Boca Raton will appeal the March court ruling that the city in 2019 wrongly denied a permit to allow construction of a home on vacant oceanfront land.
U.S. District Court Judge Rodney Smith found that Mayor Scott Singer and members of the city council had prejudiced themselves before voting on the application from Natural Lands, LLC, which owns the lot at 2500 North Ocean Boulevard. Though Smith found that the action had not amounted to an illegal “taking,” he said the city had to allow construction of the four-story home. An attorney for Natural Lands said the owner would propose something smaller.
It’s hard to tell at this point exactly how the city will word its appeal. Smith made his ruling orally from the bench. Though he promised a written order soon, he hasn’t issued it.
The city thus states that it is filing the appeal “in an abundance of caution.” Boca Raton’s attorneys note that Smith has declared the case “closed,” despite the lack of a written order. “Closed,” the city states, does not always mean “finality.”
Though public opposition to construction on this lot and another just to the south is strong, there’s more at stake for the city than just two projects. It’s about reputation. Smith concluded that Boca Raton’s elected officials and administrators did not operate in good faith.
Singer, Smith said, was “clearly biased beyond any stretch of the imagination.” Councilwoman Monica Mayotte displayed “complete bias” from the start against Natural Lands. Former Councilwoman Andrea O’Rourke “epitomizes what is delusional when asked if she can be fair and unbiased.” The city’s staff and consultants, Smith said, also were prejudiced against Natural Lands and worked to deny the permit.
A panel of state judges reached a similar conclusion. They found that Singer, Mayotte and O’Rourke should have recused themselves based on comments before the vote.
Smith’s comments got widespread media coverage. The city also is in litigation over the lot at 2600 North Ocean Boulevard. I’ll have more as the cases progress.
Conversion therapy plaintiffs seek recovery of legal fees
Speaking of Boca Raton and lawsuits, the plaintiffs who sued Boca Raton over the city’s ban on conversion therapy for minors have filed to recover attorney fees and other costs.
The plaintiffs—therapists who seek to persuade LGBTQ children to become heterosexual—prevailed at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after Boca Raton won at trial. U.S. District Court Judge Robin Rosenberg said the city had a legitimate interest in protecting children from what mainstream medical groups consider the harmful practice of Sexual Orientation Change Efforts, or SOCE. The appellate panel, however, ruled that Boca Raton had violated the therapists’ First Amendment rights.
Boca Raton had to pay one therapist $50,000 and the other $25,000 in damages. Palm Beach County, which had passed a similar ordinance, paid each $50,000. The plaintiffs are seeking $2.1 million in legal fees and nearly $13,000 in costs. The file contains no breakdown of how the city and county would divide those costs. Each can challenge the plaintiffs’ motion.
Boylston get a challenger in mayor race
Delray Beach’s election isn’t for another nine months, but the field already is shaping up.
I reported last week that City Commissioner Ryan Boylston will run for mayor. He is term-limited in Seat 3. Now he has a familiar opponent.
That would be Shirley Johnson, who left the commission last March because of term limits. She and Boylston served together for five years. Johnson’s candidacy comes as a surprise. She dropped no hints during her final meetings, when she often appeared confused during discussions. Johnson complained on social media that Boylston already had secured most of the major endorsements.
Seat 1 Commissioner Adam Frankel is term-limited next March. Christina Morrison has filed for that seat. Morrison is a commercial Realtor who served briefly on the commission as an appointed member and finished second to Mitch Katz in 2015.
Jim Chard has filed for Boylston’s seat. Chard was elected to the commission in 2017, but he served just one year before resigning to run unsuccessfully for mayor against Shelly Petrolia. Morrison and Chard are in the anti-Petrolia faction and generally would be aligned with Boylston if all three won.
A break for seaweed woes
Residents and employees of Boca Raton and Delray Beach surely were happy to hear that the massive sargassum blob in the Atlantic Ocean shrunk 15 percent between April and May.
Workers in both cities have been dealing for months with unusually high piles of seaweed. At the May 16 city commission meeting, Delray Beach staffers explained the process.
Parks and Recreation Director Sam Metott said the city is following the county’s lead in not trying to remove the seaweed but to let it decompose. Noting that Delray Beach recently received the international Blue Flag designation for its beach, Metott said the city treats the seaweed as a “cyclical component” of the marine environment, however noxious it is at times.
A contractor rakes the seaweed each day. Metott said trying to remove so much of it would be impractical. “It is difficult to predict,” he said, what might happen the rest of the summer.
In Boca Raton, a city spokeswoman said, clearing the seaweed does not begin each morning until workers at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center check for turtle nests. Crews then remove “trash and debris” from the seaweed. A tractor rakes and buries what has accumulated.
Clearing can be slowed, the spokeswoman said, by what can be “overwhelming” amounts of seaweed that high winds and strong tides can deposit. Boca Raton does not clean any farther from the beach than the last high tide line.
Delray’s dangerous intersections
Four of Palm Beach County’s 20 most crash-prone intersections for 2022 are in or near Delray Beach. The rankings come from research by The Palm Beach Post.
Two intersections tied for fourth-most dangerous: Atlantic Avenue and Congress Avenue and Atlantic Avenue and Interstate 95. Military Trail and Atlantic Avenue ranked sixth, while Military Trail and Linton Boulevard was 11th. Linton Boulevard and Congress Avenue came in 13th. None of the 20 was in Boca Raton or West Boca.
