that the Eau would remain with the Lewis family.
Hotel renovations are expected, Gold said.
“Like all hotels, renovations are always being discussed and planned,” he said. “Now that the hotel is no longer for sale, a master renovation plan will be developed and implemented in the near future.”
The 309-room resort has a 3,000-square-foot oceanfront terrace, two sleek pools, a huge fitness center and a deluxe spa.
Eau Palm Beach was a Ritz-Carlton that the Lewis family purchased for $67.5 million in 2003. The family poured more than $100 million into the property. Rooms were last renovated by Jonathan Adler in late 2014. The Lewis family and the Ritz parted company eight years ago over money and control issues. The property was rebranded as Eau (French for water) in 2013, taking its name from its highly regarded 42,000-square-foot spa.
While some speculated that the recent attempt to sell the property may have fallen short because of its lack of a major hotel brand (such as Marriott), Gold said as far as he knew that was not a factor.

Sales pave way for new in Highland Beach,
preservation of old in Gulf Stream

Frank McKinney’s $17.5 million project in South Palm. Photo provided

By Christine Davis

Delray Beach developer Frank McKinney unveiled his $17.5 million, 7,850-square-foot furnished estate home at 3492 S. Ocean Blvd. in South Palm Beach on May 23. He’s calling this his “final masterpiece,” and he shared changes he’s seen in Florida real estate over his 30-plus years in the business.
“A lot of trends that start at the top trickle down and make their way into the everyday home,” he said. “Examples include granite countertops, stainless steel and the under-the-counter coffee makers. Three decades ago, these features could only be found in luxury homes; today, they are a must in nearly every home, thanks to demand and cost reduction.”
McKinney said luxury homes are smaller today, ranging from 5,000 to 9,000 square feet, as buyers purchase their third or fourth homes. But they still expect the homes to be high tech.
Buyer demographics have also changed, he said. “Today’s luxury buyer is 10 years younger than they were when I first started creating homes. They are self-made millionaires and are rarely purchasing their primary home.”
Features in McKinney’s latest home include a tropical design with lots of theatrical pizazz — azure-blue lava kitchen countertops from France, a three-story glass elevator encased on the first floor by a wine room and bar, a jellyfish tank, a 50-foot resort-style pool, a rooftop lounge, and a cascading water wall and reflecting pool.
One hundred ninety guests were invited to attend the official launch event at the house. Tickets were offered at $200, with proceeds to go toward building 10 concrete homes in Haiti as part of McKinney’s Caring House Project.
The home is listed by Steven Presson, an agent with the Corcoran Group.

A buyer paid $10.5 million for this 1926 estate in Gulf Stream. Photo provided

In May, Boston hedge fund executive Michael Rashes and his wife, Dena, bought a 12,623-square-foot-home at 2817 N. Ocean Blvd., Gulf Stream, for $10.5 million from Francine Duberry Mulliez of Delray Beach. Built in 1926, the three-bedroom house with four guest villas sits on 1.2 acres. Candace and Phillip Friis of the Corcoran Group represented the buyer and seller.
Candace Friis said that this is the third family to have owned the house, which last sold for $12 million in 2008.
During the time the house was developed, Gulf Stream was an equestrian polo community. Homes had bells that could be rung at cocktail time, and this home still has the original bell, she added.
The home was redesigned by the architectural firm Bridges Marsh, and details include imported marble, limestone floors, cypress cathedral ceilings, two fireplaces, an oceanside office, a master bath with private courtyard and a rooftop terrace.

An $8.2 million sale of this Highland Beach property was nearly a record price. Photo provided

Brian and Jennifer Kessler bought 2475 S. Ocean Blvd., Highland Beach in April for $8.213 million. The seller was Frances Yu, trustee of U Trust. Pascal Liguori of Premier Estate Properties represented the buyers, while Jeffrey Cohen of Douglas Elliman Real Estate represented the seller. U Trust paid $5.3 million for the property in 2005. This is the second-highest sale price for a knockdown/land value deal in Highland Beach, following the $11 million sale at 3621 S. Ocean Blvd. That sale closed in December 2015, and the home was demolished to make way for the 3621 South Ocean townhome project, according to Douglas Elliman. 
“This sale price represents a new standard for oceanfront land value in Highland Beach,” Cohen said. “It is reflective of the area’s building and zoning codes, allowing an owner or developer a more generous building and a level of architectural autonomy which you will not find in most coastal towns.” 

