From left, the five-star Mandarin Oriental hotel and its adjacent condos will join the existing 101 Via Mizner luxury apartments on Federal Highway north of Camino Real. Rendering provided

By Mary Hladky

Construction will begin soon on the downtown 164-room Mandarin Oriental hotel and 92 luxury and ultra-luxury branded condominiums.
The Boca Raton City Council, sitting as Community Redevelopment Agency commissioners, unanimously approved redesigned parking garages and 24/7 valet parking plans on Oct. 22, clearing the way for the five-star hotel and The Residences at Mandarin Oriental to be built on Federal Highway north of Camino Real.
Buildings on the site have been demolished, and crews are readying the ground for construction.
Al Piazza, senior vice president for development for developer Penn-Florida Companies, expects construction to begin in late January, with both buildings completed by the end of 2020.
The hotel and condos are phases 2 and 3 of Via Mizner, a $1 billion project that is the biggest development in the downtown’s building boom.
Phase 1 is 101 Via Mizner, a 366-unit luxury apartment building with the most expensive rentals in the city. The building, completed in 2016, is almost fully leased, Piazza said.
Monthly rents for one-bedroom, one-bath units range from about $1,900 to $3,700, and three-bedroom, two-bath units range from about $4,700 to $5,700, according to listings.
The hotel will be the 32nd Mandarin Oriental and the condos will be the ninth branded residences in the world.
The hotel and condos are “going to be a major contribution to our community,” CRA chair Andrea O’Rourke said at the meeting. “I am counting on the brand to meet our expectations.”
The project includes 52,000 square feet of restaurants and luxury shops and a private club. An 18-hole golf course will be located about three miles away just west of Military Trail.
The CRA approved the project in 2015, but Penn-Florida recently sought approval for redesigned parking garages and the addition of valet parking.
The Planning and Zoning Board voted 4-3 against both changes on Sept. 20 after members voiced concerns that the parking garages would be difficult to navigate and that valet parking spaces would inconvenience residents.
Piazza said the objections were the result of misunderstandings, and Penn-Florida officials clarified their planned parking and valet operations in a five-page response given to city staff.
Senior planner Susan Lesser told the CRA commissioners that the developer had “successfully addressed” the issues.

Suspended mayor to fight probable cause finding
from Florida Ethics Commission advocate

By Mary Hladky

The Florida Commission on Ethics has found probable cause that suspended Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie violated state ethics laws in eight instances.
The examination of Haynie’s financial links to downtown landowners James and Marta Batmasian and their company Investments Limited found that she failed to disclose income, acted to financially benefit herself and her husband, and improperly voted on matters that benefited the Batmasians without declaring a conflict of interest.
Commission advocate Elizabeth A. Miller, an assistant attorney general, minced no words in a stinging report to the commission.
Haynie “consistently voted on measures benefiting the Batmasians and/or their affiliates between 2012 and 2016 while surreptitiously reaping the financial rewards of their business association,” Miller wrote.
“When confronted with the possibility of impropriety, [Haynie] consistently denied any association, involvement or knowledge. The bank account records revealed her deception. These acts and omissions indicate a corrupt intent,” Miller stated in her recommendation that the commission find probable cause.
In her concluding analysis, Miller said that Haynie knew her ties to the Batmasians created a conflict of interest “because, for years, she concealed her private interest to the public and, even more recently, to the commission’s investigator.”
Haynie could not properly discharge her duties as a public official concerning the Batmasians “when a source of her livelihood was dependent upon their continued business relationship and the success of the Batmasians’ companies,” she wrote.
The Oct. 19 probable cause findings are not a determination that Haynie violated state laws, but a conclusion that enough evidence of violations exists to allow the investigation to proceed. Haynie now has the option of trying to reach a settlement with the commission. If not, a full evidentiary hearing will be held on the allegations.
Bruce Zimet, Haynie’s criminal defense attorney, said after a brief case status hearing on Oct. 26 that she will seek an evidentiary hearing.
Haynie’s ethics attorney, Mark Herron, did not comment.
Haynie was suspended from office in April by Gov. Rick Scott after the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office lodged seven public corruption charges against her, but she has not resigned. The state Ethics Commission has the power to seek her removal from office.
But that rarely happens. It’s more typical that a public official is fined up to a maximum of $10,000 per violation.
The state Ethics Commission followed the same investigatory path blazed by the State Attorney’s Office and the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics, which settled with Haynie after she admitted to violating the county’s ethics code and agreed to pay a $500 fine for failing to disclose a conflict of interest.
Investigators examined her financial disclosure reports, business dealings, bank records and the votes she cast as a Boca Raton City Council member and Community Redevelopment Agency commissioner.
The evidence gathered against her by the three agencies is similar. One key difference is that while state prosecutors determined that Haynie voted on four matters that financially benefited James Batmasian from 2014 through 2017, state ethics investigators found 17 votes between 2012 and 2016.
State ethics investigators found that Haynie did not list on financial disclosure forms income she derived from two companies she and her husband, Neil, had formed — Community Reliance and Computer Golf Software of Nevada.
Bank records show that she wrote checks to herself from 2014 through 2016 totaling $72,000 from the Computer Golf Software of Nevada bank account.
She also wrote checks to herself totaling at least $5,600 from the Community Reliance bank account.
And while Haynie has said she was not involved with Community Reliance or Computer Golf Software, bank records show she signed Community Reliance checks that were made out to businesses including Allstate, AT&T and Office Depot.
She also did not report rental income deposited in the couple’s joint bank account from two properties they own in Key Largo and Boca Raton that totaled $182,307.
Community Reliance, a property management company, was paid by the master association of Tivoli Park, a 1,600-unit apartment complex in Deerfield Beach, where 80 percent of the units were owned by James and Marta Batmasian and most of the board members worked for Investments Limited.
Haynie “intentionally concealed several years’ worth of business and financial dealings with James and Marta Batmasian and/or their companies,” Miller wrote. “She failed to disclose any common interest even though Community Reliance did tens of thousands of dollars in business with the Batmasians while [Haynie] cast votes benefiting their companies.”
The criminal charges against Haynie, 63, include official misconduct, perjury, misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflicts.
She has pleaded not guilty and waived her right to a speedy trial.
The state investigation found that Haynie failed to report $335,000 in income in disclosure forms required by the state, including $84,000 from Batmasian or Investments Limited, from 2014 through 2017.
Former BocaWatch publisher Al Zucaro, a Haynie adversary whom she defeated in the 2017 mayoral race, filed complaints against her with both the county and state ethics commissions after The Palm Beach Post published an investigation that detailed financial links between Haynie and the Batmasians.
“These things were uncovered during the course of the race and they have proven to be accurate,” said Zucaro, who added that he was sure the probable cause finding “is not welcome news to Ms. Haynie and her criminal defense team.”
Mark Bannon, the county Ethics Commission’s executive director, has said he did not act on Zucaro’s complaint because he received it after his office had launched an investigation.
In the county ethics case, Haynie denied she acted improperly and said she had requested in 2013 an opinion from the county Ethics Commission on whether she should recuse herself from voting on matters involving Batmasian. The opinion said she could vote.
But the opinion was narrowly written, and Bannon has said Haynie should have understood the opinion to mean she should not vote when Batmasian was a developer or applicant of a project coming to the City Council for approval.

