Stet News🌎 Happy Earth Day! For you today, texts target Related school land deal, three packed town halls, a star turn for nine PBC restaurants, Riviera Beach’s new leader, tracking young readers and a searing journey to Cuba. Whew!
📲 Text campaign mystery
Before West Palm Beach city commissioners decided March 31 to sell 55 acres to megadeveloper Stephen Ross for a private school, they heard from residents who had gotten text messages opposing the plan.
- “This land deal feels rushed and hidden from the public with no transparency,” the texts said. “No open process? No thanks.”
Zoom out: The texts were signed by the Florida Committee for Accountability. That’s the name of a registered Florida political committee set up to influence elections.
Why it’s important: The text campaign didn’t stop the private school proposal but it raised questions about the legality of a text campaign paid for by a political committee.
Zoom in: It is against the law for such a committee to spend its money on issues rather than an election campaign, Tallahassee election law attorney Jennifer Blohm said.
- A 1990 Florida Division of Elections opinion she cited says: “A political committee may not make any expenditures which are not made for the purpose of influencing an election.”
The committee’s chairperson, Jennings DePriest of Bradenton, has publicly acknowledged his success at conducting text messaging campaigns.
- “If you live in Florida and you’ve gotten political texts, there’s a good chance I’m behind it,” he said in a November 2022 podcast. “Sorry. Not sorry.”
No one has publicly claimed to be behind the text messages but Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene, who operates a private school on South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach, expressed disgust with the commission’s decision to sell the land near Florida’s Turnpike to Ross for $6.6 million.
What he’s saying: “I would love to buy that land for $6 million,” Greene told Stet News. “Maybe we would move our high school out there.”
- Greene, who attended the commission meeting, said he knew nothing about the text campaign.
The city gave Related Ross a six-month exclusive option to buy the land.
Of note: The Florida Committee for Accountability’s treasurer is Melissa Power, wife of Evan Power, chairperson of the Florida Republican Party.
Read more: Find out more about the Florida Committee for Accountability and the plans for a school next to a city wellfield by clicking here.
— Joel Engelhardt
📣 The long and short of Mast’s town halls
U.S. Rep Brian Mast has a message for constituents who are struggling with the disruption of Social Security or veterans services.
“Call my office,” he told three packed town halls last week. “I don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democrat or not registered to vote. We work for you.”
Why it’s important: Mast’s advice came after his reassurances that the services won’t be cut were met with complaints from the audience about a closed Social Security office in Melbourne and long telephone wait times for answers.
- Some veterans at the town halls reported they are struggling to get benefits.
Driving the news: Mast, a Republican who represents portions of northern Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, said last week he stands by President Trump, Elon Musk and the massive changes they are engineering to American life.
- Of the president, Mast said, “He’s doing a great job.”
That pronouncement infuriated one half of the crowd and thrilled the other.
The bottom line: The congressman’s Jupiter office number is 561-530-7778.
Stet’s Jan Norris covered all three town halls: in Jupiter Farms, Palm City and Port St. Lucie. Find out what the congressman said about immigration and FEMA by clicking here.
— Jan Norris
🏆 Star power for these 9 Michelin restaurants
Results are in, and the prestigious Michelin awards for 2025 have been bestowed on nine Palm Beach County restaurants.
⭐️ Top of the order is the one star given to Konro, a West Palm Beach intimate modern Asian restaurant led by an already two-starred chef, Jacob Bickelhaupt.
- He prepares and serves an omakase menu, where the chef selects the food, single-handedly to diners at the counter in the Flamingo Park restaurant.
- The 10- to 14-course menu is $440 per person.
🍽️ Among Bib Gourmand awards, recognizing standouts that don’t fit the parameters for the starred review, is the West Palm Beach cafe/bakery Aioli, led by Michael and Melanie Hackman.
- The 10-year-old neighborhood favorite in West Palm’s south end specializes in sourdough-based sandwiches, salads and soups, made in-house.