After buying a second property in Boca Raton’s Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club community to live in, Steven and Rebecca Scott sold their 8,570-square-foot spec house at 271 W. Coconut Palm Road to Mark Kaplan for $11 million. Rebecca Scott paid $2.1 million as an investment for the lot in 2002.
SRD Building Corp. built the five-bedroom house in 2018. David Roberts of Royal Palm Properties represented the Scotts, while Jeannine Morris and Blake Morris of the Morris Group with Lang Realty represented the buyer.

In May, Key International and Integra Investments launched sales at the Boca Beach House, a four-story, 32-unit development at 725 S. Ocean Blvd. in Boca Raton. Ground breaking is expected next year, and the development is estimated to take two years to build. The company bought the 3.2-acre waterfront site from Boca Lake Parcel LLC, a subsidiary of Blackstone, in 2017 for $17.3 million. Sales will be handled by Key International Sales. Preconstruction prices for the two- to five-bedroom units range from $2.5 million to $8 million.
Sieger Suarez Architects is designing the building; Linda Ruderman is handling the interiors; Raymond Jungles is designing the landscaping.
Buyers at Boca Beach House will gain free one-year memberships at the Boca Raton Resort & Club. For more info, visit www.bbhresidences.com or call 305-377-1025.

Alina Residences Boca Raton, at 300 SE Mizner Blvd., broke ground on its first phase in March. The project, according to a news release, will have 121 condominiums priced between $1 million and $6 million.
Boca Raton-based El-Ad National Properties is the developer. Moss Construction is the general contractor and Garcia Stromberg/GS4 Studios is the designer.
The first phase is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2020. By then, the second phase should have begun. The entire 8.8-acre site was approved for 388 condos.
Douglas Elliman is the broker.

Steven Newman, who was featured on CBS’s Undercover Boss while he was CEO of Loehmann’s, recently launched sales of Eden Ridge in Boynton Beach, with builder Aldo J. Kosuch and architect Gary Eliopoulos.
Eden Ridge, at 3479 S. Seacrest Blvd., will have eight homes ranging from 2,800 to 4,130 square feet. Preconstruction prices range from just under $1 million to $1.5 million. Newman plans to break ground on two spec homes at the project this summer, while the developers begin building the street and installing infrastructure.
Property records show Eden Ridge LLC paid $1.1 million for the 2.8-acre site in May 2017. Maureen Murtaugh, at 289-1000, and Cheran Marek, at 870-8855, agents with Douglas Elliman in Delray, are handling sales and marketing.

Menin Development, a firm led by Craig Menin, secured a $29.75 million construction loan from City National Bank of Florida in April for its planned 120,000-square-foot mixed-use project Delray City Market, records show. In 2018, Menin bought the site at 33 SE Third Ave. from the Morton Group, which had planned to build Metropolitan at Delray, a 48-unit boutique condo project.

Christel Silver, broker/owner of Silver International Realty in Delray Beach, has launched a new company, Silver International Referrals 2 LLC. The company is geared toward agents who want to keep their Florida real estate licenses but are not actively listing and selling. For a fee, they may hang their licenses with Silver’s new company and give referrals and accept referral fees.

CGI Merchant Group, which owns Nexus Workspaces, announced the opening of two new Nexus Workspaces co-working offices, in Boca Raton and Boynton Beach. The Miami-based private equity firm bought the properties for a combined $9.4 million in February, records show. Nexus BocaRaton is a 44,000-square-foot Class A office space with more than 100 office suites at 20283 S. State Road 7, with 86 percent occupied, according to a news release. Nexus Boynton Beach is a 15,262-square-foot Class B office space at 1375 Gateway Blvd. It has about 70 suites with over 50 percent occupancy.

Seed, a co-working alternative for business people, will open a new 6,000-square-foot workspace on the second floor of a retail office building at 660 Linton Blvd., Delray Beach. Pre-leasing for Seed opens in mid-July, and the grand opening will take place in late summer.  The workspace will have 58 co-working desks, 14 executive offices, private meeting spaces, and several open-space areas including a lounge and a reception center. For more info, visit www.WorkAtSeed.com.

Southern Development Services, a Delray Beach commercial development firm, has opened a self-storage facility with 500 units at 1125 Wallace Drive. The property is managed by CubeSmart.
“With the continuing growth of Delray Beach, there is an increasing need for these types of facilities,” said Jim Zengage, a longtime coastal Delray Beach resident who is president of Southern Development. “This is a booming sector of the real estate industry for good reason — people need a place to put their belongings.”

