Peter Parkin might well be the Barak Obama of Deerfield Beach.
The seemingly impossible job that Parkin is taking on involves turning foreclosed properties into someone’s American dream in a city that faces a foreclosure tsunami.
Parkin is charged with coordinating funding programs that capture foreclosed properties falling into disrepair.

The federal funding finances modest facelifts and the renovated properties are sold to people who otherwise might not afford a house.

"It has to be a foreclosed property and there are 500 homes citywide that will qualify, 44 more that don’t meet the requirements of this money at this time," said City Manager Mike Mahaney at the Nov. 18 commission meeting. "There are a lot of rules and regulations and when you play with federal money you have to play by federal rules."

Enter Parkin, Deerfield Beach’s new community development division manager who was formerly an administrator with Broward County’s development division.

Parkin replaced Andrew Hyatt Oct. 13 in an office that administers government-funded housing programs, despite an economic downturn so severe that Mahaney has left 90 positions unfilled.

Mahaney said Parkin was a valid investment for two reasons: administering these programs requires expertise, and his salary is funded outside the general budget.

"The income limits allowed under [one program] are different than those allowed by [another] and the rules are extremely complex and detailed," Mahaney said. "We needed someone to administer that and didn’t feel that any of the people still there had the expertise."

Parkin takes the helm at a time when the housing market is in free fall and even families formerly able to afford housing now are in foreclosure.

In May, Deerfield Beach won a $2 million federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant. The money could address the related issue of vacant and weed-choked homes ? depressing neighborhood property values. Parkin’s first task is to bring that money home.

By Dec.1, he needs to have amended an existing plan for spending money on housing to include the $2 million supplement. The task is so complex it occupies a good-sized volume and it’s only the first step.

With the action plan in place Dec. 1, the city has until June 2010 to spend the entire sum – and it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

"There are land development codes, density codes, Environmental Protection Agency rules," Parkin said. "We have to find properties that are foreclosed then find owners willing to sell to the banks. It’s not that easy."

Should the program work, however, it could be a crack in the cement ceiling separating families in the very-low- to low-income range from the dream of owning a home.
"I’m sure the folks who get assistance will say, 'yes, it was worth it,' " Parkin said.

For information about the Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant, call Parkin’s office at 954-480-6420.

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Faced with the second lawsuit in 13 months from a fired employee, Hillsboro Beach officials ignored a threadbare budget and retained an attorney to defend a lawsuit brought by a fired water superintendent.

According to E. Bruce Johnson, who the town retained as special council last week, Lutchman Singh is claiming in a federal court case that he was subject to violations of Fair Labor Standards Act.

“He says he punched a time clock and became an hourly employee,” Johnson told the commission, of a water superintendent hired a year ago from a $60,000-a-year job in the city of Lauderhill.

Singh’s lawsuit is following a familiar road. Last fall, Janice Mary Moore Scheirich sued the town over her four fractious months as town manager. Moore charged in a federal filing that she was fired for uncovering discrepancies in the town’s finances and for enforcing election laws. Moreover, she claimed she was subject to sexual discrimination from then-Mayor Chuck Sussman who persisted in calling her “doll” and “babe.”

Moore eventually withdrew her suit, town officials talked last week about Singh possibly doing the same. Johnson said that he is prohibited from discussing the case while it is in federal court.

However, Town Attorney Donald J. Doody said Singh’s suit alleges that he was an hourly employee and should have been paid for being on call an additional $8,000 to $16,000. “He was a salaried employee, but his checks show an hourly rate,” Doody said.

Town Commissioner Alan Polin, himself an attorney, countered that Singh was hired as a salaried employee. As such, he was not entitled to any extra money, regardless of how many hours he worked.

“It is a bad precedent that people who leave can come back and feel as though there is an unending pot of money in this town, a public trough,” Polin said last week. “Yes, it will cost some money to defend this, but we should not be paying any money. It is bad policy to offer one dime.”

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The party’s back on this year, and organizers hope the creek doesn’t rise.

Last year, regular users of the Century Plaza branch of the Broward County Library will recall that the staff announced a holiday gathering. They pledged music and cookies and coffee for all. Then the unimaginable happened. Something untoward went down the tired plumbing system and the whole affair got washed out.

Patrons lined up at the front door, looking mournful. By the next day, the problem was fixed, but the party was over.

“They told us a couple of different things,” said children’s librarian Maureen Ruiz. “Because the building is older, it isn’t built for the use it gets here. The pipes are smaller [and] they found a plastic cup and a fork – just odds and ends. Crayons in it. I would assume all those things probably caught up.”