By Steve Plunkett

A long-anticipated review of controversial plans to build a four-story duplex on Boca Raton’s beach has been delayed indefinitely.
The city’s Environmental Advisory Board was scheduled to review the proposal for 2600 N. Ocean Blvd. on Oct. 18, but its meeting was canceled Oct. 12.
“The applicant for 2600 submitted last-minute revisions to the plans that required review by staff and the consultant,” city spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson said. “I don’t have an estimate on how long that might take, but the item will be rescheduled for EAB when staff and consultants have had time to review the changes.”
Property owner Grand Bank N.A. proposes building each side of its 14,270-square-foot duplex with four bedrooms, five and one-half baths, a glass elevator and a four-car garage, according to Delray Beach-based Azure Development, which is marketing the site. The duplex would also have a 40-foot boardwalk and a rooftop swimming pool.
The site needs the Boca Raton City Council to grant a variance for building seaward of Florida’s restrictive Coastal Construction Control Line. The City Charter directs the Environmental Advisory Board to advise council members “on the environmental impact of proposed developments which contain environmentally sensitive lands, listed species, or wetlands … and to recommend ways in which adverse environmental impact might be minimized.”
The idea of building on the beach erupted into public view in 2015 when the council approved a variance for the owner of 2500 N. Ocean Blvd. two lots south to build a four-story, 10,432-square-foot “mini-mansion.”
Both lots are east of State Road A1A between Spanish River Park and the undeveloped Ocean Strand parcel.
“2500 is under review and has not been scheduled,” Gibson said.
The council’s newest member, Andy Thomson, reported Oct. 23 that a lawyer for 2600 N. Ocean told him the owner is still willing to sell the lot. The council told city staff to ask if the price has come down.

By Mary Hladky

Boca Raton City Council members are clearly impressed by a cultural group’s ambitious proposal to build a performing arts complex on city-owned land east of the Spanish River Library.
“Very, very compelling,” Deputy Mayor Jeremy Rodgers said at an Oct. 9 workshop meeting where the proposal was unveiled to the council.
“I love the concept,” said council member Andy Thomson.
Even so, council members did not immediately support the newly formed Boca Raton Arts District Association’s request that the city essentially donate the 21-acre site by agreeing to a long-term ground lease with a token lease payment of $1 a year.
While council members did not close the door to the idea, they wanted more assurances that the association, an outgrowth of 15-member Boca Raton Cultural Consortium, has a financially sound plan to build the complex and keep it running without city subsidies.
“This is a bold vision, but fortune favors the bold,” said Mayor Scott Singer. “You are off to a good start, but you have a lot of work left to do.”
The association’s vision includes building four performing arts buildings that would house a main theater with up to 1,200 seats, music complex, music recital hall, dance complex and a black box/flex theater totaling 162,000 square feet on the lakeside land.
Surrounding those venues would likely be a 240-room hotel and convention center, restaurants, an open-air gathering and performing space and parking garage. The hotel, restaurants and other tenants would pay fees to help support the cultural venues.
The entire project could cost as much as $140 million, said Boca Ballet Theatre treasurer David Hammond, chief executive of CSI International.
The association modeled the performing arts complex on Liberty Station in San Diego, a mixed-use development on city-owned land focused on the arts.
The venues would provide new homes to existing cultural groups including the Boca Ballet Theatre and the Symphonia chamber orchestra, which now stage productions at borrowed school and Florida Atlantic University auditoriums.
The school venues lack lobbies, locations for receptions, concessions and will call, adequate restrooms and valet parking, said Boca Ballet Theatre board member Andrea Virgin, president of Boca Raton-based Virgin Design, a planning and engineering firm.
“I believe it has become incumbent on us and the other arts leaders, as well as the City Council, to create a legacy of culture for our current citizens and our children of tomorrow,” said Dan Guin, executive director and co-artistic director of Boca Ballet Theatre.
Virgin said the group scoured the city and concluded that the land along Spanish River Boulevard is the best location because it is big enough, undeveloped, on a lake, has easy access to and from Interstate 95, is near Florida Atlantic University and close to downtown.
The proposal has FAU’s support. Michael Horswell, dean of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, said the university has outgrown its performing arts spaces. It makes sense, he said, to collaborate with city cultural groups and share space rather than build new facilities on campus.
City approval of a ground lease would spur the interest of potential donors who would be more likely to contribute if they see the cultural arts complex has city support and therefore is more certain of becoming reality, presenters said.
The ground lease also would allow the association to solicit a developer who, in addition to finalizing plans for the complex, would be asked to invest in an endowment fund that would support the project, Hammond said. Money also will be solicited from the state, county and corporations.
Association speakers stressed that the complex would be an economic boon to the city.
“The arts are really a big economic engine for a city,” said Jay Dick, senior director of state and local government affairs for Americans for the Arts in Washington, D.C. Nonprofit arts organizations employ 17,000 people in Palm Beach County, and cultural patrons spend a lot of money on things such as dining before a show on top of what they spend on tickets.
While lauding the concept, council members were cautious.
Singer said the city needs the 21 acres, and suggested philanthropists might be willing to donate other land. Rodgers questioned if a land donation is in the city’s best interest.
They wanted to know more details about project financing and whether the cultural community will provide adequate financial support.
Council member Andrea O’Rourke, a big proponent of the arts, said she thinks the organization’s financial plans are sound, but wants to see a “buy-in” from the cultural community.
“You have done incredible work,” she said. “Is it big? Yes, it is huge. We are all concerned about the financial side of it.”
The association has launched a capital campaign. Guin said he is certain Boca Raton residents will support the project now that they know what is proposed.
“The last thing we want to do is become a white elephant and dump it back on the city,” he said.
“Our job is to make sure your plan is viable enough for us to consider it,” Singer said.
After the meeting, Guin was upbeat about his prospects. He said his group will be able to demonstrate that it can raise enough money.
“We got what we were looking for,” he said. “We didn’t expect to walk in and walk out with the ground lease. It doesn’t work that way.
“There wasn’t one question from the council that I didn’t think was valid, and nothing we were discouraged about at all,” he added. “We know we have a heavy lift. But we also think we have the best plan to do that.”
The group, he said, popped open a bottle of champagne after the meeting.

By Steve Plunkett

The lawyer seeking repayment of a $406,000 business loan from two-time Boca Raton mayoral candidate Al Zucaro subpoenaed Zucaro’s wife, philanthropist Yvonne Boice, for a deposition in October.
Bernard Lebedeker represents hotel owner Joseph Della Ratta’s DR Palm Beach Inc., which lent Zucaro the money in 2003. The attorney asked Boice, who married Zucaro in 2009, to come to his office in West Palm Beach with “any and all documents” that reflect “the transfer of any money or any property from you to Alfred Zucaro,” “any gifts you have given” and “the transfer of any funds from any trust for which you are a trustee or beneficiary.”
Lebedeker also wanted “any and all bank statements” for any accounts titled in Boice and Zucaro’s name “or in which both you and Alfred Zucaro have signing authority.”
Lebedeker has said Zucaro’s debt with interest now tops $700,000.
Zucaro did not return a phone call seeking comment before deadline.
Lebedeker similarly did not reply to emails asking about the deposition.
Zucaro, 69, lost to Scott Singer in the Aug. 28 special election for mayor. He or his law firm loaned and gave his campaign $15,500; others contributed $44,133.
He was more generous in his 2017 mayoral race, lending or giving his campaign $62,750. Other supporters gave him $48,267 then.
On his 2018 campaign Statement of Financial Interests, Zucaro, an immigration lawyer who also started the now-dormant BocaWatch.org blog, listed his law practice, his International Council of Advisors LLC consultancy and Social Security benefits as his primary sources of income.
He reported secondary income from his World Trade Management LLC, his Palm Beach Investment and Finance LLC and in legal fees from Shoppes on 18th Street Inc., a holding company owned by his wife. That business sold Boice’s Shoppes at Village Point shopping center west of the city in 2014 for $12.25 million.
Zucaro, who lives with Boice in a house she owns on Golden Harbour Drive, also reported that he owns no real property. The only liability he listed was his debt to DR Palm Beach.
Della Ratta’s company lent Zucaro and World Trade Management $240,000 in 2003 and sued four years later after not being repaid. In 2009, Palm Beach Circuit Judge Donald Hafele said the evidence showed Zucaro used much of the money for personal expenses instead of spending it as intended to lure international business to the county. He entered a judgment requiring Zucaro to repay the money with 8 percent interest, making the total then $406,000.
Zucaro, who had come under fire in West Palm Beach for how he managed his struggling World Trade Center, appealed and lost.
Della Ratta’s company owns the Best Western Palm Beach Lakes Inn and the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham hotel in West Palm Beach.