Title Alliance, a title insurance and escrow company, held its second Gives Back Week in April, a program in which the company’s employees across 10 states and 54 offices volunteer in the community for a favorite cause or initiative.
In Boca Raton, team members from Title Alliance of the Palm Beaches each volunteered a half-day with Kindness Matters, an anti-bullying campaign.
“All our dedicated and enthusiastic employees were thrilled at the chance to combat bullying,” said Lisa Douglas, regional operations manager at Title Alliance of the Palm Beaches. “Not only did they get to work together while volunteering, bringing the team closer together, but they also found inspiration working so closely with the community.”

The Boca Chamber’s Business Awards Luncheon on May 24 at the Boca Raton Resort & Club recognized Sal Saldaña of Town Center at Boca Raton as business leader of the year, Roxana Scaffidi of Florida Accounting & Advisers as small business leader of the year, and Plastridge Insurance Agency as business of the century.

After winning more than $1,700 from investors to put into her business in the Boca Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy Investor Panel Competition, Rhea Jain went to Rochester, N.Y., in May to compete against other young entrepreneurs from around the United States, China and India. She pitched her upscale petite clothing line, Renoosh, which has a pay-it-forward twist, and was one of six who made it to the Rochester finals.

Delivery Dudes, a company that delivers food from local restaurants, has begun giving customers the chance to opt out of receiving plastic-ware when they put in their orders for food delivery. 
Delivery Dudes partnered with 4ocean, a local company created by Andrew Cooper and Alex Schulze that aims to inspire individuals to work together for a cleaner ocean.
“The planet is awesome and we have to stop polluting it,” said Jayson Koss, Delivery Dudes chief executive officer.
Delivery Dudes, headquartered in Delray Beach, has more than 50 locations in Florida, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

Send business news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com

By Charles Elmore

An Ocean Ridge resident said he felt “outrage” after receiving a notice in February demanding $401.80 for a 2015 ticket generated by a red-light camera in Boynton Beach.
“Warning: Your license may be suspended,” the letter said.
Three or four years later? Better buckle up. Similar shocks potentially await thousands of drivers in the latest chapter of the off-again, on-again saga of red- light cameras.
Attorney Ted Hollander of the Ticket Clinic, which has an office in Boynton Beach, said he can understand why drivers might feel whipsawed.
“There’s been tons of confusion,” Hollander said. “It’s been a mess for 10 years.”
Nearly all participating cities in Palm Beach County turned the cameras off after lower-court action seemed to put their legality in question in recent years, but a Florida Supreme Court decision upheld the camera law last year. 
Alone among its county peers, Boynton Beach turned its cameras back on in 2017. 
Now a bulging backlog of more than 14,000 unpaid tickets across the county threatens consequences far tougher than an initial fine of $158 with no points on a driving slate, records requested by The Coastal Star show.

Red-light cameras like this one at Federal Highway and Southeast 23rd Avenue in Boynton Beach record images of vehicles and their rear license tags. The system automatically generates tickets. The city has a total of 15 cameras covering seven intersections. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Some drivers say they don’t remember initial notices of violation. Others thought the tickets were no longer valid.
“The street talk was it’s not enforceable,” said Joe Bryan of Boynton Beach, who said he was not sure what to make of two tickets affecting his household from 2016. “That’s what I heard.”
He said he has mixed feelings about the devices: “I think cameras are great for crime and safety, but it’s almost like Big Brother stuff.”
A considerable mound of cases has piled up in the system while all of this played out.
Records provided by the Palm Beach County Clerk’s Office show more than 85,000 cases were referred to its office since 2010 involving more than $20 million in red-light camera fines that were not paid promptly in the local municipalities.
The clerk’s office has sent more than 25,000 cases to collection companies, which are allowed under state law to charge fees up to 40 percent on top of fines and other costs that ratchet up over time if tickets remain unpaid, records show.
If a payment has not been submitted within 30 days, the original municipal infraction will become a Red Light Traffic Citation with a higher fine, according to the clerk’s website. At that point, drivers might pay $264, or take their chances a court may assess a penalty up to $500, plus court costs of $106, the website says.
State law allows the office to send cases to collection, a clerk’s office spokeswoman said.
More than 14,000 tickets sent to the clerk’s office remained unpaid as of March, records show. Unpaid fees ranged as high as $574 in a 2016 case originating in Boynton Beach.
Adding to the confusion, drivers may remember headlines about court decisions along the way that ruled for or against the law or put enforcement of tickets on hold. There have been debates about whether cities would enforce slow-rolling right turns on red, for example. Cities wrestled with accident statistics at the camera intersections, parsing whether the cameras were reducing harm or increasing certain kinds of accidents such as rear-end collisions when camera-wary drivers slammed on the brakes.
In public meetings and water-cooler discussions, the debate raged about whether the cameras were a valuable deterrent against unsafe driving or a gotcha-government generator of revenue that cities and private camera vendors split. Many cities, from West Palm Beach to Boca Raton, stopped operating the cameras and never turned them back on.