This year promises to be more like 2006 than 2007. With the plumbing still gleaming from last year's attention, festivities begin at 1 p.m. Dec. 15 with the Ruth E. Cohen Jewish Book Review’s discussion of “Golda” by Elinor Burkett.

At 2:15, Ruth Pavlow brings her harp for an hour of holiday music – a concert singular in that it is free. In April, visits by two klezmer musicians, Al Matos and his trio and Aaron Kula from FAU, cost almost everyone $6 each.

The exception? Friends of the Library, an organization of dedicated library supporters in search of new members. While it costs $5 to join Friends of the Library, membership has its privileges. Among them: sponsoring the holiday party, sponsoring Jewish history discussions with Eli Kavon and attending those klezmer concerts for free.

The holiday open house is at Century Plaza Branch Library, 1856 W. Hillsboro Blvd. For information, see www.browardlibrary.org, or call 954-360-1330.

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The proposal to expand Florida’s Turnpike from Delray to Deerfield Beach was supposed to be unveiled in December, but a notice last week indicates it’s running behind. Instead, a public information meeting is planned for Feb. 17.

Spokesman Laila A. Haddad said that hardly counts as a project behind schedule.

Between the time that FDOT consultants invited comments from residents living near the affected areas and the date they were supposed to produce adjustments to the original plan, the plan hit a few wrinkles. But don’t call it a delay – yet.

“We have a project that is in design but it won’t even start construction until 2011. There are projects that are funded and are in design, but they are not slated to start construction until the year 2010, " Haddad said. "This project is still in the study stage, not design stage. It’s not even decided if it is a go and it is also not funded.”

In fact, it would be more surprising if postponing the project from the holiday season to January were the only delay in a project of this size. FDOT officials plan to widen the nine miles of roadway between Delray Beach and Deerfield Beach. They propose adding an interchange in Boca Raton. In May, that's where the discussion hit a snag.

The location of that interchange floated everywhere from Clint Moore, to Yamato to Palmetto Park Road. Wherever proposed, residents were not happy. But the no-build option comes with an entirely independent set of problems.

FDOT Consultant Paul Cherry has said that the need for expansion is beyond dispute. FDOT data shows that the existing six lanes can carry 132,600 cars per day. Already they handle 98,300 and traffic is expected to swell to almost 150,000 per day by 2013.

Even so, FDOT officials said Wednesday that the plan presented in February will have to take other factors into account: alternatives, costs and environmental impact.

A place and time have yet to be announced. But Henry Pinzon, Project Manager, is the go-to guy, and he answers his own phone.

Pinzon can be reached at 407-264-3803 or at henry.pinzon@dot.stsate.fl.us.

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The city that eliminated the budget for special events has announced a line up for the holidays that looks a lot like last year.

All of the usual favorites are back, beginning with Deerfield Beach’s Christmas tree lighting.

The annual celebration next to City Hall, 232 NE Second St., gets its official start at 7 p.m. Dec. 5 with the full complement of school choirs, singing and dancing.
Mayor Al Capellini is slated to do the honors at the plug and Santa Al Stotler will be taking notes on Christmas wishes.

“He was our Santa when we had a holiday house in the City of Sunrise. He loves to do it,” said Recreation Supervisor Jan Muenzenmaier. “He would bring his own presents and give each child a little toy and if he had a special child come through he had a stuffed animal and he’d say, 'Santa has been saving this for you.'"

Santa sticks around to make telephone calls to Deerfield Beach boys and girls who register at school or recreation centers. The agenda has Santa calling kids on his Christmas list in Deerfield Beach Dec. 15 and Dec. 16.

Children between the ages of 2 and 10 who register at school or at a recreation center can expect a personal call on one of those days, if they are sitting by the phone.

Two days later, snow returns to the Villages of Hillsboro Park, 4111 NW Sixth St. on Dec. 18.

Santa will be at Deerfield Beach’s own Winter Wonderland, as well as a horse-drawn hayride, refreshments and games.

Then it’s a social with Santa from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Dec. 20 at Westside Park, 445 SW Second St. There, Santa Eric Williams invites kids to a social with Santa, making cards, singing carols and taking a picture with Santa. Special door prizes and refreshments are on the agenda.

For information about the social, call 954-480-4481. For information about the tree lighting and Santa Calling, call 954-480-4433. For information about Winter Wonderland, call 954-480-4494.

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Ask Tyrone Ervin what he remembers about Christmas last year at Westside Park and the Deerfield Park Elementary School first grader smiles shyly.
“Presents,” he said. “I got a bike.”