By Mary Hladky

The developer of the luxury condo now rebranded as Alina Residences Boca Raton has cleared two hurdles in its effort to build the 384-unit downtown project in two phases.
The Community Appearance Board recommended that the Community Redevelopment Agency approve the phasing request by a 4-2 vote on Oct. 16, and the Planning and Zoning Board unanimously recommended approval without debate two days later.
Those votes set the stage for the CRA commissioners, who double as Boca Raton City Council members, to make a final decision on Nov. 26.
“We are very disappointed, and we don’t believe there was enough attention paid to the community at large and the impact of extending the building process as a result of phasing,” Norman Waxman, an opponent to the proposal who is a condo board member at Townsend Place, said after the planning board meeting.
Opponents of the phasing plan now will meet to “develop our game plan” to convince CRA commissioners to reject developer El-Ad National Properties’ request, he said.
Alina Residences, formerly known as Mizner 200, is one of the most contentious projects in the city’s history. Downtown residents complained that it was too massive and a symbol of downtown overdevelopment.
El-Ad made concessions on building design, landscaping and setbacks that eventually won over critics, and the project was approved after a flurry of last-minute deal making in 2017.
But tensions flared again earlier this year when El-Ad asked to build the project in two phases, add valet parking and to not fully complete a pedestrian promenade until the second phase was finished.
Critics cried foul. They said they had a firm deal with El-Ad, and now the developer is reneging.
The most vocal objectors are Townsend Place residents who live next to the project site, but they have an important ally in Investments Limited, a major downtown landowner which was among those who negotiated with El-Ad.
Their main complaint is building the three-tower project in phases.
“If phasing is adopted for the Mizner 200 project, we cannot find this acceptable,” Waxman told the planning board. El-Ad’s proposal is “a bait and switch,” he said, and “we believe in the adage a deal is a deal.”
City records and El-Ad’s submissions to the city state that it was to be built all at once. But Noam Ziv, El-Ad’s executive director of development, told The Coastal Star in September that El-Ad never intended to do that.
“It would saturate the market,” he said.
Waxman and other critics argued at the planning board meeting that the change would benefit the developer, but not city residents.
They fear that if the condos don’t sell well, the second phase will never be built. That would result in one condo tower next to the run-down Mizner on the Green townhomes that Alina Residences was to replace.
If El-Ad decides to sell the second phase property, Townsend Place residents won’t know what the new owner would do with the property.
“That is one of the reasons we are against phasing,” Waxman said after the meeting. “If they decide not to build phase two, we have no control over what would happen next.”
Robert Eisen of Investments Limited said in an email that the company “stands with the good citizens of Townsend Place and Boca Beautiful and does not support the revised plan.”
El-Ad’s request calls for 140 condos in one tower built on the northern portion of the nearly 9-acre site on Southeast Mizner Boulevard. Phase 2 would be 244 units in two towers on the southern portion adjacent to Townsend Place.
El-Ad attorney Bonnie Miskel told planning board members that the developer wants to build both phases but has the right to build only one.
“It is unfair to say we are changing the deal,” she said.
El-Ad agreed to changes to satisfy critics, and those changes stand, she said.

By Rich Pollack

New York has one. Toronto has one. Even Fort Lauderdale has one.
Now Highland Beach is about to have a film festival of its own. Kind of.
This month, the Highland Beach Library, a hidden gem tucked between the Intracoastal Waterway and State Road A1A, will host a one-day film festival featuring movies set in Florida, including some that were also shot here.
Showcasing four films spanning five decades, the Nov. 14 “Scenes From the Sunshine State” kicks off at 10:30 a.m. and goes until 8 p.m., with visitors welcome to stay for as many films as they wish.
The film festival, says Library Director Lois Albertson, is an extension of the library’s always well-attended Friday film series.
“Movies are always popular,” she said. “We thought it would be fun to try something new and have an all-day event with movies centered around a theme.”
The event opens with a showing of Key Largo, the 1948 classic directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
There will be a break for lunch and then three more movies set in Florida will be offered.
At 1 p.m., the library will show Where the Boys Are, the 1960s look at spring break in Fort Lauderdale with Connie Francis and George Hamilton. Next up at 3 p.m. will be Cocoon from 1985, set in St. Petersburg and directed by Ron Howard, followed by The Birdcage, a 1996 film starring Nathan Lane and Robin Williams with Miami’s South Beach as its backdrop.
There will be discussions between the films led by local resident Peter Rodis, who hosts the Friday afternoon film discussions at the library and who contributed footage to the Oscar-nominated film What Happened, Miss Simone?
“This is exciting and we’re hoping people love it,” Rodis said.

The film festival is free and open to the public. Friends of the Library will provide popcorn and door prizes. For more information, contact the Highland Beach Library at 278-5455. The library is at 3618 S. Ocean Blvd.

By Rich Pollack

The holidays in Highland Beach are about to get a lot brighter with nearly $25,000 worth of lights and displays, including a 25-foot artificial pine Christmas tree and a 12-foot menorah decorating Town Hall.
Residents will also be treated to a two-hour “Light Up the Holidays” celebration officials hope will top those of years past.
New this year will be trolleys making about a dozen stops along the west side of State Road A1A, bringing people to and from the celebration, which takes place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Nov. 29. The trolleys will run from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
The expanded “Light Up the Holidays” event at Town Hall and the additional decorations are part of an effort to upgrade the celebration.
“We want to make it beautiful for our town and for our residents,” said Commissioner Rhoda Zelniker. “People really like the idea of coming together for the holidays.”
This year’s celebration will include the return of the Dimensional Harmony chorus from Boynton Beach High School, interfaith holiday wishes and children’s activities such as ornament and dreidel decorations. There will also be a countdown to the tree lighting.
“Our goal is to make the holiday celebration reflect our community,” said Vice Mayor Alysen Africano Nila. Commissioners selected her and Zelniker to work with town staff on the holiday events.
Perhaps the biggest change residents will notice will be in the Town Hall decorations, provided and installed by Brandano Displays of Margate.
“This is something much bigger and much grander than residents have seen in the past,” said Town Manager Marshall Labadie.
Under a four-year, nearly $100,000 lease-to-own agreement, with the town paying about $25,000 per year, Brandano will provide and install thousands of lights and other decorations around the municipal complex, including at the entrances of the Police Department, Fire Department and Town Hall.
In addition, Brandano will install a 25-foot artificial Southern pine Christmas tree as well as a 12-foot-tall menorah and 7-foot-tall dreidel. There will also be a seven-piece nativity scene that will be 6 feet tall.
Commissioners said the new tree and lights will replace a smaller tree, that along with the lights, was old and in disrepair.
The trolleys are new because parking is unavailable at St. Lucy Catholic Church this year. The trolleys will cost the town about $750 each for the four hours.
In the past, residents could park in the church parking lot. But the town and the church could not agree over a request by church leaders to have police officers help with traffic control during major holidays and certain Masses in exchange for using the large lot during the “Light Up the Holidays” celebration.
Labadie, who started as town manager last month, said safety is a priority and the Police Department will coordinate with the trolleys as they make their way along the town’s 3-mile stretch of A1A.
Commissioner Elyse Riesa said the additional decorations as well as the enhanced “Light Up the Holidays” celebration will be something residents will enjoy.
“We’re making ‘Light Up the Holidays’ a totally different event than we’ve ever had before,” she said. “It will be a fun event that renews the energy surrounding the holidays.”