An Ocean Ridge resident thought the enforcement of tickets had been put on hold by the courts and later received this notice of license suspension. Photo provided

Meanwhile, thousands of citations went out to car owners in an atmosphere where many people were unsure about what would be enforced. Some were seasonal residents who had trouble keeping up with what the law was at any given moment.
So what can drivers do if an old ticket pops up? They should take it seriously, Hollander said.
One problem in fighting certain older tickets is that it can be difficult to persuade courts to order the cases out of collection, he said.
If that considerable hurdle can be overcome, tickets often can be reduced or thrown out, particularly those involving cities that no longer operate the cameras, he said. One practical reason is the cities may no longer assign specialized police staff to oversee red- light cameras, leaving no one experienced in the cases to show up in court to defend them, he said.
But Boynton Beach is different. After suspending cameras for nearly a year, its commission voted to turn them on again in September 2017. Red-light cameras were expected to bring in more than $800,000 annually at the time, published reports show.
Before a City Commission meeting in April, Mayor Steven Grant defended the cameras not because of revenue but public safety reasons that he said can extend beyond traffic issues to violent crimes, providing another eye on criminal suspects racing through the streets.
It’s “for safety,” Grant said. “There’s video evidence of someone running or not running a red light.”
Residents like Bryan are still trying to sort it out and reeling from “a lot of confusion out there.”

ABOVE: The Edgar Winter Band performs during the International Beatles on the Beach Festival at Old School Square. Winter, 72, who has toured with Ringo Starr in recent years, performed Free Ride and Frankenstein. Other singers and bands did Beatles music as well as selections influenced by the Beatles. BELOW: Dave Harris, center with his hands in the air, visited from Detroit and watched Winter perform on April 26. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Collecting plastic in trek around state,
former lifeguard says recycling is not enough

ABOVE: Bryan Galvin and Heather Bolint walk the St. Andrews Club beach in Gulf Stream last month as they pick up and photograph plastic and other trash on a three-month, 1,200-mile trek covering the entire Florida coastline. BELOW: The trekkers wear their message on their backs. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

For four years, Bryan Galvin sat on the beach behind the St. Andrews Club in Gulf Stream, ready to rescue exhausted swimmers from unexpected riptides.
Galvin, 28, quit that lifeguard job in February, and on the morning of March 1 he started walking south from Amelia Island, near the Georgia line, on a 1,200-mile mission to rescue the beaches.
“This isn’t a beach cleanup,” he wants you to know. “It’s an awareness trek.”
PlasTrek 2019, he calls it.
Galvin and his fellow traveler, Heather Bolint, 32, are trekking the perimeter of mainland Florida, picking up as much plastic flotsam and jetsam as they can carry along the way.
On that first morning, they set forth in a blue Dodge Dakota with a canoe on the roof for paddling across inlets, 150 burlap bags and a smartphone to photograph plastic and other debris they salvaged from the sand.
Balloons, coffee cup lids, lollipop sticks — they’d snap a photo, drop the trash in the burlap bag and move on.
“If we find dog poop, we try to find the nearest trash can,” Galvin says. “Same with diapers. Condoms, we’re not going to touch them.”
They walk until sunset, store the day’s burlap gatherings in the dunes, then hitch a ride back to retrieve their truck and retrace the day’s trek to gather the full bags and find a place to spend the night before setting out again the next morning.
“We’re not sleeping on the beach,” Galvin notes. “We sleep in campgrounds or with local families. So far it’s been about 50 percent in motels and 50 percent families.”
Their original plan was to complete the 1,200 miles in 10 weeks and arrive in Pensacola by mid-June, then bring the burlap bags together for one final, giant photo of all the plastic they’d gathered along the way.
On Wednesday morning, April 3, they finally reached Gulfstream Park. This was day 34.
“We’re a week behind our original schedule,” Galvin said as he and Bolint rested on one of the picnic benches. “Now I don’t think we’ll be there before the end of June.”
Walking all day in the hot sun, bending down, photographing, lugging those bags then rushing to be back where you started by sunset to get your truck before the public parks close — and all to remind people not to litter?
“This isn’t litter,” Galvin says, perhaps a little offended by the word. “I felt people didn’t really understand, so I came up with the term ‘oceanic plastic discharge.’ This isn’t just beachgoers leaving stuff. It’s washing in on the beach.”
True, some of it’s litter, but he and Bolint are also finding vinegar containers from the Dominican Republic, Clorox bottles and Haitian water bags. The bags, small plastic pouches containing about 9 ounces of water, are plentiful throughout the island, where finding safe drinking water is a challenge.
“Most are from Cuba, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Haiti,” Galvin says. “They pile their garbage on the beaches and they get washed out and wind up here.
“If the county told Palm Beach, ‘we’re not picking up your garbage anymore,’ what would happen?”
He gestures at his own plastic sunglasses. His argument is not with sunglasses, but with plastic products that are used once and discarded.
“This is about single-use plastics,” he says. “Aluminum cans are better, because aluminum has value. But plastic is cheaper, so it gets thrown away. Don’t just recycle. Reduce, refuse, rethink.”
So far, he estimates, they’ve tagged and collected enough plastic to fill about 80 of their 150 bags. They’re going to need more bags, and more time.

