City’s fireworks almost didn’t happen — For all the complaints on social media about the July Fourth fireworks in Delray Beach, residents were lucky to have any pyrotechnics at all. The barge that was supposed to be used for the display got stuck in the Gulf of Mexico due to Tropical Storm Alberto and then Hurricane Beryl.
City officials briefly considered the Delray Beach Golf Club and Old School Square as alternative sites for a display before deciding that a truncated show could be launched from the beach, where the city’s celebration with live music and food trucks was already planned on State Road A1A and Atlantic Avenue.
Mayor Tom Carney said City Manager Terrence Moore told him at one point that the prospect of fireworks appeared bleak when word came to the city that the barge was not making the trip.
“Which I responded, ‘We have to have fireworks,’” Carney said at the July 9 commission meeting. “Ten minutes is better than no minutes.”
Parks Director Samuel Metott said fireworks launched from the shore rather than the ocean are more expensive and require additional safety measures. The Fire Rescue
Department spent the holiday watering down dunes, he said. The usual 20-minute show was cut in half and the city issued a release telling residents as much on June 28.
“We apologize to the public on our behalf that it wasn’t the show we wish it was. We look forward to another great show next year,” Metott said at the meeting.
Commissioner Rob Long said he had gotten an earful from upset residents — and mentioned the complaints leveled on Facebook pages dedicated to the city. “Cut us a little slack here. We still had an awesome event all day, right?” Long said. “A lot of cities don’t have anything like that.”
Commissioner Tom Markert said he didn’t mind the change of pace. “The shorter fireworks allowed me to spend more time with the food trucks,” he joked.
‘Game of Thrones’ on DDA — It’s certainly an eye-for-an-eye when it comes to some recent appointments to the Downtown Development Authority — a volunteer board chosen by city commissioners. By a 3-2 vote on July 16, the commission refused to extend gallery owner Mavis Benson the appointment it had awarded her a month earlier, before problems with her application surfaced.
Rick Burgess, whose vacancy Benson sought to fill, had been ousted by the commission after Benson filed a complaint last year with the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics, saying Burgess lied on his DDA application when he said his business was in the “tax-qualified” area of the DDA. The ethics commission found that was the case and city commissioners removed him from the DDA in April.
After the commission appointed Benson to the DDA in June, Burgess wrote to City Attorney Lynn Gelin that Benson’s Avalon Gallery on Atlantic Avenue was not registered with the state, leading Gelin to conclude Benson’s appointment was not valid.
Benson told commissioners at their July 16 meeting that she rectified the registration and submitted an updated lease agreement. But Commissioner Rob Long, who previously nominated Burgess, said Benson failed to resubmit an application for the DDA position as requested. Commissioner Angela Burns said she was conflicted, but “to be fair and consistent, we have to do the same that we do for everyone.”
Long and Burns were joined by Mayor Tom Carney in voting no. Commissioners Tom Markert and Juli Casale were in the minority.
Burgess had sued the city in May, seeking to have his removal overturned, but the case was dismissed by Palm Beach County Circuit Judge John Parnofiello on June 26.
Committee to consider how to spend city’s opioid settlement money — Delray Beach will form an advisory group to make recommendations on how to allocate the city’s share of opioid settlement money.
The committee is to consist of appointed professionals and community members, similar to numerous other advisory panels in the city, Assistant City Manager Jeff Oris told commissioners at their July 16 meeting. A formal policy is expected to come back to the commission for approval Aug. 19.
As of June, Delray Beach had netted $239,000 from the $50 billion settlement between the states and opioid manufacturers and pharmacies. The settlement — and future payments — could be affected by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Purdue Pharma, which invented the highly addictive OxyContin.
Of the 7,769 overdose deaths in Florida in 2022, 6,157 were attributed to opioids, according to the state Health Department’s latest report.
Maureen Kielian, the chair of a county advisory committee on the issue, has said cities should consider giving their portion of the opioid settlement money back to the county so that there would be a bigger pool to provide more substantial services.
— John Pacenti
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