By Mary Hladky

Developer and landowner Crocker Partners filed its promised lawsuit against Boca Raton, seeking $137.6 million in damages on grounds the city failed to adopt regulations that would allow it to build its proposed Midtown project.
Cypress Realty of Florida, a landowner that partnered with Crocker Partners on Midtown planning, also has sued, saying in its lawsuit that the city has been “stonewalling” its efforts to develop 10.2 acres.
Crocker Partners, which wants to redevelop 67 acres it owns east of the Town Center mall, informed the city in April it planned to file the Bert Harris Act lawsuit. Such a lawsuit gives both sides 150 days to resolve their differences outside of court.
But Crocker Partners heard nothing from the city until September, when the city sent a letter denying Crocker Partners’ claims and declining to enter into settlement negotiations, according to the lawsuit filed Oct. 23 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
“Due to the fact that the city has taken an obstructionist, non-cooperative approach, we are left with no choice but to move forward” with the lawsuit, Crocker Partners managing partner Angelo Bianco said in a release. “We are saddened that the city has forced our hand in this matter and is endangering the financial health of our community. …”
The city, Crocker Partners and other property owners in the Midtown area worked together over several years to write land development regulations that would allow the property owners to move ahead with their ambitious plan to redevelop 300 acres into a transit-oriented development where people would live in as many as 2,500 new residential units and walk or take shuttles to their jobs, shopping and restaurants.
Boca Raton City Council members torpedoed that plan Jan. 23 when they postponed a vote on the land development regulations that set a framework for how Midtown could be built. Instead, they voted to have staff develop a “small area plan” for Midtown.
That “small area plan” has not yet been completed and no decisions have been made on whether residential units will be allowed in the Midtown area.
Bianco contended the delay created an impermissible building moratorium that took away his property rights.
In calculating the economic damage to Crocker Partners, the lawsuit said the three properties it owns in Midtown — Boca Center, The Plaza, and One Town Center — are worth $59.9 million.
If the company could build about 1,200 apartments on that land, as would be allowed under the planned mobility district designation the city had given the area, the properties would be worth $197.5 million, the lawsuit states. The difference is the $137.6 million in damages Crocker Partners is seeking.
Crocker filed a separate legal action in May, seeking to have a judge compel the city to write land development regulations for Midtown, and to rule that the City Council’s January delay in adopting them, and instead develop the “small area plan,” are illegal.
The lack of land development regulations also is at the heart of Cypress Realty’s Oct. 12 lawsuit.
The landowner has sought city approval to develop its property since 2015, and most recently filed an amended development application in August following the city council’s delay in adopting the regulations. It wants to build 204 high-end rentals and 64,000 square feet of retail space.
But the city has not acted, and has said it can not do so because the land development regulations have not been approved.
On Sept. 24, City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser informed Cypress Realty that the city does not intend to process the development application, the lawsuit states.
Cypress Realty is asking the court to require that the city process it.
On Oct. 29, Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Gillen ordered an expedited hearing be held during which the city must demonstrate why it should not be ordered to process the application.
“The city’s inaction is unconscionable. It seems the only way you can do business with Boca Raton these days is to file a lawsuit. That’s not the way it should be,” Cypress Realty principal Nader Salour said in a release.
“We now find ourselves in an untenable situation and a classic Catch-22. The city won’t schedule our site plan application for review without regulations in place. Yet, they refuse to put the regulations in place.”
City spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson said Oct. 30 that the city had not yet been served with the Crocker Partners lawsuit. The city attorney’s office will review that lawsuit when it sees it and the Cypress Realty lawsuit “and prepare an appropriate and timely response.”
The city faces another development-related legal problem. In August, landowner Robert Buehl announced he also plans to file a Bert Harris Act lawsuit against the city, seeking as much as $100 million in damages, over the city council’s July rejection of a proposal to build the $75 million Concierge, a luxury adult living facility, in the downtown.
Group P6, the developer of Concierge, headed to court in August in an effort to quash the city’s denial of the project.
The city annexed the Midtown area in 2003. On Oct. 23, the City Council voted unanimously to replace the area’s county zoning districts with city zoning districts. The ordinances also change some permitted uses in the area that would, in part, help the city control excessive noise from bars and restaurants.

By Steve Plunkett

In a rare rebuke, the Boca Raton City Council overrode its Community Appearance Board and will allow the 16-story Carlton condominium tower to paint beige accent stripes around the outside edge of its balconies.
The CAB wanted the horizontal accent bands under windows and between balconies to be painted beige on the top, bottom and vertical faces — what it calls wrapping the color — and the top, bottom and vertical edges of balconies to be white.
The Carlton, between the Camino Real and A1A bridges, wanted to paint only the vertical face of the accent bands and to continue the beige color across the vertical edge of the balconies.
“This is a matter of a difference of opinion and style,” the Carlton’s lawyer, former state Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, told council members Oct. 10. “I don’t think that most people who travel around Boca say, ‘Wow, you know, that balcony’s wrapped and that one’s not wrapped.’”
Mark Jacobsen, chairman of the CAB, said his board strives to be consistent in its decisions.
“Maybe in this case it shouldn’t apply as it did apply in other cases. But unfortunately we apply the same rule to everybody, fortunately or unfortunately,” he said.
But Nickie Siegel, an interior designer and member of the Carlton’s design committee, said the color scheme was picked on purpose.
“We really wanted to emphasize the architectural value of this building, and to do so, we wanted to carry that line straight across, not hopscotch it but carry it straight across,” Siegel said. “Now the CAB wants us to stop that, which makes it look silly, in my opinion.”
Council member Monica Mayotte said she supported overriding the CAB mostly because she did not want to force the Carlton to go back to its 63 unit owners and get approval for a different paint scheme.
Council member Andrea O’Rourke weighed in for the volunteers on the CAB.
“I try to do what is best for the residents here, [but] I also respect the Community Appearance Board and the amount of hours [members put in] and their professional abilities,” said O’Rourke, the only dissenter in the 4-1 vote.
The Carlton’s new paint job is about 15 months away and will come at the tail end of a $5 million-plus project to repair and upgrade the condo tower.
Immediately afterward, VCA Spanish River Animal Hospital on Spanish River Boulevard lost its appeal of a CAB decision. The veterinary office wanted to replace a 5-foot-6-inch-tall sign with one 10 feet high. The community appearance board voted 5-0 to deny the application, and the City Council upheld the decision 5-0.

By Sallie James

BOCA RATON — Carmella L. Gesner, a devoted Catholic and tireless philanthropist known by her friends as “Mel,” died Oct 3. She was 92.
A longtime Boca Raton resident, Mrs. Gesner was an active member of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, where she volunteered for many years helping in the office with administrative tasks. She also participated in several of the church ministries, including the Women of Grace and the Council of Catholic Women, said Mary Jane Sullivan, who works in the church’s accounting office. Mrs. Gesner joined the church in 1969.
“She was a lovely lady, a beautiful woman, inside and out,” Sullivan said. “She would come to church to attend many of the daily Masses when she was well. Her character was wonderful. She was a great Catholic role model, a smart lady and she was generous with her time and her money.”
Mrs. Gesner participated in a Friday prayer group with Sullivan and the two would often pray the rosary together.
“She was very devout. I am sure she had a rosary in her purse,” Sullivan said. “I will miss her. She was a wonderful person.”
Mrs. Gesner, who had no children, devoted herself to community service, said those who knew her.
Bill T. Smith Jr., her attorney and friend of 30 years, said Mrs. Gesner left behind a lasting legacy. “She was a wonderful lady,” said Smith, who was also her neighbor.
Mrs. Gesner for 23 years was a board member and president of the Camiccia-Arnautou Charitable Foundation, which helped send students to college and made contributions to local food banks and hospitals, he noted.
He said the foundation donated “well over a million dollars” to various causes during her tenure there. “She cared about everyone she met. She was always friendly and willing to help people if she saw they had a need,” Smith said.
Her loss was also felt at the Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club in Boca Raton, which she had joined more than 20 years ago with her husband, Walter.
“She was a very sweet lady,” recalled Marla Johnson, social and catering director for the country club. “She frequented the dining hall and would come for dinner with her friends from the condo. I would see her at events and dining.”
Her next-door neighbor, Jo-Ann Odierna, recalled how thrilled Mrs. Gesner was years ago when she and her husband bought the long-vacant condo next door. “She was so excited,” Odierna said. “She was a very pleasant lady.”
Mrs. Gesner was a world traveler in addition to being very philanthropic. She also volunteered at Boca Raton Regional Hospital and the Mae Volen Senior Center.
Born on Jan. 14, 1926, Mrs. Gesner is survived by her sister, Antoinette Seminario, numerous nieces and nephews and many close friends. She was preceded in death by her husband on Oct. 2, 2000.
Services were held on Oct. 23 at Babione-Kraeer Funeral Home in Boca Raton.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Camiccia-Arnautou Charitable Foundation, 980 N. Federal Highway, Suite 402, Boca Raton, FL 33432, or St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church and School, 370 SW Third St., Boca Raton, FL 33432.