Bryan Galvin and Heather Bolint ran into old friends and acquaintances when they passed the St. Andrews Club, including club member Merritt Swenson (center). Galvin used to be a lifeguard and teach kids to surf in the area.

Most people are friendly and supportive, Bolint says. “People clap and say thank you.”
But this beach trek is no day at the beach.
They’ve each suffered a broken toe, and sometimes they’re their own worst company.
“Do we fight?” she says. “Oh, yeah. Traveling 24/7 with someone is challenging both physically and mentally.”
“We take time to make sure we’re on the same page,” Galvin says.
“Today we’ll be happy if we make it to Spanish River Park in Boca,” he says, and checks his phone. That’s an 8.9-mile trek, and they need to get moving.
And so they set out, leaving the truck at Gulfstream Park and heading down the beach again.
But in front of the St. Andrews Club, right where he used to sit in a blue canvas beach chair guarding lives, old friends are waiting.
Gary Heiland and Michael Buller, lifeguards and former colleagues, come down to greet him and wish them well.
Kim Tiernan, a club member for five years, is thrilled.
“He’s very well-liked at the club,” she says, “and this is a great testament to how much he believes in what he’s doing. We need more awareness.”
Teggie Smith, another member, is equally thrilled to see their former lifeguard.
“My grandkids went to his surf camp,” she boasted, “and now they’re following him online. It’s teaching them about having a commitment to something not everybody pays attention to. It’s teaching them that if you feel strongly about something, do something about it.”
They chat for five or 10 minutes, and then Galvin and Bolint are off again.
Within yards of the club, they find a piece of plastic from a Haitian water bag, straws, a lollipop stick and a plastic cigar tip.
They didn’t make Spanish River Park that day. They got only as far as Atlantic Dunes Park in Delray Beach. The next day they reached the Boca Inlet, and the day after that the Hillsboro Inlet.
“Our daily average at this point is 10 miles a day,” he reported on April 10, as they neared the final, 5-mile trek along Miami Beach. “We started out averaging 15 to 20 miles a day, but after Sebastian Inlet the plastics multiplied.”
In Miami, they would rest for a day, then tackle the 100-mile paddle across to Everglades City and turn north toward the Gulf Coast.
“We only pick up about 10 percent of all we see,” Galvin says.
As of April 29, Galvin and Bolint were in Everglades City, resting after an eight-day canoe trip across the Everglades.
Now they head toward Marco Island, then Naples, and up the Gulf Coast.
If all goes well, they will reach Pensacola, and the 1,200th mile of their PlasTrek, by the end of June.

For more information, visit www.plasticsymptoms.org.

