The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 26

ri SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1996 The Palm Beach Post SECTION TAXING TICKETS The sports commission urges a tax on admission to pay for a proposed $59 million arena. STORY, 2B NOT MAGNETIZED Not enough immigrant students who are still learning English are getting into magnet programs. STORY, 4B "7 LOCAL NEWS Encounter revives anguish over daughter's death The parents of a teenager who died in a wreck go to court to pursue victims' rights. By CANDY HATCHER Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH Pain used to show up at the oddest moments. When Hugo Liberti saw a roller coaster.

Or his wife, Christine, heard an ambulance siren. Or when the phone rang, the way it did all the time before their daughter, Stefanie, died. familiar, punched-in-the-gut pain while they were at work. Michael Rodriguez, the teenager responsible for the wreck that killed Stefanie 18 months ago, showed up at their jewelry store. He stood in front of Christine Liberti but didn't speak.

She recognized him immediately from the trial he had been charged with DUI manslaughter, but a jury convicted him of only a misdemeanor. He'd spent less than eight months in jail for causing her 14-year-old's death, and now here he was, standing in front of her, staring at her as though he had no idea what was wrong. She asked him to leave, and he did, although not immediately. She was shaken enough that this week while the country was commemorating victims' rights and looking for ways to give victims a stronger voice in court the Libertis went to court to keep Rodriguez away from them. Rodriguez, 18, told Circuit Judge Kenneth Marra on Monday that he didn't know the Libertis owned a store at the Farmers Market.

He wasn't trying to harass or intimidate them, he said. He promised he wouldn't go near the family or their business again. Rodriguez could not be reached and did not respond to repeated messages left for him this week. His mother, Elba Rodriguez of Boynton Beach, reiterated that neither she nor her son knew the Libertis worked at the Fanners Market. Michael, she said, was so spooked by the Libertis' anger that he moved to Lake Worth, and she doesn't know where to reach him.

She said her son feels badly for the family, but he doesn't know how to express his feelings. "We don't mean to do harm," she said. "I know she feels bad. We loved Stefanie. I cried for the girl.

I know how she feels. I'm a mother." Stefanie, a freshman honor student at Please see VICTIMS 13B "-i I I S. Liberti Rodriguez A few weeks ago, the Libertis felt that House vote sinks inlet district The bill to eliminate the 81 -year-old; South Lake Worth Inlet District has only a slim chance of being stopped. By SCOTT SHIFREL Palm Beach Post Staff Writer TALLAHASSEE The South Lake Worth Met District was given a near-fatal blow Friday when a key House committee unanimously voted for a bill1 to eliminate the 81-year-old taxing district. The proposal, among the most controversial of local bills during this year's legislative session, had been bottled up in the Community Affairs Committee for weeks before Friday's vote.

"So after all that," said a smil- ing Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, me Din sponsor, ooviousiy relieved after the vote, taken without discussion. Most local bills supported by a county's delegation sail through. But the inlet bill stalled when House Speaker Peter Rudy Wal LEGISLATURE lace and prominent lobbyist Wade Hopping took up the district's v- V- rTTTx LANNIS WATERSStaff Ptiotographer Top Gun For A Day WELLINGTON Bud Roane of Melbourne leaves the field at Palm Beach Polo on Friday after flying his one-quarter-scale model Sopwith Pup. Competitors from Venezuela, Brazil, Norway, England, Germany, France and across the United States are competing in Top Gun '96, the World Invitational Radio Controlled Airplane Competition at the polo grounds.

There will be flying exhibitions at noon today and Sunday. The event runs from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. throughout the weekend. Admission is $7 and children under 8 get in free.

cause. Wallace backed off after allegations that his support stemmed from a longtime friendship with the district's chairman, Aubrey Ewing. That cleared the way for the bill finally to be heard by the committee. "Of course, I'm disappointed," Ewing said Friday, noting that there is still a "remote possibility" of stopping the bill in the final committee hurdle it faces next week. "We will continue to present our case as this moves along," he said.

"But we're not going to do anything extraordinary and just hope someone sees the truth." Frank Matthews, an attorney who works for; Hopping and who has been lobbying for the district, -said, "We're not optimistic, but nobody's throwing down the white handkerchief yet." The county would take over the district and its $2 million in assets, which must be used for maintaining the Boynton Inlet. The county and district have been arguing over beach renourishment for years. Commissioners have also said they could do the district's job for a third of its $1 million annual budget. But the county could not maintain the inlet for less, Ewing said, adding that opposition was fueled by a political battle between the district and its most vocal opponent, Palm Beach County Commissiorfer Sea lice step up their attacks on swimmers Beach-goers itchy and ornery from juvenile jellyfish nips By ELIOT KLEINBERG pletely covered with sea lice; what's sometimes called what sometimes called sun- Palm Beach Post Staff Writer bather's eruption" three to five they re even on my eyelids, with Mary McCarty. Acknowledging communication problems the public and the county, however, Ewing had askkt The Sea Lice Scourge SOURCE: Believed to be microscopic juvenile jellyfish.