By Henry Fitzgerald

BOCA RATON — Sylvia Robinson was always polite and considerate of others. After all, it was the only way for a proper lady to act. She made sure to dress impeccably and always, always put her best face forward.
Being a lady was important to her right up until her death of natural causes on Oct. 11. The Pittsburgh native, philanthropist and longtime Boca Raton resident was 89.
“Lots of people remember her as a lady in the best sense of the word,” said her daughter, Carol Robinson.
Mrs. Robinson thought it was important to give back to the community, most notably early on in the Pittsburgh area, and she and her husband, Donald, pursued their philanthropic interests “together and individually,” Carol Robinson said.
Mrs. Robinson in 1975 founded the American Friends of Israel War Disabled, which brings disabled Israeli war veterans to the United States for two weeks to show appreciation for their sacrifices, Carol Robinson said.
Mrs. Robinson, in a recorded interview in 1996 stored with the ULS Digital Collections at the University of Pittsburgh, detailed how she started the program after a trip to Geneva, Switzerland. There, she heard about a group that sponsored trips to Geneva for Israeli war veterans.
“I said to Don, ‘You know, if they can do it in Geneva with 5,000 Jews — we have 40,000 here in Pittsburgh — why can’t we do it here in Pittsburgh?’
“I think this is the thing that I’m proudest of because this is something that I thought up, that I started in the United States,” Mrs. Robinson said of the program, which initially expanded to other cities such as Chicago and Washington.
“When she passed away, we received so many cards and letters telling me about her relationships with families and veterans,” Carol Robinson said. “That’s one of her legacies. Right up until the end she was thinking about how she could help others.”
Donald and Sylvia Robinson, who with their two children had always enjoyed South Florida during their many vacations, bought a condo in the Stratford Arms in 1981, Carol Robinson said.
The Robinsons then donated to Boca Helping Hands, Boca Raton Regional Hospital and the Wick Theatre, where Mrs. Robinson also scratched a long-existing itch for drama.
Greg Hazle, Boca Helping Hands executive director, said that “she and her husband were significant contributors to our feeding program over the last eight years.”
Despite her appreciation for Boca Raton, Mrs. Robinson maintained her passion for Pittsburgh. She and a friend about a decade ago started the Tuesday Lunch Bunch, a group of Pittsburgh natives who met every week for lunch, said Carol Robinson.
“Those lunches sometimes lasted for hours,” she said. “That camaraderie was very special to my mother and to the others.”
Donald Robinson, her husband of 69 years, preceded Mrs. Robinson in death in 2017. They met in 1947 when Mr. Robinson, on leave from the U.S. Navy, crashed a wedding where Mrs. Robinson was a guest.
“That uniform swept my mother off her feet,” Carol Robinson said.
In 1961 he was a founder and president of White Cross discount drug stores, which grew to 163 locations before later merging into Revco Drug stores in 1972.
In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Robinson is survived by a son, Stephen Robinson; three grandchildren, Abigail Foster, Leslie Markel and Richard Markel, and three great-grandchildren, Beatrice, William and Finnley.
A funeral service was held at Temple Beth El Mausoleum in Boca Raton on Oct. 14.
Contributions may be made to The Jewish Association on Aging at jaapgh.networkforgood.com or Jewish Family and Community Services at jfcspgh.org.

Crime-scene tape still seals the door to Betty Cabral’s condominium (middle right) at the Penthouse Highlands, 3100 S. Ocean Blvd., where the 85-year-old woman was found slain in April. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

It is a whodunit that could be the plot of an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
An elderly widow is discovered dead inside her fifth-floor condo in a quiet beachside community. Her financial adviser is charged with siphoning away almost $900,000 from her savings.
Yet, as of now, the late April slaying of 85-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Cabral remains unsolved.
“This truly is a bizarre set of circumstances,” says Robert Cabral, nephew of William Cabral, Betty’s husband of more than 50 years who died in April 2017.
Though five months have passed since Betty Cabral’s car was found abandoned in Pompano Beach and Highland Beach police discovered the woman’s body in her Penthouse Highlands condo, crime scene tape still covers part of the front door and fingerprint dust is visible on the windows.
Meanwhile, 35-year-old David Del Rio of Lehigh Acres on the state’s west coast, who until his arrest on fraud charges last month had been working for a car dealer in Naples, remains in jail.
While sheriff’s detectives, who have been meticulously working the homicide case, even scouring Del Rio’s home and his vehicles for evidence, have remained close-mouthed, Del Rio’s attorney has strongly denied any link between his client and Betty Cabral’s knife-related death.
“He’s unequivocally not involved in the homicide,” says Michael Salnick, a well-known Palm Beach County defense attorney.
In court documents, Palm Beach County sheriff’s detectives have laid out what they think is strong evidence that Del Rio, a credentialed investment adviser, took money from the Cabrals’ accounts without their knowledge.
Investigators also claim that Del Rio had a hand in being named the sole beneficiary of the Cabrals’ will, signed in 2015 after William Cabral was diagnosed with dementia. In the months prior to the creation of the will, William Cabral was unable to pick out his own clothes, identify his own address or perform daily tasks, according to statements in court documents from Betty Cabral’s niece Gabrielle Cyrus, who lived with the family for a short time in 2014.
Now back in New England, Cyrus declined to comment for this story, saying she was advised not to discuss the case. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Detective Robert Drake, who has taken the lead on the case, said in an affidavit that investigators checked bank records and found evidence that $893,673 was withdrawn from a SunTrust account belonging to the Cabrals between Sept. 16, 2016, and March 12, 2018. The withdrawals were made via 16 checks that were deposited into a bank account that only Del Rio had access to, the affidavit states.
In one court filing, prosecutors wrote: “The investigation reveals no evidence that these withdrawals benefitted William or Elizabeth Cabral but in fact benefitted Del Rio. Del Rio further utilized the transfer of monies between multiple accounts owned and operated by him in an attempt to conceal the exploitation and theft from the Cabrals.”
Detectives said in court documents they think Del Rio used some of the money from the Cabrals’ accounts to purchase a car as well as firearms, firearms equipment, home improvements and a cruise.
Armed with what they thought was sufficient evidence to charge him on more than two dozen financial fraud counts, Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies joined forces with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, arresting Del Rio on Sept. 13 after a traffic stop a short distance from his home. They returned to the home to conduct a search and were joined by the local bomb squad and fire rescue personnel, in part because they suspected the home might have a large number of weapons.
Salnick, Del Rio’s attorney, said the arrest did not surprise him and his client. He said Del Rio retained him more than a month before the traffic stop, and Salnick offered to surrender him to law enforcement officials but they turned down the offer.
During a first appearance court hearing on Sept. 17, Del Rio’s bond was set at $27,000, but he remains in jail after prosecutors contended that any money used to post bail would be from ill-gotten gains. A bond hearing has been set for early November.

Family tried to help
While investigators have charged Del Rio with taking just shy of $900,000 from the Cabrals, Robert Cabral said his aunt may have actually had more money at some point. He also thinks his aunt, who didn’t have any children or relatives living close by, was an easy target for someone wanting to access her money. “She was pretty naïve when it came to financial matters,” he said, adding that his uncle had handled all the finances before becoming ill.
Cabral, who lives on Florida’s west coast, said he came to visit his aunt and uncle several years ago after William’s decline became obvious and Betty was concerned that some of the checks she was writing were bouncing.
As he looked through papers his uncle kept in a desk drawer, he discovered what he says was close to $2 million worth of investments and bank accounts.
He took Betty to a nearby bank, set up an account so that money from savings would automatically go into her checking account if she was overdrawn and gave her the name of his financial planner in the Tampa area.
Instead of reaching out to him, it appears that she put her trust — and finances — in the hands of Del Rio.