- The anonymous Michelin judges point diners to Aioli’s black bean and tomatillo soup and the roasted veggie sandwich with goat cheese on ciabatta.
- What’s your favorite?
🥩 Palm Beach Meats up the street in West Palm Beach is also a Bib Gourmand recipient.
On the recommended list:
- Buccan, in Palm Beach.
- Coolinary and Parched Pig, Stage Kitchen and The Butcher’s Club in Palm Beach Gardens.
- Moody Tongue Sushi in West Palm Beach.
- Distinguished Meats in Boynton Beach.
Catch up quick: Palm Beach County’s Discover the Palm Beaches, its tourism marketing arm, contributed $180,000 to a pool of more than $1 million for two years to lure the guide to rank restaurants in the tri-county area.
- The guide goes statewide next year.
Keep reading for more on the Palm Beach County awards. For details on all the Florida awards and reviewers’ comments, go to the Michelin Guide website.
— Jan Norris
✅ Riviera Beach picks a mayor
A split Riviera Beach City Council voted 3-2 last week to select Douglas Lawson as mayor.
Catch up quick: The job came open after all three candidates who signed up to run for the office in March were removed from the ballot because of filing mistakes.
- Twelve people sought the position and one withdrew. The remaining 11 had five minutes each to make their case before the City Council.
Why it’s important: Riviera Beach and private developers are undertaking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of projects in the city. The mayor doesn’t vote but can launch investigations and plays a ceremonial role.
What happened: With no discussion, the council selected Lawson, who had served on the council for six years but couldn’t seek reelection because, like the mayoral candidates, he incorrectly paid his filing fee with a debit card instead of a check.
What they’re saying: “Clearly the deal was made before we walked into the room,” Council Member Glen Spiritis told Stet News. He and Council Member Fercella Davis Panier did not vote for Lawson.
Zoom in: Council Chairperson Shirley Lanier, who joined colleagues Bruce Guyton and KaShamba Miller-Anderson in supporting Lawson, said they wanted someone who knew the city’s issues.
- “We have more than $1 billion in projects on the table,” she said, ticking off the city’s plans to replace city hall, police and fire stations and its water treatment plant. “I hate to use the term hitting the ground running, but we need someone who understands and can articulate the issues.”
Click here to read how some members of the public pushed for selection of a woman mayor.
— Jane Musgrave
✏️ Feeding Hungry Minds: The Foundations School
Fourth of five
More than 20 years ago, the Center for Creative Education was launched as a program to strengthen the presence of the arts in the classrooms of Palm Beach County schools.
Why it matters: Literacy wasn’t the focus until Bob Hamon came on board.
- Hamon, CCE’s chief executive officer, joined in 2011. A research chemist with a medical background, Hamon looked at problems differently than most academics. His analogies are often hospital related, like “You don’t fire a nurse because a patient dies.”
Flashback: In 2021, the CCE launched the Foundations School, a K-5 school to serve as a model for public schools. It opened in January 2021, in the middle of COVID, as an in-person independent private school in West Palm Beach.
- The school set a goal to help impoverished students reach grade-level proficiency in reading, social studies, science and math.
Leadership immediately learned two things. First, many children entered kindergarten without basic knowledge of the alphabet or phonics. “Only 40 percent of kids are entering kindergarten ready to learn to read,” Hamon said. “We need to recruit them in kindergarten and get them up to speed.”
Second, Hamon said, the key to success is “to intervene early and consistently, using frequent assessments to provide each student with differentiated support.” The Foundations School assesses student progress at least five times a year.
Stunning stat: The K-5 school’s razor-focus on improving literacy has been effective. At the end of last year, 89% of third graders at The Foundations School were reading on or above grade level, which is nearly double the public schools’ percentage.
What they’re saying: “Reading is not rocket science, but one size does not fit all either,” Hamon said. “The truth is, we can solve this. The answer is parents, communities and schools working together.”
Keep reading to find out how the literacy program works.
