Former deputy mayor drops out of Boca race

Three of the people arrested in Hollywood were from New York City, and included a probation officer.

The Florida Highway Patrol said Tuesday it had not yet calculated its tallies.

Arrests were for various felony and misdemeanor offenses; some were related to guns or drugs, fleeing law enforcement, reckless driving, not having a valid license or proof of insurance or registration, altering or obscuring a license plate and resisting an officer, authorities said.

During the past four years, the rides have drawn bikers from out of state. A manager at the tow yard said Tuesday that bikers from Virginia and New Jersey as well as the duo from Massachusetts were among those retrieving seized dirt bikes and ATVs.

Packs of riders were seen along University Drive, Sheridan Street, Dania Beach Boulevard and U.S. 1 in Broward County, and along Northwest 27th Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard in Miami-Dade County.

Unlike in previous years, no deaths were reported Tuesday after the rides that happened during the “Wheels Up, Guns Down” rally, or #MLKrideout on Instagram. The event, supposedly to celebrate King, the late civil rights leader, is not sanctioned by any organized group. It is illegal to ride dirt bikes and ATVs on paved roads.

“#Wheelsupgunsdown lost whatever positive message they had years ago,” Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez said Monday on Twitter. “Once you cross the line & blatantly endanger other drivers/pedestrians & yourselves, people stop listening to the message & only watch the chaos being created. It’s become an excuse for disobedience/lawlessness.”

Fort Lauderdale Police Detective Tracy Figone said there were no reports of citations issued to riders and that there also were no reports of large groups in the city that affected residents or traffic flow.

Police departments said the packs of riders were thinner than before and traveled father south in Miami-Dade, to Pinecrest and the Kendall area.

“They popped up in areas where they weren’t last year,” Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta said Tuesday. “You saw pockets of riders. It could have been the same amount of riders as in the past, if you gather them all together. [The total number of riders] that’s hard to gauge.”

Florida Highway Patrol said troopers were a presence at highway entrance

ramps to prevent the vehicles that were illegal for street use from entering high-speed roads.

But the ATV and dirt bike riders sometimes seemed to travel at will, like when they rode into oncoming traffic on the hilly and curvy Gratigny Parkway which bisects northwestern Miami-Dade County.

Police warned that it was not safe to chase bikers and that videos made from helicopters and planes may lead to arrests of riders who got away.

During a Jan. 9 press conference with leaders from the Florida Highway Patrol and Fort Lauderdale Police when public safety plans were announced for the holiday weekend, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said police would calculate risks before trying to stop riders.

“If they think they can pull somebody over and deal with that individual and be successful and safe, they’ll do that,” Israel said then. “If they feel it’s a danger to their lives, other innocents’ lives and the suspect, they’ll probably just let them go.”

Riders keep coming south every year, despite coordinated, larger enforcement efforts against them by multiple police departments. Israel said such plans can be made, but police could not stop the riders from showing up.

Michael Mullaugh, a candidate for Boca Raton City Council in the March 13 election, has pulled out of the race.

“I can’t do this without an effective campaign,” he said Tuesday, citing lack of time to organize a committee. “It’s my plan to sit this out and not get involved at all.”

Mullaugh, a former Boca students live in Odyssey’s boundaries, fewer than 800 attend the school, which struggled for 16 years to win community support because of low test scores, lack of magnet programs and discipline problems.

Parent Juliane Wolfberg, who currently lives in the Odyssey attendance zone, said her family is excited about the boundary change. Raton deputy mayor, was running for Seat D. The candidates in the Seat D race are Monica Mayotte, Dr. Paul Preste and Armand Grossman.

In 2009, Mullaugh won out of 11 candidates to fill an unexpired term on the City Council. Then he served two full terms. She has a fifth grader at Sunset Palms Elementary who can now attend Woodlands next year.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to attend there where they offer three different academies and the Cambridge program,” Wolfberg said.

Cambridge is an international program that offers rigorous middle-school academics that prepare students for Advanced Placement and other challenging high school courses.