Neighbors worried
While some neighbors said Betty Cabral loved Del Rio like a son, others were worried that he was taking advantage of the elderly widow. Some even confronted him, according to residents, after earlier this year he moved furniture out of her unit while she was visiting a niece in Massachusetts and replaced it with new furniture.
He told neighbors he was going to surprise her, but when she returned, Betty told others in the building that she didn’t really like it.
According to court records, Betty Cabral had also become worried about her dwindling savings and had expressed concerns to her caretaker as well as family members.
A neighbor told CBS 12 news that a few months before the killing, she saw Betty crying and complaining that she had no money left.
While legal proceedings are taking place in criminal courts, lawyers for families of both William Cabral and Betty Cabral are trying to sort out what will become of the remainder of the Cabrals’ estate, including the Highland Beach condo.
Preliminary probate files have been created in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Robert Cabral says he has hired an attorney on behalf of his two sisters and himself and thinks Betty Cabral’s relatives have also hired an attorney.
“If there’s a legitimate will out there, I would think the Cabrals would be in it and Betty’s family too,” he said.

Researcher Michelle Quigley contributed to this story.

Miss Boca 1953 recalls town in its infancy,
world at her fingertips as longtime travel agent

ABOVE: Alberta Schultz’s half century as a travel agent has taken her to 139 countries. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star BELOW RIGHT: Schultz worked for Southern Bell in 1953 when she reigned as Miss Boca Raton. Photo provided

By Ron Hayes

On Monday evening, Dec. 15, 1952, Alberta Domeyer was crowned Miss Boca Raton 1953 at the local Lions Club.
She was 19 and new in town, and Boca Raton was pretty new, too. The town, incorporated in 1925, was only 27 itself.
“Well, I didn’t have a lot of competition,” she says now. “The population was only about 1,000.”
In fact, 200 citizens had voted for Alberta Domeyer, The Delray Beach Journal reported at the time, which means about a fifth of the population wanted her to reign.
“My cousin, Dorothy Steiner, had been Miss Boca Raton 1952, so we kept it in the family,” she remembers.
Dorothy Steiner went on to be crowned the Delray Beach Gladioli Queen on Valentine’s Day 1953, then Miss Florida 1956 and fourth runner-up in the Miss America pageant in 1957.
Alberta Domeyer got married, became Alberta Schultz, had four children before she was 30, got divorced, became a travel agent — and went around the world several times.
She’s 85 now, and in November her four children, along with assorted grandchildren, great-grandchildren and about 100 friends and colleagues, will gather to celebrate both her birthday, Aug. 15, and her 50-plus years as a local travel agent.
Last year, Schultz and her daughter Cynthia sat down and drew up a list of the places she’s been.
Of 195 countries and continents recognized by the United Nations, Schultz has visited 139, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe, with Antigua and Yemen, Argentina and Vietnam, etc., etc., etc., in between.
It’s been a long, lovely trip for a girl who already thought she was going to the end of the world when her family moved to Boca Raton from Detroit.
Her parents had arrived at Ellis Island from Germany in November 1923, on different ships in the same month. Neither spoke English, but they learned, and in time her father owned five bakeries in Detroit.
“At high school graduation, I wanted to do two things,” Schultz says. “I wanted to do makeup or something in the theater, and I wanted to travel. But my father didn’t believe in college for girls.”

ABOVE: When Alberta Schultz posed for the cover of a 1953 city map, a Boca real estate company was offering two-bedroom retirement homes for $6,250 and three-bedroom homes for $7,650. BELOW: A  newspaper clipping from Schultz's scrapbook. Photos provided

She was working as a mail clerk at Michigan Bell, the phone company, when the Steiners persuaded her parents to join them in the sunny joys of Boca Raton.
“There was one church, the Methodist,” Schultz recalls. “I’m not Methodist, but I was Methodist then. There was nothing west of Dixie Highway, just the Air Force barracks on Spanish River.”
When she posed — in a tasteful one-piece bathing suit — for the cover of a 1953 city map, P.L. Weeks’ Realty was offering two-bedroom retirement homes for $6,250 — $7,650 if you wanted a third bedroom.
The town had no theater then, so the Boca Raton Club showed free movies.
The end of the world, she discovered, could be a delightful place.
“You could sleep on the beach all night, and you never locked your doors. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody was friendly. I loved it right away.”
It was a lovely place to live, if you were white.
“Black people had to be off the streets by 7 o’clock,” she says.
Her father opened Domeyer’s Bakery next to Love’s Drug Store on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach, and she found work at the Southern Bell office.
“I was a sales rep and took orders over the phone for people who were moving here.”
And people were moving to Boca Raton. By 1955, the year she got married, the population had nearly tripled to 2,872.
She worked for a time at the Boca Raton Club, serving cocktails off a tray suspended from a strap around her neck, like a cigarette girl. She sold tickets to the chimpanzee show at Africa USA, a 300-acre “Authentic Reproduction of the African Veldt” just south of Palmetto Park Road.
“Oh, boy, those chimpanzees were cute,” she says.
On Dec. 17, 1957, the “town” of Boca Raton officially became a “city” with more than 4,000 residents, and Schultz’s personal population was growing, too. By 1967, she had given birth to four children — Frank, Christopher, Cynthia and Felicia — and divorced a husband. She was a 34-year-old woman with four young children to support.
“I was a waitress at the Captain’s Table on Deerfield Boulevard,” she says, “and I didn’t want to be 50 and hauling trays around.”
She went to the maitre d’ and told him, “I need two nights off a week to go to school to be a travel agent.”
The night school class was at a high school in Fort Lauderdale, and later that year she went to work at the Dugan Travel Agency.
“At 75 S. Federal Highway in Boca,” she remembers. “I made $45 a week.”
Aruba, Australia, Austria, the Bahamas.
The adventure began.
When Mr. Cherry, the owner, went to Chicago for the summer, he asked her to manage the business while he was gone.
“I can’t do that,” Schultz protested. “I’ve got four kids.”
“You can do it,” he assured her.
She did it.
Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize …
In 1979 the new owner, Richard Hart, died and left her the business. She ran it until 1984, sold it to an employee and stayed on another five years to help out.
Canada, Chile, China, Colombia …
In 1989, she moved on to Red Carpet Travel in Delray Beach, stayed there six years, then came to Reid Travel in Boca Raton. She’s been there ever since.
“I haven’t stopped working since I was 14 years old,” she says, “except to have four babies.”
This is not a complaint.
Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary …
Fifty-one years a travel agent, 23 at Reid.
“When people ask me what country I like best, I say nothing’s the same,” she says. “Every culture is different, but if you keep your mind open, you find that people are basically good in their heart all over the world.
“But if I could only go back to one, I’d go to Germany, because my parents were from Germany.”
Nowadays, she’s an independent contractor, going to the agency a couple of days a week to set up appointments while otherwise working out of her home office.
“I take groups on tours. We go to Israel, Greece, Italy, the Amazon …”
Two years ago, she went horseback riding on a beach in Uruguay.
Last year, she went whitewater rafting in Washington state.
This year, she and her daughter Cynthia went on a six-week cruise to Japan, Korea and Alaska.
“Sailing from Japan to Alaska,” she says, “we crossed the International Date Line and lived May 7 twice!” Her eyes twinkle at the memory. Next April, she’ll lead 28 members of Advent Lutheran Church to Ireland.
“But no matter where I went in the world,” she says, “when I came back home to Boca, it was home.”
Scotland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia …
Thailand, Trinidad, Tunisia, Turkey …
Next year, she’ll retire.
“It’s time,” she says, without regret. “It’s long enough. The party’s over, let’s call it a day. I’ve always loved the work, but keeping up with all this new technology, the airline maps — everything’s changed.”
The town she came to 66 years ago has changed, too. The population is nearing 100,000, and what Boca Raton has gained in people and prestige, she fears it has lost in simplicity.
“I’m disappointed with all the high-rises,” she says. “They’re too high, cutting off the air we need, and the sunsets. And the growth!
“I used to go to the grocery store and know everybody.”
And she used to be Miss Boca Raton, elected by nearly a fifth of the town. It’s all there in her scrapbook, the 8-by-10 black and white photos, the newspaper clippings. The memories.
Does she still have the tiara?
No, she laughs. No tiara.
For winning the title, Miss Boca Raton 1953 was awarded an orchid corsage, dinner for two at Brown’s Restaurant, an oil change and grease job from the local Sunoco station, and a load of topsoil.
“I gave the muck to my father for our yard,” she says.