Bill Watson of Ocean Ridge and his Big Time Restaurant Group partners own City Oyster in Delray Beach among more than a dozen restaurants. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Bill Watson and his partners in the Big Time Restaurant Group understand what Delray Beach’s Crossroads Club means to the community.
They also understand what it means to chef and restaurateur Louie Bossi, whose restaurants are operated in partnership with the West Palm Beach-based group.
So, when Bossi came up with a fundraising idea for the Crossroads Club, a 7,200-square-foot facility that hosts dozens of meetings every week for organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous, his partners were happy to lend a hand.
“Louie brought the idea to the team and we said ‘of course,’” said Watson, a founder and an owner of the Big Time Restaurant Group. He recently moved to Ocean Ridge. “We know it’s important to him and we knew it was important to the community.”
That conversation three years ago led to the creation of the Taste of Recovery, a culinary event in Delray Beach’s Old School Square with Bossi as an organizer and host. The event was so successful in raising money for Crossroads in its first two years that organizers have decided to do it again on June 1.
As it has in the past, Big Time Restaurant Group will be involved and so will Watson.
“If Bill sees a worthy cause, he’s 100 percent supportive of it and he gets people to join him,” says Tony Allerton, the longtime executive director of Crossroads. “Bill is dedicated to helping us.”
Chances are you’re not familiar with Watson’s name, even if you’re a regular at local restaurants. You might not have even heard of Big Time Restaurant Group.
If you’re in South Florida, however, you probably have been in one of the group’s multiple eateries, include Rocco’s Tacos & Tequila Bar, Louie Bossi’s, City Oyster & Sushi Bar, Big City Tavern and City Cellar Wine Bar & Grill.
Watson, who owns the restaurant chain with Todd Herbst and Lisabet Summa, is low-key and unassuming. He is easy to talk to — traits that helped him during his years as a server and bartender — and he has a firm grasp of the intricacies of the restaurant business.
From Long Island, Watson, 54, started out in the hospitality industry at 15, working as a pot-washer before becoming a busboy and eventually graduating to waiter and bartender.
After moving to Florida more than a quarter century ago, Watson earned a degree in business from Florida Atlantic University, all the while continuing to work in restaurants.
“Florida afforded me the opportunity to go to school and work at the same time so I could pay for school,” he said.
After graduating and finding restaurant jobs around the country, Watson returned to South Florida. He connected with Herbst — a childhood friend — and opened a first restaurant, John Bull English Pub in West Palm Beach. After meeting up with Summa, they formed Big Time Restaurant Group and opened Big City Tavern in downtown West Palm Beach.
Watson and his team now operate more than a dozen restaurants. He attributes their success to having employees who help create a culture focused on providing a quality experience for the customers.
“We have a fantastic group of people who allow us to do this,” he said. “It’s a great team and that’s the key to our success.”
As it has done with the Crossroads Club, Big Time Restaurant Group supports other nonprofit organizations that are important to the staff.
When one of the longtime team members discovered that a relative had juvenile diabetes, Big Time Restaurant Group stepped in with support.
The group also supports Rocco Mangel of Rocco’s Tacos, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, when he participates in related fundraisers.
“We support many causes, we just happen to focus a little more when it hits close to home,” Watson said.
For Watson, the Taste of Recovery is a great event that will feature several of the group’s restaurants — along with several other restaurants — as they provide savory food and compete for prizes such as the People’s Choice award and Critics Choice award.
“It’s a lot of fun and we see a lot of people from the industry,” he said.
Agreeing three years ago to support Bossi’s idea for Taste of Recovery was an easy decision for Watson and the ownership team.
“If you have the capacity to help with a problem, you just do it,” he said.

If You Go
What: Third annual Taste of Recovery
When: 6-9 p.m. June 1
Where: Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
Why: Benefiting the Crossroads Club
Tickets: $40 in advance, $50 at the event
Highlights: Restaurants serving savory bites and desserts, music from Dave Scott and the Reckless Shots, Vision of Hope Award presentation, chefs competing for Best Bite, Critics Choice and People’s Choice awards.
Tickets and information: Visit www.tasteofrecovery.com. Call Steve English at 450-7514.

