The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 21

THE PALM BEACH POST SATURDAY, MAY 21, 1988 3B i 1 1 ALLEN EYESTONEStaff Photographer House Explodes In West Palm 'A West Palm Beach firefighter walks into the and was leveled from the blast. A witness remains of a house at 3827 Pinewood Ave. told police he saw an object thrown into the Friday. The house exploded at about 9 p.m. house before it exploded.

No one was injured. J.M Elderly services budget may lose $110,000 if change goes through It's Happening Now The 25th Annual SIDEWALK SALE By MARY ELLEN KLAS Palm Beach Post Tallahassee Bureau TALLAHASSEE A proposed change in the way the state distributes federal money for the elderly could mean a $110,000 cut in the senior services budget for Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties. In response to a federal court ruling in Miami, the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Ser- vices was forced to revise its funding formula for the 1988-89 budget to give more consideration to areas with a high percentage of low-income minorities, said Margaret Lynn Duggar, director of HRS's Aging and Adult Services. If the change is approved, 30 elderly services such as meals-on-wheels, transportation, light housework and legal help could be reduced in some areas of the state.

"We are just trying to meet the court order," Duggar said. The court ruled that the agency's practice of distributing the $43 million in federal funds to the state's 11 district Aging and Adult Services offices was discriminatory. HRS used a formula that recognized three factors: number of people age 60 and older and beyond the poverty level, number over age 65 and living alone, and number over age 75, Duggar said. "The court determined the latter two were discriminatory to minorities because not as many minorities live alone and not as many live as long," she said. District 9, which includes Palm Beach, Martin, St.

Lucie, Okeechobee and Indian River counties, could lose $110,761 of its $3.9 million budget in 1988-89, said Leslie Kalinowski, of the Adult and Aging Services office in West Palm Beach. Other districts could face even greater cutbacks. For example, Pinellas and Pasco counties, which serve the largest concentration of elderly in the state, could lose $1 million. HRS will conduct a workshop Tuesday to discuss regional concerns about the formula. Public hearings will be held in June.

The Aging and Adult Services program is paid for primarily by federal funds under the Older Americans Act. The state matches 5 percent of the money and local governments give a 10 percent match. Our Showroom wasn't big enough for all the SAVINGS. So now is the time to walk away with everything you'll need for your home. We've cleaned out the warehouse, closed out our models and marked it down for one last performance.

Classic hits contemporary favorites in sofas chairs, a symphony of savings on dining and bedrooms, tables, lamps, rugs and accessories ALL at SIDEWALK SALE PRICES that'll be music to your ears. NOTE: At these prices, there will be a small O'Donnell Interiors 333 Federal Highway Lake Park, FL 33403 TPIILUI Gerulaitis may build in Boynton By JANET GRAHAM Palm Beach Post Staff Writer BOYNTON BEACH Vitas Gerulaitis, who took over the struggling tennis facility at Laver's International Tennis Resort in Del-ray Beach just more than a year ago, plans to leave the center by summer's end and possibly set up a new headquarters in Boynton Beach. Gerulaitis, a former top-five-ranked touring professional, made a presentation on the new facility Thursday at the Holiday Inn Catali-na on Congress Avenue. The tennis center would be built behind the Holiday Inn and be called the Gerulaitis Resort. The presentation was to give city officials a preview before a formal proposal is made to the City Commission.

"If they get the site plan in before May 31, we'll consider it at the June meeting," Mayor Nick Cassandra said. "We welcome this, and I'm sure it will be approved. Then they could get started on it right away." Gerulaitis said he was prepared to leave the tennis-academy business and concentrate on corporate appearances and clinics because he was so disillusioned with the problems at his Gerulaitis International Tennis Center in Delray Beach. But he was approached by Ocean Properties, operated by the Tom Walsh family, which owns 22 hotels around the country with 12 in South Florida, including the Glades Road Holiday Inn. Having just completed li I 11 bi 1 1 11 LARGEST SELECTION OF CERAMIC TILE IN SO.

FLORIDA Entire Inventory! PRICES ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT BE HONORED AFTER MAY 31ST Ex-federal informant arrested Boca man charged in mortgage fraud By CHRISTINE VAN METER Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH A former federal informant once investigated by Scotland Yard was arrested at his suburban Boca Raton home Friday and charged with mortgage fraud. Richard Kaplan, 52, also known as Richard Andrews and Richard Phillips, was charged Friday with grand theft, negotiating a mortgage by an unlicensed mortgage broker and mortgage fraud, authorities said. Investigators from the state comptroller's office and Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office said they moved to arrest Kaplan as soon as they learned of his criminal history. "Given his background in a multimillion-dollar bond scam we wanted to move quickly," said Ray Lemme, an investigator in the comptroller's office. "If he's thinking of putting together something down here, we wanted to identify him as an unlicensed broker," Lemme said.