By Steve Plunkett

The Palm Beach County Office of the Inspector General has scolded Gulf Stream town officials for using the same outside auditor since 2000, renewing the contract four times when the town’s original request for proposals did not mention any renewal options.
Additionally, the inspector general said, contract extensions with auditor Nowlen, Holt & Miner PA in 2005, 2010 and 2014 should have instead been put out to bid again and ranked by an internal audit committee established by the Town Commission.
“Therefore, the amount paid to Nowlen, Holt & Miner for audit services for fiscal years 2005 through 2017 totaling $189,650 is considered questioned costs because the town did not comply with applicable provisions” of state law, the Inspector General’s Office said in a Sept. 25 report.
The office also faulted Gulf Stream for not having a “documented policy or procedure for contract monitoring” and for not utilizing a “risk assessment tool” in monitoring contracts.
Trey Nazzaro, the town’s staff attorney, conceded in a response to the report that the language in the original RFP was “ambiguous,” but said Gulf Stream officials “believe [it] could be interpreted to allow for the renewals that you have marked as questioned costs.
“We do appreciate your clear note in bold that ‘in this specific case’ the questioned costs are not indicative of fraud or waste,” Nazzaro continued. “This can be seen by an initial procurement following the law, and the price staying very reasonable for the duration of the relationship between the town and auditors.”
Investigators for Inspector General John Carey said minutes of the Town Commission’s Aug. 11, 2000, meeting showed that then-Town Manager Kristin Garrison advised that the auditor selection committee, which included herself, Mayor William Koch Jr. and finance officer William Thrasher, had reviewed six proposals and interviewed three firms. The committee recommended hiring Nowlen, Holt & Miner “due to their competitive rates and ability to meet the town’s needs.”
Gulf Stream paid its outside auditors $13,050 in fiscal 2005. The amount gradually rose to $15,050 for fiscal 2010 and stayed there through fiscal 2017.

A no-swimming flag flies at the public beach in Lantana on Sept. 30 to warn people of an irritant blowing in on the wind and waves that caused respiratory issues and eye irritation. As a precaution, officials closed Palm Beach County beaches from the Martin County line to Lake Worth. Lantana followed suit, and other municipalities south of Lake Worth were monitoring the situation. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Cheryl Blackerby

A police officer handed South Palm Beach Mayor Bonnie Fischer a face mask to help relieve her burning eyes and sore throat when she walked on the beach.
During the last week of September, officials knew there was an airborne irritant from the ocean that was causing coughing and burning eyes in some beachgoers, but they didn’t know what it was.
The mystery was solved Oct. 1 when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s water tests, taken from 11 sites from the Palm Beach Inlet north to Jupiter Inlet, came back identifying the culprit.
Red tide had made a rare appearance on Florida’s southeast coast, its first since 2006-07.
The algae, which can cause a red tint in the water, have shown up only nine times since 1953 on Palm Beach County beaches (with cell counts of 100,000 cells/liter or more). On Florida’s Gulf of Mexico beaches, red tide has occurred 57 times during that time frame. 
Public beaches from the Martin County line to Lake Worth were given health advisories from the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County on Sept. 29. South of Lake Worth, Lantana closed its beach to swimming after people complained of symptoms. Other municipalities were monitoring the situation, and Palm Beach County changed its mind about lifting advisories effective Oct. 3 after seeing that red tide conditions were forecast to persist. Broward and Miami-Dade counties also planned to test for red tide on their beaches.
This September appearance of red tide, like the previous eight occurrences on county beaches, originated in the gulf and was carried by currents through the Florida Straits and on the Gulf Stream to the East Coast, said Tim O’Connor, spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County.
“The red tide is a few miles offshore and winds are carrying it in,” O’Connor said. “It looks like low concentrations. It breaks up as it comes in.”

People with health issues are warned off beaches
Red tide is caused by the karenia brevis algae common in the gulf. When it blooms in high concentration, it produces toxins that kill fish and water mammals, as has happened on Florida’s West Coast this year. Red tide can cause respiratory irritation such as coughing, tearing and sore throats in humans.
Officials say they can’t predict the future of red tides on the East Coast, but they don’t expect any fish and mammal deaths here this year.
“Red tides can even subside and then reoccur,” said Lisa De La Rionda, public affairs director for Palm Beach County. “The duration of a bloom in nearshore Florida waters depends on physical and biological conditions that influence its growth and persistence, including sunlight, nutrients and salinity, as well as the speed and direction of wind and water currents.”
People with respiratory problems such as emphysema or asthma were advised to stay away from the beach and those who live in beachside homes to stay indoors until the algae dissipates.
Residents should check with local towns to see if public beaches are open. Kevin Saxton, a spokesman with Delray Fire-Rescue, said the beach was open as of Oct. 1 but the city had an advisory in effect. Delray Beach lifeguards were still staffing the towers, unlike in Lake Worth where all entrances to the beach and upper-level parking lots were closed beginning Sept. 30.
Boca Raton was monitoring the situation. “Boca Raton Ocean Rescue has not had any reported complaints or incidents at this time,” said spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson.
Mayor Fischer, who lives in an oceanfront condo and has a history with South Palm Beach that goes back to 1974 when she visited as a child, said she was stunned to encounter red tide and forced to leave her condo.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. It took me by surprise. I couldn’t sleep at night and am not staying here,” she said Oct. 2.
She had seen just how bad red tide can be when she attended a beach preservation conference in Clearwater in September. “There were dead fish there with the red tide,” she said, but she wasn’t bothered as much physically then.
“This has been worse.”

Jane Smith and Dan Moffett contributed to this story.

By Steve Plunkett

Waste Management’s familiar green trucks will disappear from town streets in six months unless the garbage-hauling giant and Gulf Stream officials can renew a contract at a “comfortable” rate.
Town Manager Greg Dunham, who in July planned to sign a five-year extension of the contract with the price adjusted for inflation, negotiated an extension through March 2019.
“We’ve talked with them on a number of occasions. They’ve really not provided a number that we’re comfortable with in terms of the increase,” Dunham told Gulf Stream commissioners Sept. 14.
Mayor Scott Morgan said Dunham should continue negotiating with Waste Management but also draw up a request for bids from other trash haulers if the two sides cannot reach a deal.
“I think we should authorize the town manager to begin work requesting public bids to provide the services,” Morgan said.
Waste Management trucks have been on the scene in Gulf Stream for 25 years, since Oct. 1, 1993. This five-year extension would have been its last before state law would have required the town to seek a new round of competitive bids, Durham said in July.
“The staff rarely receives complaints regarding garbage collection,” Dunham said in a memo then. “When there is an issue regarding the service, Waste Management responds quickly, without hesitation.”
Single-family homes will pay $31.13 a month through March for garbage service, up 2.7 percent from the expired contract, Dunham said.
Garbage is picked up on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with recycling also collected on Saturdays and yard waste and bulk on Wednesdays.
In other business:
• Town commissioners approved a $5.58 million budget for fiscal 2019. The tax rate is $4.05 per $1,000 of taxable value, a decrease of .24 percent from the budget year that just ended. The spending plan includes $531,383 to design and get permits for the first phase of Gulf Stream’s ambitious 10-year plan to improve streets and drainage.
• Dunham proclaimed phase one of the utility-line burial project “finally complete” with the removal of power poles on Pelican Lane, Andrews Avenue and Driftwood Landing. Also, Florida Power and Light Co. has made all its conversions from overhead to underground connections in phase two, he said.
• Workers at 3140 Polo Drive graded the front and back yards and were preparing to put in landscaping before finishing the interior of the house, which has been under construction nearly three years.