By Dan Moffett

As one, the eight police officers in South Palm Beach have come forward and asked the Town Council to allow their department to join forces with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
Council members say they are surprised. And they are listening.
“As a town, we can’t be afraid to look into other options,” said Mayor Bonnie Fischer. “We can’t put blinders on.”
Councilman Mark Weissman said the town has an obligation to listen when an entire department comes forward and speaks with one voice.
“One hundred percent of the officers want this,” Weissman said. “This isn’t 30 percent or 50 percent — but 100 percent.”
The council unanimously voted on April 9 to invite both the Sheriff’s Office and the Lantana Police Department to make presentations about a possible takeover. Fischer said the presentations would be “educational” for the council and could be scheduled before summer.
Under state law, only contiguous jurisdictions can consider contracting for police services. For South Palm Beach, that means the sheriff, Lantana and the town of Palm Beach are the options.
Councilwoman Stella Gaddy Jordan insisted that the Lantana department be considered along with the sheriff so the town could compare proposals. Fischer and Vice Mayor Robert Gottlieb voted with Jordan to include Lantana.
By consensus, the council decided to exclude Palm Beach from consideration, citing recent media reports of turmoil within the department.
Councilman Bill LeRoy said contracting with another agency would allow the town to keep the officers it now has, a group residents have praised.
“We’re not trying to get rid of anybody,” LeRoy said. “They suggested this out of the blue to us. They want to go to the Sheriff’s Office. That’s what they want. They have a lot of advantages if they go. It’ll change their lives.”
The town’s police contract became an issue in recent weeks after Police Benevolent Association representatives released a survey of salaries in Palm Beach County that showed South Palm ranked last among 23 agencies, with a starting salary of $43,500 — well below Boca Raton’s $66,168 at the top of the list and the county’s average starting pay of $50,237.
Police salaries have risen sharply throughout South Florida in the aftermath of last year’s mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. To beef up staffing, sheriff’s offices and school police departments have hired away officers from small municipalities, driving up pay scales across the board.

Weissman, a former longtime resident in Parkland who served on its City Commission, said South Palm Beach likely would have to stretch its budget to the breaking point to raise officers’ pay and maintain its own department.
“You’re talking about a $10,000 increase just to get us into the top pack of municipalities,” he said of the salary gap. “We can’t afford as a small town what can be provided by a larger operation. We could never afford it.”
Weissman and other council members worry about staffing problems that affect officer safety. With six road officers, a chief and a sergeant, the department sometimes has only one officer on duty during weekends and nights, with no backup.
Fischer said police work has grown more dangerous, even in small towns.
“It’s a different world out there — not like it was 20 years ago,” she said. “We have liability as a police department.”
In other business, the council voted 4-1 (with Jordan dissenting) to have earlier meeting hours for the summer. Starting on May 14 and continuing through September, the town’s regular meetings will be held the second Tuesday of each month, beginning at 6 p.m. Workshops are to be scheduled as needed at 4 p.m. before the regular meetings.

Ah, April. Chamber of Commerce weather, fledgling screech owls in the yard and lingering twilights to enjoy with our neighbors — before the auto transports and seasonal residents bolt for the summer.
By now, most of them have returned to their northern homes and those of us who remain are charged with keeping a protective eye on our coastal paradise.
That means budget hearings! Yes, we need to drag ourselves to commission chambers and engage with issues that promise to affect our cities and towns for years to come.
And this summer, there is much to talk about.
Foremost is home rule — our municipalities’ ability to remain sovereign governing bodies with control over our future. The challenges to home rule are coming at us from all directions. The federal government is talking oil drilling off our coast, and the state legislature has tried to limit local control over vacation rental properties — among other things.
With hired lobbyists and organizations like the Florida League of Cities, we are able to track and fight myriad legislative efforts intending to erode our independence.
But there is a subtler threat that must be monitored: our own ignorance.
Did you know there is talk in our coastal towns about converting private septic systems to sewer? Did you know that commissioners in some towns have bought into the larger-city sales pitch concerning cost savings if they’ll just turn over all those aging water pipes to them? If we want to pursue our governmental independence, why would we ever do that?
If all of our infrastructure is owned by the larger city next door, why not just annex? Our small towns already contract for fire-rescue — and are held to their response times and annual cost increases.
We know the bigger cities would like to have our tax base, so it’s not hard to imagine, say, Boynton Beach’s height and density guidelines implemented on the barrier island in the future. That should keep you awake at night.
Some of our small towns are even talking about trading their local police forces for larger public safety organizations that say they can provide services for less money. Don’t be fooled. There is always a cost.
The largest portion of that cost is the lack of local control. Have you ever tried to get information from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office? Good luck. Hope you have an attorney. Or how about depending on Boynton Beach to get the sewer lift stations operating when the power goes out after a storm? Think our island homes are going to be a priority with thousands of people in dark towers just across the bridge? I doubt it.
Same goes for police protection. Large agencies are going to respond where there is the greatest need after a storm — and that’s not likely to be our coastal towns.
There are other big-ticket items to be discussed over the summer concerning rising waters and infrastructure. Not sexy stuff, but if you want to continue living in communities with some semblance of home rule, I’d suggest you attend town meetings.
We’ll be there. Hope to see you.

