📼 Pivotal evidence
🇺🇸 We hope nobody was up late doing income taxes! For you: O.J. Simpson's private eye, marina on the brain, one road is still closed, but another opens and north county airport expansion.
Local detective recounts crucial role in O.J. case
By Jane Musgrave
When infamous NFL star, turned rental car pitchman, turned accused murderer O.J. Simpson died last week, West Palm Beach private detective Pat McKenna said his phone blew up with requests for interviews from news outlets across the country.
While he shunned most of them, it’s easy to understand why the 75-year-old gumshoe was in demand.
Not only is he one of the last survivors of what was dubbed the “Trial of the Century,” but he is credited with gathering key evidence that turned what much of the country deemed a slam dunk case against Simpson into an acquittal.
Plucked from his West Palm Beach office to work for Simpson’s so-called “Dream Team,” McKenna spent countless hours knocking on doors and fielding thousands of calls from both the cranks and the credible who claimed they had blockbuster information about Simpson’s role in the 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
McKenna painstakingly developed a timeline that raised doubts about whether Simpson could have killed two people, cleaned up the horrific mess, returned home and then boarded a red-eye to Chicago for a golf outing.
But, his biggest find was pure happenstance.
🐘 Elephant in the room: a marina
By Carolyn DiPaolo
About 30 people participated in the first of three community meetings about West Palm Beach’s downtown waterfront, and most showed up to oppose putting a marina there.
Why it’s important: “Your feedback is the most important and critical piece of the process,” Jennifer Ferriol, director of housing and community development, told the audience at Thursday’s meeting at Cacti Park.
What’s happening: Consultant Tony Garcia of Street Plans was hired by the city to conduct a months-long study of the streets and public spaces that lead to the Intracoastal Waterway between the Flagler and Royal Park bridges.
Garcia asked for a show of hands of people at the meeting because of the city’s plan, scrubbed last year, to lease part of the space to a private marina operator. Almost every hand went up.
He said he told city leaders, “If what you want is a marina, I am not your guy.”
Of note: Terri Parker of Channel 25 reported that marina developer Ray Graziotto of City Harbor attended part of the meeting.
Garcia expects to make recommendations on strategies including:
The right event mix.
The city’s role in managing the area.
What’s missing from the waterfront?
What will attract people to visit businesses and attractions beyond the waterfront?
What’s next: More community meetings are planned.
6 pm today at South Olive Tennis Center.
10 am Saturday at the Mandel Public Library.
Participate now via this community survey.
Keep reading: What we’re watching.
🛩️ North county airport runway expansion
By Joel Engelhardt
After years of study, the public has until May 21 to weigh in on detailed plans to extend the diagonal runway at the North Palm Beach County Airport.
The county has been pursuing the extension to 6,000 feet from 4,300 feet since identifying the need in 2006. It would allow more jets, including Cessnas and Gulfstreams.
“The proposed project is expected to induce an increase in aircraft operations at the airport to meet existing demand from larger aircraft,” a recently completed consultant’s report says.
An expected 2,500 more aircraft operations are projected by 2030 over the 110,346 already anticipated. Jets would account for about 700 more operations.
The total project is expected to cost $25 million and be completed by 2025.
Environmental Science Associates of Tampa’s $1 million Draft Environmental Assessment reviews alternative options and documents impacts such as noise and wetland destruction.
A $743,000 federal grant helped pay for the report. The COVID-delayed study began in 2019.
A little background: The county-owned airport is just outside of Palm Beach Gardens west of the terminus of PGA Boulevard at the Beeline Highway. The airport opened in 1994 as a general aviation reliever for Palm Beach International Airport.
In 2016, Palm Beach Gardens signed off on the expansion as long as the county applied for a control tower, which is included in the county plans.
Since then, construction has begun on nearly 4,000 homes, most selling for more than $1 million, in Avenir, about a mile southwest of the airport.
Yes, but: The study found no noise impact on Avenir because it lies beyond high-noise areas, which are confined to the airport grounds.
About 12.5 acres of wetlands would be affected by the runway and taxiway extension and the move of a portion of the airport access road. Another 21 acres would be subject to tree trimming at the edges of the runway.
No wetlands in the county-owned Loxahatchee Slough would be affected. The county would replace the destroyed wetlands nearby.