By Dan Moffett

The Manalapan Town Commission’s unanimous approval of a request to build a new cabana on property east of State Road A1A near the town’s southern end drew a pointed warning from Mayor Keith Waters.
“We’re opening ourselves to things unseen — opening a door that we didn’t intend to open,” Waters said. “This was not the intent of our law and not the intent of our zoning. Never.”
Waters opposed allowing the cabana to homeowner Jeffrey Lee, 3070 S. Ocean Blvd., based on Town Attorney Keith Davis’ opinion that it would violate language in the town’s code that prohibits expanding nonconforming structures.
Lee already has a beach house on the property that became an exception to the town’s rules through a 54-year-old court decision, a ruling that permitted two residences on the parcel, one on the west end and another on the ocean.
Lee’s attorney, Ken Kaleel, said denying the cabana would be “unconscionable, unreasonable and arbitrary.” Five commissioners agreed and voted approval on Sept. 25. Commissioner Jack Doyle was absent and Waters had no vote.
With ongoing efforts to sell the Ziff estate and the purchase of property by prominent investors such as billionaire Jeff Greene, the potential development of Manalapan’s southern end is likely to raise important issues for the commission going forward.
Despite Waters’ concerns, Davis said he doubted approving Lee’s cabana would set a precedent because of the property’s “unique” status. The attorney said, however, that there are “glaring inconsistencies” in the town’s code that need fixing.
In other business:
• Commissioners gave unanimous final approval to a proposed tax rate of $3.03 per $1,000 of assessed property value, a hefty increase of 17.15 percent over the rollback rate of $2.58. The tax rate in last year’s budget was $2.80 per $1,000.
The increase in revenue is needed to pay for a major expansion of police and security services. The town intends to hire four more officers, hire private security guards for Point Manalapan and upgrade its network of surveillance cameras.
The $400,000 expansion also includes pay raises for current officers and defined benefits pension plans for the department.
• The roughly 550 Hypoluxo residents who get their water from Manalapan’s utility department will remain the town’s customers for two more years.
Hypoluxo decided last year to switch to Boynton Beach Utilities for water services, though Hypoluxo is under contract with Manalapan until 2020. Town Manager Linda Stumpf said negotiations failed for an early buyout of the contract with Hypoluxo, “so we’ll have them for another two years.” With more than 110,000 customers, the fast-growing Boynton utility is more than 12 times larger than Manalapan’s and offered rates the town couldn’t match, Stumpf said.
• The commission is scaling back plans to renovate the Town Hall chambers because of cost concerns.
Stumpf said two contractors’ estimates for an extensive overhaul of the meeting auditorium came in higher than expected at $336,000 and $292,000. Waters told Stumpf to concentrate on reconfiguring the dais to allow better interaction among officials and forget major reconstruction of the room. Stumpf said she hopes to have estimates for a more modest renovation ready by the Oct. 23 meeting.
• Commissioners have approved a revised meeting schedule to ensure quorums during the holiday season. The commission will meet at 10 a.m. on Nov. 13 and Dec. 11.

By Dan Moffett

Despite opposition from Ocean Ridge residents and commissioners, developer William Swaim is making another attempt to secure the permits needed to build a residential development in the mangrove lagoon behind the Town Hall.
In September, Swaim’s Waterfront ICW Properties LLC of Delray Beach applied for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seeking permission to fill in part of the 3.34-acre site in the lagoon and build three houses.
To mitigate potential environmental damage and loss of wetlands, Swaim is offering to transfer to the state other submerged land he owns in the Palm Beach Inlet near John D. MacArthur Beach State Park on Singer Island.
Swaim has been pushing the Ocean Ridge project for four years, suing the town and residents who have opposed his plan. The developer needs an easement from the town in order to gain access to his land behind Town Hall. The Town Commission has ignored Swaim’s repeated requests, saying he needed to satisfy state requirements and obtain permits before asking for an easement.
Town Attorney Brian Shutt said he couldn’t comment on Swaim’s recent permit application because of the ongoing court case. Residents from the Wellington Arms condominiums, who live just east of the proposed development site, have been vocal in their opposition, arguing the mangrove-rich lagoon has to be protected and preserved.
Pat Ganley, a Wellington Arms resident, said his group remains committed to blocking the project. “We are still fighting this,” Ganley said.
Opponents suffered a setback last year when a mediation judge issued a judgment that sided with Swaim and concluded that parts of the lagoon were created by human activity and potentially not protected as environmentally sensitive native land.
The Army Corps has opened the permit request to public comment until Oct. 15. A decision on Swaim’s application is likely months away.
Comments on the project should be submitted in writing to the Army Corps District Engineer, Palm Beach Gardens Permits Section, 4400 PGA Blvd., Suite 500, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410.

By Dan Moffett

Ocean Ridge commissioners moved an important step closer toward lifting the town’s construction moratorium when they gave preliminary approval to a bundle of new building rules on Oct. 1.
Mayor James Bonfiglio said the overhaul is needed to close loopholes in the town’s code — some of them gaping enough to allow the construction of oversized residences that might be used as group sober homes.
Commissioners approved the moratorium on new projects in May and have been working with Planning and Zoning Board members since to rewrite rules.
Town Attorney Brian Shutt said that, if commissioners give final approval to the new ordinances during their Nov. 5 meeting, the moratorium will end.
Key provisions included in the rule changes call for more parking spaces for bigger homes and more green space to promote better drainage.
A new requirement mandates that a parking space must be provided for each bedroom or a room that may qualify as a bedroom for single-family or two-family dwellings. Each of these homes must have an enclosed two-car garage, and homes with more than four bedrooms must have an additional garage space for every two extra bedrooms.
Another new requirement sets a standard of 35 percent for pervious, or permeable, areas on properties and calls for planting more shrubs and trees. Commissioners are considering reducing the 35 percent standard for residences with smaller lots.
Home size became an issue in Ocean Ridge last spring when part-time resident John Lauring proposed building a nine-bedroom home on Island Drive South. However, Bonfiglio has said commissioners weren’t looking at any specific project when they decided to hit the pause button.
Lauring, through his attorney, has objected to the moratorium and rule changes.
“We understand and respect the town’s right to amend its land development code,” attorney Shai Ozery said in a letter to the town. “However, that right should not be used as a sword to prevent the equitable rights of property owners. ...”

In other business:
• Ocean Ridge voters are likely to find several charter amendments on their ballots for the March municipal election.
Commissioners have given preliminary approval to several amendments that set term limits for elected officials, define the hiring and firing powers of the town manager, and require a supermajority of four commission votes for approval of certain high-rise or high-density projects.
The term limits change would restrict a commissioner to no more than three consecutive three-year terms and then require a break from office. The supermajority amendment was narrowly approved on first reading, 3-2, with Commissioners Steve Coz and Phil Besler dissenting.
The proposals require final approval at the Nov. 5 meeting to make it onto the March 12 ballot.
Members of the Charter Review Committee include Zoanne Hennigan, chairman, Terry Brown, Polly Joa and former Mayors Geoff Pugh and Ken Kaleel.
• Commissioners have unanimously approved a budget for fiscal year 2019 that sets the property tax rate at $5.35 per $1,000 of taxable value, 5.9 percent above the rollback rate of $5.05 that would have kept revenues flat year-over-year.
To balance the budget, the commission will have to move about $153,300 from reserve funds, Town Manager Jamie Titcomb said.
The budget includes a 6 percent increase in police salaries after resolution of a new collective bargaining agreement. Fire-rescue services from Boynton Beach are up 4 percent and health insurance renewals increased 11.6 percent. Commissioners have set aside a $60,000 pest control fund to combat no-see-ums and iguanas.
Titcomb received a $5,000 pay raise to $112,500 and signed a new one-year contract after working the last year on a month-to-month basis. Police Chief Hal Hutchins got a $4,363 increase to $104,092.