Serving Hypoluxo Island, South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream and Coastal Delray Beach
June 2017
Along the Coast
Cocoanut
Dreams
A Boynton Beach exhibition of historical images sprouts from a fortunate photo find. Meet some of the area’s early residents. Page 23
ABOVE: Nancy, Leila and Dorothy Pierson (l-r) display decorated coconuts at their roadside ‘Cocoanut Stand,’ possibly to raise money for the Red Cross during World War I. LEFT: A hand-tinted photograph of what is now State Road A1A. Photos courtesy of Janet DeVries
Volume 10 Issue 6
Along the Coast
Property values rise to pre-crash levels By Mary Hladky Ten years after housing prices began cratering in the Great Recession, taxable property values in Palm Beach County have zoomed past their previous record high set in 2007. While the previous peak was $169.4 billion before the housing bubble burst, taxable values countywide jumped 7.1 percent to $176.5 billion last year, according to estimates released May 26 by Property Appraiser Dorothy Jacks. This is the fifth year in a row that values have surged, although once double-digit growth has slowed in recent years. But increases in the county and municipalities remain generally within the 6-8 percent growth rate considered healthy before the real estate crash. Taken together, city increases averaged 8.81 percent. “This (7.1 percent) is a good number as far as healthy growth, but not too heated growth,” Jacks said. The recovery in home prices and the completion of large construction projects countywide that are now on the tax rolls have spurred year-over-year gains, she said. “New construction continues See TAX on page 19
Delray Beach
Life lessons from city’s most senior citizen By Ron Hayes
Eula Mae Johnson has reached that awkward age where family members no longer put one candle on the cake for every year. The Delray Beach fire department would no doubt be relieved, because Eula Mae Johnson and Palm Beach County were born in the same year. On April 30, 1909, the county was officially created out of the northern chunk of Dade County. Johnson arrived on Aug. 6, 1909, in Bartow, Georgia.
In 1923, when Delray Beach was incorporated, she was already 14. In 1935, when she arrived in Boca Raton to pick beans on Butts Farm, she was 26. Boca Raton was just turning 10. By the 1940s, she’d moved to Pearl City, Boca Raton’s black neighborhood. “She probably is the oldest person living today in Delray Beach,” Janet DeVries, an archivist, historian and author, concluded after searching the city’s census and marriage records. See JOHNSON on page 22
Inside Every Dad has his day
Celebrate that special man this Father’s Day. Page AT1
Dreamboat Annie
Heart’s Ann Wilson makes solo stops in South Florida. Page AT7
A photograph shows 107-year-old Eula Mae Johnson of Delray Beach as a young woman. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Debate over Publix sign delays construction. Page 10 Fire hydrants in County Pocket finally get mapped. Page 24
Cultivating Delray
Community Greening project plants fruit trees. Page H1