In July 1982, Kaplan admitted he had conspired with a former New Jersey state senator to inflate the $17 million cost of building a chicken processing plant in Wee-hawken, N.J., to generate $1 million to line the pockets of corrupt local officials, according to reports. Kaplan agreed to act as an informant in the case and was given protection by the federal government because the mayor of Wee-hawken was charged with attempting to arrange for Kaplan's murder, reports said. During the case an assistant U.S. attorney disclosed that Kaplan was also implicated in a 1982 plot to defraud banks and other institutions in England through the use of $15 million in counterfeit Eurobonds. Scotland Yard investigated but never brought any charges.

Kaplan moved to Boca Raton in September where he operated Richard Andrews and Associates, a financial and mortgage consulting business from a small office at 2300 Corporate Lemme said. The comptroller's office began investigating Kaplan after they received a complaint from a Lakeland mortgage broker who gave Kaplan $2,000 to negotiate a mortgage. Kaplan never negotiated the mortgage and failed to return the broker's $2,000, Lemme said. Kaplan was arrested in the garage of his home in Boca Lyons, a suburban Boca Raton neighborhood where homes start at $180,000. He was taken to the Palm Beach County jail where he is held on $10,000 bail, a jail spokesman said.

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1 HfREE IN HOME ESTIMATESg. MARBLE -AVP 21 CERAMIC FIOORTILE OFF 'N sm GUARANTEE uijgyggf ON TILE AND -rZVnA INSTALLATION JTSHS W.iflHS1 ALL WALL, J1 'VVfe Vs OUTDOOR AND 1 l2'f ODD SHAPE TILE lPl yCfREE TILE SAMPLES Bird idea doesn't fly on 1-95 barrier wall Vitas Gerulaitis is a former top-five ranked tennis touring pro. the Catalina Holiday Inn, they were looking for someone to run the tennis facility. "I was a novice businessman," said Gerulaitis, who was accompanied to the presentation by buddy Bjorn Borg, a five-time Wimbledon champion, and his director of tennis, Matt Mitchell. Gerulaitis said he also has considered other sites to move his facility, including Malibu, but added he likes Florida and would stay here if the details can be worked out with the commission.

The facility will have 24 courts, evenly divided between clay and hard, two racquetball and two squash courts. It also will have aerobic facilities, a swimming pool and a health and rehabilitation center. participate, they don't have to." Cities in Broward and Dade counties have been made the same offer, Sarff said, and similar decorations have been used elsewhere. "I'll have to give it a lot of thought," said City Councilman Bill Smith. "I'd rather see a lot of vegetation and (manmade) hills to break up the monotony." City Manager Jim Rutherford agreed.

"I prefer to see the landscaping over the jp-aphics," he said. "Landscaping would have more of a softening effect." DOT is spending $1 million a mile to build the 8-inch thick, 22-foot-high wall along 28 miles of I-95, Sarff said. The highway will be widened from six to 10 lanes. The bird impressions won't cost extra because DOT already has the molds, which are simply pressed into the concrete, she said. "If they want palm trees or the city seal, we'd be open to that," Sarff said.

Landscaping already is planned for the wall after construction is complete, she said. But city officials say they want it sooner. By LOIS KAPLAN Palm Beach Post Staff Writer BOCA RATON A plan to depict six kinds of Florida wildfowl on an Interstate 95 barrier wall is for the birds, some city officials said Friday. The state Department of Transportation is offering cities along the interstate the chance to choose decorations for the concrete wall planned for the eastern side of the highway. The wall will separate nearby homes from noisy construction as the road is widened next year.

The City Council will decide Monday what would be best for the Boca Raton section of the wall, which will stretch from the Broward County line to Glades Road. Council members can choose the sample birds supplied by DOT, their own design or no design, said DOT spokeswoman Barbara Sarff. DOT can imprint brown pelicans, gulls, white ibises, flamingos, snowy egrets or frigate birds, Sarff said. "It's purely aesthetic," she saiij "If communities don't want to FREE IN HOME ESTIMATES NEW LOCATION WEST PALM BCH. LAKE WORTH BOCA RATON 2399 N.

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