Deltamis Worthy got a bike, too, but reports he doesn’t have it any more. “It was red. And somebody got it,” he said.

The cousins were among 200 children who last year ate macaroni and hot dogs, listened to bands, watched Praise Dancers and – every child’s favorite part of Christmas – got presents.

The Christmas party at Westside Park came courtesy of Nedra Johnson, a former private duty nurse and the “Nana” behind Nana’s Helping Hands.

For seven years, her nonprofit organization has gathered donations of cash and toys. She has mustered volunteer face painters and high school bands and she has asked school and church officials to select children as guests.

The parties have been the stuff of memories. Last year, there were toys and books for every single child and bicycles for many.
A food vendor donated hot dogs, sausages and drinks and there was enough cash donated to hire a train and a petting zoo.
Blanche Ely High School’s band came up from Pompano Beach to make the event truly festive.
“Last year was the biggest year,” Johnson said.

This year, however, Johnson faces a challenge as big in its way as Barack Obama’s.
With the economy bumping along the bottom, donations from individuals and retailers alike have gone the way of Greg Orr, whose publishing company and $4,000 donation moved to Orlando. Where Johnson had 200 donated bicycles going into the event last year, the count as of Nov. 17 was just one single bicycle.

The count from schools and churches, however, hasn’t dropped. Johnson says she still expects at least 200 children Dec. 20. They will gather at Westside Park from Deerfield Beach High School, Deerfield Beach Middle School, Deerfield Park and Deerfield Beach Elementary schools, and from as far as Crystal Lake and Park Ridge Elementary Schools and Ely High School, and from churches too countless to name.

“Basically I go to the principles and the churches and I tell them, if you sent them, I know they are in need,” she said. “It’s for the neediest, but there is just a limit I can take. “I only can give what people give me,” she said. “And when I reach that, that’s it.”

The Christmas party is set for Dec. 20, at Westside Park, 445 SW Second St.

For information or to make a donation, call Nana’s Helping Hands, 1410 SW Fifth Terrace, Deerfield Beach, 33441, at 954-709-3555.

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With Broward County considering a use change allowing warehouses over Hillsboro Beach’s water supply, commissioners retained the town’s attorney, engineer and planner to oppose the plan, Nov. 10.

“The site plan apparently went through [approval in] Pompano Beach and Broward County is amending the plat note to let them expand use,” said Hillsboro Beach’s Town Planner Walter Keller of the meeting set for Dec. 2.

Keller says the so-called Lundy Plat is an industrial area near the well field and water plant. Developers plan between 60 and 80 truck bays on the north side of Sample Road east of the Florida East Coast railroad tracks and, observed Mayor Carmen McGarry at the Nov. 10 meeting, “Residents are upset.”

Town Attorney Donald J. Doody suggested negotiating use restrictions from the current developer while showing support for the county rejecting the plat note change.

To that end, town officials will be at the Broward County commission meeting at 10 a.m. Dec. 2.

“It could be continued or deferred,” Keller said.

In which case, town officials likely will be back.

“Once the well fields are unusable then what will we tell the residents?” said Commissioner Alan Polin. “What do we do?”

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It was a small but attentive group that gathered at Deerfield Beach’s public works facility. The draw: a 20-minute film shown for America Recycles Day, Nov. 15.
"The Story of Stuff" documents Annie Leonard’s decade-long odyssey through the life cycle of consumer goods. Leonard spent 10 years traveling the world to find out how goods are produced and where they go and the long-term impact on the fragile eco-system.
When she was done, it was the conundrum of how to help that had the audience buzzing.
"Just like she said to the school kids, ’We can make a difference,’?" said Patty Bender of Century village. "But how can we make a bigger impact on businesses, besides calling and e-mailing?"
Leonard points out in her film that activism is the key to countering a consumption-based mentality.
Consider: 75 percent of the global fisheries are fished out; the earth loses 2,000 trees per minute; in 10 years, one third of the earth’s natural resource base has disappeared.
Cheryl Miller, Deerfield Beach’s recycling specialist, came with no shortage of suggestions. Start with environmental Web sites. Think in terms of what you need, not what you are told you need. Buy local and think critically.
Take the grocery bag dilemma.
"What state is it that supermarkets have banned plastic bags?" asked Bob Bender, Patty’s husband.
Banning them is a start, but just as important is what is substituted, Miller said.
"That 99-cent bag turned people around. It made them think it was okay to bring a bag into the grocery store, but look at it?" she said. "It’s made in China. It is made from [...] plastic material. They are promoting it as recyclable material, but where can you recycle it? You can’t. It’s made from [woven] fiber material."
"A call to your congressman matters," Miller said. "Or call the manufacturer. Tell the manager at the store."
Bender said Pete Seeger wanted to clean the polychlorinated biphenyls out of the Hudson River and he started with three people. "The Hudson now is really cleaned up," he said.

