News

By Dan Moffett

    Briny Breezes residents will look back on 2016 as the year their town strengthened its ties with Boynton Beach.
     In June, the Briny Breezes Town Council approved a 12-year fire-rescue contract with Boynton Beach, extending a longstanding relationship. Then in September, Briny Breezes dropped the Ocean Ridge Police Department and signed on with Boynton Beach for police services.
     Now faced with the arduous task of navigating complicated state rules for putting a golf cart crossing at A1A and Cordova Avenue, Briny Breezes is turning to Boynton Beach building officials for help.
     Town Council President Sue Thaler said that Boynton Beach’s Public Works Administration and Engineering Department have volunteered to guide Briny Breezes through the permitting and engineering requirements that must be satisfied to get the crossing built.
     “We have to go through a series of permitting approvals and permits from the state, and the city of Boynton Beach has extended an offer to have their roads department help lead us through the process,” Thaler said. “So we’ll be contacting them the first of the year to get started with that.”
     Thaler said Boynton Beach will act only in an advisory capacity — at no charge to Briny Breezes, which has no building or engineering department of its own. She said the town hopes to begin work on the project in 2017.
     The town has been negotiating with Florida Department of Transportation officials for close to two years, trying to get approval for putting the cart path across the state’s thoroughfare. A recent concern from Tallahassee has been ensuring that cart traffic doesn’t end up traveling the wrong way on east Cordova Avenue, a one-way street.
     In other business, the Town Council gave unanimous approval to the second reading of an ordinance that requires candidates for the mayor’s and clerk’s positions to submit election petitions to qualify for candidacy. Council members said the new requirement was needed to deter frivolous runs for office by people seeking to embarrass the town.