This is the fourth of five Stet News snapshots of Palm Beach County organizations devoted to childhood literacy. Last week: Roots & Wings.
Next week: The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties.
— Janis Fontaine
🍊 The Juice
🕯️ Pope Francis, who died at age 88 on Monday, visited Cuba and the United States in 2015. (Miami Herald $$$)
One of the two people killed in Thursday’s shootings at Florida State University, Roberto Morales, 57, was the son of Ricardo “Monkey” Morales, a notorious Cuban-American CIA operative and anti-Castro militant, with deep ties to South Florida. (CBS News and Miami Herald $$$)
🫶 Boca Raton is partnering with Palm Beach County on a homeless outreach team. The city has offered to pay up to $160,000 for two county workers who will assist the city’s homeless population, part of a response to the state’s new ban against sleeping in public spaces. (Sun-Sentinel $$$)
🏅 Investigative Reporters and Editors, a nonprofit industry group dedicated to promoting investigative reporting, has named The Palm Beach Post a finalist for its 2024 Freedom of Information Award.
- The Post’s work to open secret grand jury records in the Jeffrey Epstein criminal case placed it next to the Los Angeles Times and CBS News as finalists in a category won by Bloomberg News.
- Congratulations to Holly Baltz, the project editor, and reporters Kristina Webb, Hannah Phillips and Stet contributor Jane Musgrave! (IRE website)
🚪 Lynn Ladner, Ocean Ridge’s town manager, resigned this month after commissioners gave her poor evaluations, particularly hammering her on budget and fiscal responsibility. (The Coastal Star)
✈️ 561NSIDER: 5 days in Cuba
Two dozen Palm Beach County residents from the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County recently got a five-day look at Cuba and its tiny Jewish community.
They brought medical supplies to restock pharmacy shelves and engaged in an experience that showed them, at its core, Jewish worship is universal.
Here are five things they found:
- Judaism is Judaism: “The poverty levels in Havana are worse than I’ve ever seen,” said federation President and CEO Michael Hoffman. But when he joined congregants in celebrating Shabbat in Havana, he felt a familiarity with the prayers, the same ones he recites at his synagogue in West Palm Beach.
- No fears of antisemitism: Hoffman found Havana’s two synagogues to be straight out of the 1980s. He noted a lack of fear. They didn’t have armed security as is common in South Florida.
- Poverty is pervasive: Food rationing limits residents to five eggs per month. Street market stalls were half-empty. Lines at stores ran out the door. Synagogues have pharmacies with little on the shelves. “I’ve been to war zones,” Hoffman said. “Ukraine. Northern Israel.” But this was different. “It’s decay. It’s shocking to walk around and see.”
- Cuba’s once vaunted medical system is suffering: It’s more lucrative to be a waiter than a doctor, said Dr. Jennifer Buczyner, a neurologist with the Atria Health and Research Institute in Palm Beach. Supplies were woeful. The visitors packed their suitcases with 3,000 pounds of supplies, including ibuprofen, blood-pressure medications, antibiotics, epi pens, steroids and medicines. “There are certain times we are actually saving people’s lives and this was one of those times,” Hoffman said.
- A sense of guilt: Boca Raton periodontist Lauren Steinberg visited the home her grandparents fled in 1962. The homeowner noted that her generation has a sense of guilt knowing what happened to the generation before them, Steinberg said. “A lot of these homes were left in the middle of the night. ‘Here I am enjoying this home and the people who came here before me, I know what they went through.’”
Read more of the story from Joel by clicking here.
Our Aioli favorites
☕ Carolyn stops by for the Crack Coffee. That’s espresso, coconut oil, organic coconut sugar, cayenne, cinnamon and milk. ($7)
🍗 Joel’s choice is turkey and brie, cranberry aioli and arugula on raisin walnut bread. ($14.50)
🥪 Liz recommends the turkey avocado club with bacon, tomato, lettuce, roasted garlic aioli on grilled sourdough. ($16.50)