What’s next: Residents can see the plans at a workshop at 5:30 pm May 14 at Palm Beach State College’s Palm Beach Gardens Campus, Biotech Building, Room SC-127, 3160 PGA Blvd. Staff will accept public comments starting at 6:30 pm.
Comments also may be mailed to Palm Beach County Department of Airports, 846 Palm Beach International Airport, West Palm Beach, FL 33406 by 5 pm May 21 or sent by email to F45EAComments@esassoc.com.
Bonus info: A comprehensive review of airport projects is scheduled for this morning’s County Commission meeting.
One detail: Consolidating car rental facilities at PBIA near the terminal would cost $315 million while consolidating north of Belvedere Road would cost $171 million.
Another: Parking costs could be going up.
🚜 Stalled road work is happening in El Cid … well, almost El Cid
By Jane Musgrave
Folks who own multimillion-dollar homes near the Intracoastal Waterway in West Palm Beach want those who live in an impoverished historically Black neighborhood near the railroad tracks to know: We feel your pain.
While sympathetic to those who recently learned that unspecified delays in a planned three-year, $22 million project would keep Tamarind Avenue closed for at least another year, residents of the Prospect Park and Southland Park Historic District said they have been dealing with road construction headaches of their own.
“It’s been horrific,” said Nancy Pullum, who watched traffic back up on her once quiet street when crews began ripping up nearby Washington Road in January 2021.
The $5.63 million road, water and drainage project was plagued with myriad problems and complaints, ultimately forcing the city to kick the original contractor off the job.
The road recently reopened. While a small waterfront park remains torn up, it appears the bulk of the work — and years of turmoil for residents — is over.
But, Pullum and other residents bristled at a Tamarind-area business owner’s suggestion — featured in last week’s Stet News — that the long blockade of Tamarind “would never happen in El Cid.”
The Washington Road work is just south of El Cid.
Calling the comment “ill-advised and inaccurate,” Pullum took to Facebook to point out that residents of the adjacent wealthy neighborhood have been inconvenienced by the ongoing work on Washington Road.
“This roadwork mess is, sadly, equal opportunity!” she wrote on the Facebook page for Engage Palm Beach.
Both Pullum and business owners in the Tamarind Avenue neighborhood agree on the reasons the two projects — and others — have taken years longer than planned.
“There’s been a lot of neglect,” said Darren Studstill, a former NFL safety who returned to his home county to open a coworking space in a building his family owns in the Tamarind Avenue neighborhood. “So, when you open it up, you’re going to find a lot of problems that weren’t included in the original scope of work.”
Pullum voiced nearly identical sentiments. “All of it is complicated by the fact that the city hasn’t maintained the water lines for years,” she said. “So, once you dig something up, you find other problems.”
Still, she insisted, everyone in the city is in the same precarious position.
“I just don’t like to see one part of the city pitted against the other,” she said.
🍼 The juice
🛹 A group has started a change.org page to Save the Gardens SkatePark, after Palm Beach Gardens approved a 40-year lease with a nonprofit foundation to build a $40 million ice-rink complex at Plant Drive Park. (WPTV)
⚖️ Palm Beach Gardens City Attorney Max Lohman’s statement at the April 4 City Council meeting that the five ordinances to annex neighboring communities “were all legally sufficient,” will not be tested in court. The residents of Hidden Key suing the city over annexation agreed April 8 to dismiss the case after the city deemed the matter moot because voters rejected all five annexation proposals in the March election.
✍🏼 Barbara Pariente, a retired Florida Supreme Court justice who lives in West Palm Beach, criticized this month’s ruling that paved the way for a six-week abortion ban to go into effect in May. (Slate)
🗳️ State Sen. Bobby Powell, D-West Palm Beach, has submitted his resignation effective Nov. 4 to give Gov. Ron DeSantis time to add Powell’s Palm Beach County state Senate seat to the upcoming election schedule. Powell is running for the District 7 Palm Beach County Commission seat of Mack Bernard and the term-limited Bernard plans to seek Powell’s state Senate District 24 seat, with two years remaining on the term. (WPTV)
♟️ How “third places” in West Palm Beach spark connections. (WLRN)
🚗 After years of controversy, the Mint Eco Car Wash fix is in at its Southern Boulevard site in West Palm Beach. (ByJoeCapozzi.com)
🍔 15 favorite places to grab a burger in Palm Beach County. (Eater Miami)
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