It hasn't been all that long since single stream recycling simplified the weekly task of sorting paper, newspaper and glass. Just as everyone finally has embraced a single, co-mingle, bin comes news that the task is about to get complicated again.

On Oct. 1, Deerfield Beach shoulders the territory formerly handled by Broward County. It will begin collecting the trash and recyclables of 2,300 Bonnie Loch and Tedder homes added to the city by annexation - causing a seismic shift in collection schedules.

For the newly served area, the biggest change is that their curbs will be graced by white city trucks emblazoned with a big "Yes You can" in lieu of the green-and-yellow Waste Management truck.

For residents of pink, blue, yellow, purple and magenta, however, the changes are a simple matter of wheeling bins to the curb on a different schedule. To find out when a neighborhood is served, click on the collection schedule map or call, 954-480-4391.

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Even as the City Commission was deadlocked over what kind of restaurant should grace the Deerfield Beach International Fishing Pier, city staff were more concerned about the structural integrity of the pier.

Charles DaBrusco, director of Public Works and Environmental Services, said at least two spans have deficiencies.

The spans adjacent to and under the bait shop are giving staff pause — enough to prompt DaBrusco to retain an engineering firm to assess the situation.

What consulting engineer Thomas C. White found, DaBrusco said, was that the part of the pier that was added in 1996, extending it 825 feet, is holding up just fine. The other part, however, dates to 1963. Decades of storms, tides and salt air have taken a toll on the underpinnings of the pier.

“When we first looked at it last July, our recommendation was that it be done within a year,” said White, of Volkert & Associates in Tampa. “We are a year past that time [and] the structure is operating on borrowed time right now.”

DaBrusco said it is the concrete part, the first 200 feet of the pier, that is the flashpoint. The 46-year-old beams are deteriorating, he said, and the news concerned commissioners enough Sept. 1 to talk about how to pay for the project. That’s where discussion ended.

White said a repair will cost $305,000 and last 10 years. Total replacement, at $615,000, will last 40 to 50 years, a clear choice for replacement in the mind of District 1 Commissioner Joe Miller.

How to pay for it, however, wasn’t nearly as clear. There is no money in the general fund to cover the expense. The Community Redevelopment Agency budget, raised with a special tax and earmarked for improvements within a certain geographical area, has enough money to cover it, but staff questioned whether it was allowed.

“There is an urgency here,” agreed District 4 Commissioner Bill Ganz, “but no clear idea of a revenue source.”

On Sept. 2, city staff met with the city attorney to discuss it.
“We’ve just had a few initial meetings,” City Attorney Andrew Maurodis said Sept. 8. “Nothing has been decided at this point.”

Meanwhile, DaBrusco assured fishermen and pedestrians alike that the pier is strong enough to support them.
“I’ve been underneath. I’ve been on top. If it was dangerous, I would shut down the pier in a heartbeat,” DaBrusco said. “It’s fine right now, but I can’t let the project just get blown off.”

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Peek into the Lighthouse Point garage of Jean Claude Boutrouille and it’s like stepping into a studio. Walls and easels are stacked with paintings drying, canvases being primed or stored. Paint-encrusted saw horses support even more canvases.
But Boutrouille is as new to the discipline as he is to Lighthouse Point.

Born in Orleans, 50 minutes south of Paris, the pragmatic painter spent a productive career as a pharmacist in France, then Martinique. His soul, however, belonged to art - and his heart to America. He filled his house with original art by friends. He devoured books about famous artists. He studied their technique and their philosophies. In 1990, he moved to Charleston, S.C. and in 1998, he and wife Jacqueline, now a psychiatrist, became citizens.

Jacqueline worked as an addiction counselor. Jean Claude handled the billing and accounting for his wife’s practice as he bought and sold art. When the World Trade Center was bombed, however, Boutrouille was forced to become an artist himself - not just because he felt the pain, but because the event eviscerated the stock market and art market.
“I knew that was the end of collecting, and I decided to paint,” he said. “And it was one way to understand what painters were really doing.”
His quest has taken Boutrouille down interesting roads. Hanging adjacent to a self-portrait in black oil on canvas by Pablo Picasso in his living room is Boutrouille’s very credible version of himself in the same style. “It’s a joke,” he explains.

Five years after he began painting, he started to be happy with the results. His friends also were impressed.

Thirty years ago, The Left Bank restaurant was as famous for its art as its menu. Today, the former owner, Chef Jean Pierre runs a cooking school on Federal Highway, and displays two of Boutrouille’s paintings. “People are interested,” Pierre said. “They look nice.”

When Boutrouille discovered the Internet in 2008, his market opened.. “As a painter, I think I start to be good,” he said Sept. 2. “I’ve had 5,835 page hits in seven days.”

Boutrouille in November will be one of four painters exhibited at Marziart International Gallery in Hamburg, Germany. Still, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Among the 99 media listed o n his web site: Neon, tattoos, and furniture.

“I have decided to drink a lot, take drugs and die famous,” he said. “Then the prices will go up.”

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If the union negotiator for Deerfield Beach’s blue collar workers had seen the proposed 2010 budget, the demands might have seemed pipe dreams. The budget eliminates raises and merit increases, increases taxes, and still leaves the city with a shortfall large enough to spark talk of layoffs.

Against that backdrop, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, AFL-CIO is asking for three years of 4 percent pay increases for 300 people.

Sept. 2, negotiator Steve Hall, reviewed the proposal with an unyielding Macon Sammons, Jr., the assistant city manager.

