February 2021
Serving Hypoluxo Island, South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream and Coastal Delray Beach
Along the Coast
Delray Beach
Recalling an earlier
vaccine rollout
Participants’ stories of 1964 polio preventive show parallels to COVID-19
Water woes may bring $3M in fines State concludes city committed ‘willful’ violations By Jane Smith
By Joyce Reingold Walter and Jean Dutch left New York in 1946 to settle in Briny Breezes with their two young children, Karen and Wayne. Karen Dutch Steinke was just 6 months old then, but she would later learn that on the trip south, her parents bypassed an area of the country where they had heard poliomyelitis was present. In the 1940s, polio outbreaks Children receive oral polio vaccinations at the Boynton Beach Jaycees program in 1965. were becoming more frequent, Photos provided by Boynton Beach City Library History Archives and millions of parents like the Dutches became fierce sentinels protecting vulnerable children from the highly contagious virus that too often resulted in muscle weakness, paralysis and sometimes death. In summer, when cases of the virus spiked, parents kept children indoors. Families social-distanced, selfisolated and quarantined. The virus is transmitted through contact with fecal matter or via droplets from coughs or sneezes. But then, there were many theories — perhaps flies, car exhaust or Inside even cats were to blame. In the South County residents absence of scientific evidence, scramble for COVID-19 fear festered. Boynton Beach Jaycees during a ‘Let’s lick polio!’ push vaccines. Page 12 See VACCINE on page 10 that included three Sabin Oral Sunday doses in 1964. Thieves targeted unlocked cars that had keys or key fobs left inside. The Coastal Star
Volume 14 Issue 2
Delray Beach officials have known for more than 12 years what was required to implement a safe reclaimed water project, according to July 2008 letters between the city’s Utilities Department and Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County. In fact, the city’s water rules remain part of its code of ordinances today. These rules explain how the city will protect its public water supply while offering reclaimed water for irrigation. This knowledge and failure to implement its own plan may end up costing Delray Beach nearly $3 million in fines for not inspecting, maintaining and keeping records of its reclaimed water installations. The Department of Health called the violations “willful or intentional in nature” in its draft Jan. 7 letter to the Delray Beach interim city manager. The year 2008 was five city managers ago, when none of the current commissioners sat on the dais. The proposed fines couldn’t come at a worse time. Delray Beach had been plugging holes in its budget for nearly a year when the pandemic shut See WATER on page 28
Along the Coast
Thieves drive off in style from coastal homes By Larry Barszewski Stealing luxury is easier than you might think when it comes to cars in South Palm Beach County’s coastal communities. While the U.S. top-10 list of stolen vehicles includes a number of Hondas, PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID WEST PALM BCH FL PERMIT NO 4595
Toyotas and pickup trucks, most of the 11 cars ripped off in Gulf Stream last year had more panache: three Porsches, two Land Rovers, two Mercedes-Benzes, two BMWs, an Audi and a Dodge (a rental, of course). Thieves found 10 of them unlocked with the keys or key fobs inside.
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Valentine’s Day Football great Howard Schnellenberger and his wife, Beverlee, share six decades of love letters. Page AT1
The seven cars taken in Ocean Ridge in 2020 were also left unlocked with the key/key fobs inside. It was the same story in Highland Beach, where a Mercedes and a Cadillac were stolen, and for the lone auto theft in See THEFTS on page 16
Secret Garden Couple cultivates roses. Page AT17
‘Glasstress’ at Boca Museum. Page AT9