SEASON: March through August. RANGE: Mostly in Palm Beach County, where the Gulf Stream is closest to shore. PREVENTION: Stay out of the water and wet sand. Otherwise, strip down, shower, towel dry and put on dry, loose clothing. Don't shower with swimwear on; it irritates the sea lice.

TREATMENT: 1 hydrocortisone cream, oral antihistamines such as Benadryl. For severe cases, see your doctor. SEA LICE HOT LINE: A recorded line operated by Boca Raton Community Hospital (407) 395-7100, Ext. 2777. SOURCES: Boc Raton Community Hospital, Post archives.

for a year's grace period. Instead, the district's days now seem numbered. I "It was the will of the delegation and the local people and the county," Klein said. It was too good to last. For the last few weeks, lifeguards had received only sporadic reports of those nasty welts and rashes, the 'result of the dreaded sea lice.

They were hoping this would be a quiet year. "It has rapidly intensified this week," said Evelyn Quinn, a secretary in Palm Beach County's aquatic safety office who has been fielding calls from the afflicted. She reported at least 20 calls just Friday morning. days of red rashes, discomfort, itching, even fever and hives that can last for weeks. Researchers believe the culprit is a microscopic juvenile jellyfish floating in the Gulf Stream that works its way into a swimsuit.

Rinsing at the beach won't do it; you need to take a hot, soapy shower. Victims have tried everything from head-lice medications to turpentine; medical people say the best treatment is cortisone or Benadryl. very little time the water, Quinn said. "They seem to be particularly nasty from Singer Island to Hallan-dale," Quinn said. She said the outbreaks weren't as intense in northern Palm Beach County "but that could change very quickly." Sea lice most often show up between March and August with the greatest infestations in May off the Palm Beach County coast, where the Gulf Stream comes closest to shore.

That means lots of cases of "They're saying, 'I'm com Sun smiles for opening night at Coral Sky Board rejects developer's plea to trim Ag Reserve An advisory board refuses to remove 120 acres west of Boca Raton from the undeveloped tract. In il I Turnpike soyntcp Beach dL Arthur R. Marshall Agricultural Loxahatchee Reserve National Wildlife 1 Sancturary 1 Atlanticjive. Ciinf Moore Rdl By ANGIE FRANCALANCIA fl Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Dave Streich and Paroo Brown spread their woven blanket front and center on the huge grassy berm moments after the gates opened Friday for the first performance at the Coral Sky "We wanted to be here for the excitement of the first night," said Brown, a recent transplant from New York. She wore Dr.

Scholl's sandals. He wore a Woodstock '91 button. With free tickets and good memories of the opening night bands' bigger days, the pair joinejl roughly 10,000 others who converged for the so-called preview of Palm Beach County's first majw amphitheater at the South Florida Fairgrounds. Pj -moters had passed out free tickets to business radio stations and the hundreds of workers who bsijjt the amphitheater. The trio of acts Edgar Winter, Survivor a id Bachman-Turner Overdrive wasn't expected to toll the amphitheater, only give it a test run.

Staff members, directing blanket parking much like parking cars, initially kept people off the first 15 yards of Bermuda grass, laid fresh just this week. But they eventually relented. "Why not?" a crew member asked. "We could' ve But the 15-member board appointed by county commissioners doesn't have the last say. The county commission makes the final decision next month.

The Ag Reserve covers 32 square miles west of Florida's Turnpike from Boca Raton to Boynton Beach. It has been reserved for farming since 1980. The county allows some homes to be built, if a large proportion of the land remains undeveloped. Scott asked for permission to build 358 homes, 239 more than allowed under county rules, on his land on Clint Moore Road between Florida's Turnpike and State Road 7. The only way to get approval for the request would be to remove Scott's property from the Ag Reserve's boundaries.

By JOEL ENGELHARDT Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Score a victory for the backers of limited growth in the showdown over the Agricultural Reserve, south Palm Beach County's largest remaining tract of undeveloped land. By an 8-4 vote, the Palm Beach County Land Use Advisory Board agreed with county planners Friday to reject Boca Raton attorney J. Clinton Scott's request to remove 120 acres from the reserve to avoid rules limiting home construction. "Today was critical because that could have been the beginning of the end of the Ag Reserve," board member Catherine Dwore said. "We stuck our finger in the dike because we weren't about to let the Ag Reserve fall." CAROLINE E.

COUIGStaff Photographer MARK WAUBENStaff Artist Hats Off To Graduates BOCA RATON Five-year-old Isabelle celebrates with her father, Eddie Arboleda-Osorio of Coconut Creek, during Florida Atlantic University's commencement Friday. Doing so would set off a domino effect of copycat requests that would open the Ag Reserve to urban development without prop- Please see DEVEL0PMENT2B Please see AMPHITHEAJERag.