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She came hugging a well-read copy of "Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography," and her face fairly glowed with the prospect of meeting Daniel Handler.
Haley Johnson waited for the real person behind the books to sign hers, a title millions of adolescent readers worldwide — and 500 in line with her Nov. 12 — would have recognized the book as the hallmark of a reader of all 13 volumes of "A Series of Unfortunate Events."
The greeter at Borders, however, recognized the book not at all.
He welcomed the 9-year-old Deerfield Beach resident to an event that was right out a Snicket book for its heartlessness.
Haley was ushered into line number one where her book was inspected. To ensure that it was newly purchased, she was asked to produce a dated receipt. Books that passed muster merited a blue armband entitling owners to line up for three hours for a moment with the author.
Haley’s book was dog-eared from use. The cover was wrinkled. The binding was creased at favorite parts. It came sans receipt and failed inspection. The line of arm-banded passed her by on the way to line number two where an employee opened the new books, embossed the face page, wrote the owner’s name on a sticky note and sent them to line number three.
And Daniel Handler hadn’t even arrived. Cognoscenti credited the publicist for the machine-like efficiency.
When Handler arrived, however, the tenor of the afternoon changed. The 38-year-old San Francisco writer treated yet another stop on a tour promoting a Christmas book written under his pseudonym, Lemony Snicket, as a special event for each and every person he greeted.
New copies of "The Lump of Coal" were thrust across the official signing table. He signed them. Then reached for the forbidden favorite books and signed them as well.
Every person got a signature Snicket sally. Gripping the arm of a boy who extended a book for an autograph, Handler eyed ballpoint pen marks dotting the skin.
"Tattoos!" he exclaimed to the blushing child.
Handing a signed book back to a small girl almost eye-level with the table, he leaned over. "Here’s what I want you to do with this book," he said softly.
She stared at him, like a moth to a flame. "I want you to take it into the back yard," he said softly. "I want you to bury it!"
He turned to the next child in line, leaving her completely flustered.
"What is that?" he shouted as a student approached in a band T-shirt. "An Argentinian tango band?"
To another, he suggested putting the newly signed book in the oven and leaving there to bake for five hours.
"He is awe-some," Haley whispered, as her turn at the table neared.
"Where do you get your inspiration?" she asked, as Handler reached past the new book and took her dog-eared book to sign.
Handler leaned over. "From eavesdropping," he said.

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Ask Renee Scott why the Hillsboro Antique Mall is featuring the work of R.L. Lewis for a fourth year, and the mall’s co-owner says the answer lies in his work.

“He is one of 11 Highwaymen still painting the way Florida was, the way the swamps used to look,” she says of the Vero Beach septuagenarian. “They still paint what it looked like in the ‘30s and ‘40s. They don’t paint the high rises, but the Old Florida.”

Scott says The Highwaymen were a group of 26 artists who traveled Florida highways 50 years ago, selling by the side of the road.
Lewis commands finer venues these days, including a special exhibit involving the Smithsonian Institute that visited Jacksonville.

Lewis himself will be on hand Nov. 15, painting an oil available through a silent auction. As in past years, proceeds from the raffle will benefit local charities including the Humane Society of Broward County.

“The range is huge,” Scott said, of the price commanded by original Highwayman paintings. “A Beanie Backus, you couldn’t find any paintings that sell for less than $10,000. But because Lewis is still painting, his smaller paintings sell for $75 and up.”

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Moments after confessing various relatives are serving on nonprofit boards including Deerfield Beach’s Westside Businessman’s Association, Vice Mayor Sylvia Poitier closed the discussion by saying she was planning to run for a second term as the commissioner representing District 2 in Deerfield Beach.

Poitier already faces one opponent in the District 2 race, Erma King Jordon, but she asked Deerfield Beach City Attorney Andrew Maurodis to find out if she can run for commissioner without her daughter resigning from the nonprofit board where she has been a founding member since 1980 and chairwoman for one year.

"I have never voted on an item since I have been elected involving the Westside Businessmen Association. I have been in office 32 years and my name is unblemished,” Poitier said of her request.

The attorney general’s office reported Poitier's record is clean. The ethics commission, which takes referrals from the attorney general, said the only item in the file, dating to 2002, was dismissed for lack of legal sufficiency. A staff member for attorney General Bill McCullom's said that as of Wednesday, there was nothing to further to report.