Mary Kate Leming,
Editor

I moved to Ocean Boulevard in Delray Beach in February 2000. Back then the water was a beautiful Bahamian aqua blue, crystal clear much of the time.
I am not sure which year, but Delray Beach “replenished” its beach, starting 11/2 miles north of our beach. After the first season, the sand that was used for replenishment, which was light brown, moved south and completely changed our water color. There was some silt from this brown sand, but not too bad, as the water would clean in a day or so, after a storm. But the frequent aqua blue was gone. 
Now, some years later, Delray again replenishes and this time with gray sand loaded with silt. Today the water is never as clear as before the first replenishment.
I now live in Highland Beach and we have both Delray’s two shades of sand and silt, plus with the southeast wind that prevails here, we have all Boca’s sand and silt, also!
Bottom line, what that ship [“Unusual ship is surveying sand on ocean floor for future projects,” Coastal Star, April 2019] should have been looking for was some sand that matched the white, pure sand that we had in 2000.
No more off-color sand that contains silt. Tallahassee does not care, so we have to require the use of sand that will return our water to aqua blue and crystal clear.
It’s out there, we just need someone who cares about the people’s environment.
This off-color sand and too often murky water is not good for tourism.

Fred Taubert
Highland Beach 

Contrary to Richard Lucibella’s angry advertisement in The Coastal Star, this paper has been the voice of the people and represents nearly all of the Ocean Ridge residents. As always, The Coastal Star got the story right, reporting that attorney Richard Slinkman characterized Lucibella as “a sad, little, entitled man who feels that, because he is wealthy, he is above the law and doesn’t need to take responsibility for his own improper actions.”
The quote captures this story in a nutshell.
Good reporting, no malarkey.
Terry Brown
Ocean Ridge

By Dan Moffett

Ocean Ridge commissioners went to a goal-setting workshop thinking their biggest challenge was rebuilding the town’s drainage and wastewater systems.
Then Police Chief Hal Hutchins told them how desperately relations between his officers and residents need rebuilding.
“Right now, unfortunately we’re at a breaking point and I need to come up with a solution to fix the problem,” Hutchins said.
The chief asked the commission to spend about $20,000 to equip his officers with body cameras so their encounters with residents can be recorded.
“There is an air of distrust of the police in the town of Ocean Ridge,” he said during the April 18 workshop. “I continue to hear that. I have been receiving complaints against officers from members of the community that I believe are probably directed at a specific group of officers, for whatever reason.”
Hutchins said he polled his officers and they unanimously supported getting body cameras. He told the commission he “never felt that it is more necessary than now” to use the recording devices.
“I would say the officers are not feeling well and safe in their job,” the chief said.
Mayor Steve Coz and Vice Mayor Don MaGruder echoed the same response to Hutchins’ request: “It’s disturbing.”
Commissioner Kristine de Haseth said giving police the cameras was a way of giving “a vote of confidence” to the department.
“I want that message to be very loud and clear,” de Haseth said. “Because the small faction in this town that is being divisive and disruptive is shameful and I’m embarrassed by it and it should not be affecting morale.”
Relations between residents and police have been strained since October 2016, when Ocean Ridge police arrested former Vice Mayor Richard Lucibella at his home after a shooting incident. Lucibella accused the arresting officers of overreacting.
On Feb. 1, a six-person jury found Lucibella guilty of a lesser charge of misdemeanor battery but cleared him on felony charges of resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer. Lucibella is appealing the misdemeanor conviction. One of the arresting officers, Nubia Plesnik, is suing Lucibella in civil court, accusing him of battery and claiming injuries.
Commissioners agreed to put Hutchins’ request for cameras in the 2019-20 budget discussions. Coz said the commission also “should discuss some form of communication” with residents to improve relations with police.
In other business:
• The commission unanimously agreed to raise acting Town Manager Tracey Stevens’ salary to $108,000 and building official Wayne Cameron’s to $91,000, effective immediately. Commissioners also approved an immediate $6,500 raise for each of the town’s two police lieutenants and approved a raise for their lead full-time maintenance employee to $51,000.
• Stevens said the town expects to have about $600,000 in uncommitted funds for the next fiscal year that could go toward capital projects.
Town Engineer Lisa Tropepe gave the commission a list of 22 possible storm drainage projects to consider, totaling about $180,000. Among the highest priority are improvements to Spanish River Drive and the Inlet Cay neighborhoods.
“We’ve decided we’re going to put a lot of money toward drainage,” Coz said.
Tropepe also recommended beginning a maintenance program for the town’s 143 fire hydrants.
• MaGruder proposed paying $22,246 — Ocean Ridge’s share of a vulnerability assessment study — to the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact. The study results would help the town develop a long-term plan to defend itself against sea rise, he said.