“You are not paying them,” Hall said, referring to a proposed contract provision giving union stewards time to attend union events.
“Status quo,” responded Sammons mildly.

The talks came one day after Deerfield Beach’s firefighters proposed three years of four percent cost-of-living increases; an overtime buyout costing as much as $1 million; and $60,000 in promotions.

Hall said that’s why his union wants so-called “Me-Too Language.”
“It means that if the fire department or the administration get a higher percentage wage increase, the blue collar unit can go and get the same percentage,” Hall said. “If the number is zero [percent wage increase], that’s fine. But, if the fire department gets 3 percent, then they have to give my guys 3 percent, too.”

That isn't likely. Sean Crofutt, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 1573, said the realities of the budget led his group to forget the requested 4 percent increases in each of three years. Instead, they want 0-3-4 – with the possibility of reconsidering the terms next year if the financial crisis persists.

Sammons response to the firefighters: 0-0-0 – with a possibility of reconsidering years 2 and 3.

Hall said his group might follow suit. “We are just looking for fairness,” he said.

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Dennis Mobley stumbled on Soul Line Dancing four years ago. He had gone home to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and the Friday after Thanksgiving, as was her custom, his sister hosted a dance.

“I saw all these people on the dance floor, looking nice,” he recalls. “There was 40 or 50 people, all dancing, and I said 'that is a nice thing to see.’ ”

Not willing to give up his vision, Mobley brought it back to South Florida and founded Elite Line Dancing of Palm Beach. Today, he has almost 200 people from Riviera Beach to Delray Beach swinging their hips and pivoting in unison, and Roosevelt Thomas is one of them.

The 75-year-old West Palm beach resident, a tennis pro, says the exercise doesn’t compare to tennis. But, he says, he enjoys the cardiovascular benefit and it’s fun.

“We don’t’ spend a whole hour teaching one dance. It’s entertainment,” he said. “We like to have a variety of things so people don’t become bored.”

“We have about 40 different dances. You can’t do them all during the course of one class,” Mobley said. “So I rotate them based on class size and how many people are the class.”

Mobley said Soul Line Dancing may be just catching on in South Florida but it has a dedicated following almost everywhere else. An internet search turns up 41 million hits. One web site indicates it’s been taught in Philadelphia for at least ten years. There is soul line dancing in Chicago, soul line dancing for seniors, and a national Soul Line dancing association.

In South Florida, there is Soul Line dancing in Palm Beach County, but other venues are few and far between.

“It’s just starting to take off down here,” said Mobley. “But maybe that’s because it hasn’t been introduced.”

Until now.

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Lacking the votes to pick an operator for the restaurant at the Deerfield Beach International Fishing Pier, city commissioners effectively closed it after 11 a.m. Aug. 30.

That morning saw the staff and long-time patrons gather as usual, but no one was counting on anything. The city charter requires four of six commission votes to decide a pier operator. The commission has been in irons, and the subsequent decision to start from scratch and rebid the project closes the restaurant indefinitely.

“I guess I will join the rest of the people on the unemployment line,” said Waitress Sharon Chunfat, one of 10 employees who stood to lose their jobs.

“All I know is the attorney bought the lease and put it up for open bid,” she said. “JB’s on the Beach won, but there was a discrepancy regarding disclosure of contributions.”

Chunfat had it in a nutshell. The commission’s choice of JB’s was not legally binding since JB’s didn’t disclose that it had contributed $500 each to Mayor Peggy Noland and District 1 Commissioner Joe Miller.

The initial vote awarding the contract to JB’s pitted Miller, Noland and Vice Mayor Sylvia Poitier against District 3 Commissioner Marty Popelsky and District 4 commissioner Bill Ganz. The latter two were dead set against the project and it became clear that getting four votes would be as likely as getting Dom Perignon at Kelly’s. The group accepted the fact that their decision would close the restaurant on Aug. 31.

The regulars who gathered Aug. 31 seemed resigned to that possibility. The morning dawned with the staff short on supplies and long on goodbyes to patrons they knew as friends.
All hoped it would reopen.
All hoped it would stay the same.
I’ve been coming to this place every day, for 23 years,” said Edward Fennessey, over a plate of eggs. “I’d rather keep it like it is.”

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Remember the Electric Slide? Everyone in a line,rotating on cue – and having fun. Now picture it done to music that begs to be danced to – music by Stevie Wonder for the old folks, and Flow Rida for those able to … um… bend, with movement from the hips up, the hips down, and everything in between.

It’s Soul Line Dancing. Like the Electric Slide, it unites single dancers with patterns danced individually but in unison, but Soul Line Dancing brings people with soul to music with soul with cool moves and a chance to stay anything but cool.

“It’s like a work-out class,” explained Eric Williams, who lives – and Soul Line dances - in Riviera Beach. “Artists have different types of steps that you do to different types of songs.”
How different? Check out YouTube to see it done to Beyonce, or to Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed Delivered. Participants are working up a sweat and enjoying it – but smooth.

“It’s usually a two hour class and it’s a lot of fun,” Williams said.

Williams knows about work outs. Best known as Deerfield Beach’s Teen Center supervisor. Since he started Soul Line Dancing in Riviera Beach months ago, he’s found programs at Pompey Park in Delray Beach and in Boynton Beach at the Ezell Hester Center. Now, Williams wants to see if there is enough interest to introduce Soul Line Dancing here.

On Sept. 10, from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., anyone with an urge to dance is invited to Westside Park Recreation Center for a free class. If folks are willing to pay $4 a class for Mobley to drive down to teach it, it could become permanent.
Signed, sealed and delivered.

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