“If we had opened an investigation and closed an investigation and there had been a finding I could tell you," she said. "If we had opened an investigation and it was ongoing I couldn’t’ tell you.”

Today, Poitier reported she did not file, but has picked up the necessary papers.
"I’m trying to put together a campaign committee,” she said. “I need a campaign manager, a finance director, a treasurer and a strategist. I am going to run this $25,000-a-year campaign same as you run a $25 million one. I know it takes the same thing to win.”

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After getting the boot Oct. 6 from the seemingly perfect town clerk/manager they hired to do everything from writing grants to transcribing minutes for $60,000 a year, Hillsboro Beach officials returned to those they passed up – then passed them up as well.

First, however, they heard a new applicant, Pahokee city clerk Raquel Diaz, as well as second petitions from applicants rejected in the first round.

They acknowledged a worthy field. Then Hillsboro Beach commissioners offered the job to Michele Anzalone, Hollywood’s deputy city clerk. Anzalon said she was actually recruited by Hillsboro Beach’s Finance Director Robert Lange, whose hopes of relinquishing town clerk responsibilities faded in October when former Deerfield Beach grants writer Carla De Luiz McKeever, the sixth in a succession of clerks, resigned the day she was supposed to start.

“The direction you gave Robert [Lange] was to reach out to qualified applicants and to be offered by my city manager,” Anzalone said.

Anzalone accepted on the spot. She was fine with a salary $20,000 below what some of the other candidates already earned. She was fine with a job that couples the responsibilities of a town administrator with the paperwork of a town clerk.

She accepted with just one caveat – that the town to negotiate an agreement allowing her to return to Hollywood in March, should the upcoming referendum could make her job moot.

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It’s one thing to collect food for the needy. It’s another to get it into their hands.
Each item must be inspected. Cans that bulge get tossed. Expired products go into the garbage. The rest must be sorted, canned from dried, vegetables from proteins.

Nov. 8, the Daily Bread Food Bank brought trucks of donated food to Deerfield Beach, and got an assist from JM Family Enterprises. Employee volunteers donned gloves, pawed through donations, in the fourth such food bank event, and did the work of many in just hours.

“The 1,200 man hours at JM Family Sort Day would be equivalent to seven weeks of in-house work,” said Robert Peters, the food banks’ associate director.

Making it worth it for the food bank to truck food donations to Deerfield Beach.

“That expense actually comes out of the food bank’s budget but they can do it in basically one day,” said Randy Miller, communications coordinator. “And they do a lot for us in terms of monetary donations.”

Peters pointed out that at $17.38 per volunteer hour, as estimated by an independent study group, the four-hour event translated to 1,200 volunteer hours worth $20,856.

“And they do a ton of food,” Miller said.

As a result, Peters said more than 400 children get a daily lunch packed into a backpack. Another 5,000 children get snacks every day and 200,000 individuals each year get food assistance, via 800 nonprofit agencies in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties that mete out food bank food.

They are finding this year that it has been long since the need was this acute. Contributions are flat, Peters said, but demand is up 20 percent with “those struggling hard a year ago really are not knowing where the next meal is coming from.”

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Two weeks after a total knee replacement, John Murphy leaned on a walker Tuesday morning, an “I voted” sticker pasted triumphantly to his chest. Murphy and wife Carole arrived at 6:30 a.m. at Le Club in the retirement community of Century Village to make their votes count, and they were in good company.

Voters arrived early and waited long at polling places from Quiet Waters Elementary School to Hillsboro Beach’s town hall to Lighthouse Point. Many were discouraged from early voting by long waits and, Tuesday, they were determined.

An hour after showing up at The Cove area polling place, Joyce Pribble was 50th in line. But the naturalized citizen wasn’t leaving.
“It’s a big deal for me because I wasn’t born in this country, so it’s an honor and a duty,” she said, adding that “education, environment, taxes,” were issues that concerned her.

Hillsboro Beach has just 1,645 voters but they turned up in an endless stream.
“For this town, this is unbelievable,” said Commissioner Tom Puleri.

“Where can we park?” shouted one marooned on A1A. Police Chief J.A. Woolsey gestured with the hand that wasn’t gripping a cup of coffee. “C’mon in and we’ll talk about it,” he said.

In Lighthouse Point, voters from two precincts waited almost two hours to scan their ballots.
Cars sporting McCain-Palin bumper stickers packed Dixon-Ahl parking lot, the municipal lot across the street and the street itself.

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