for park and recreation purposes. The beach casino was built in 1928 and featured a large dining hall, locker rooms and showers and residents used the casino for parties and social gatherings. The casino was demolished in 1967 and the property remained part of the beach park. From the 1920s to today, Boynton Beach Oceanfront Park has been popular with residents and visitors alike. In the mid-1990s, the park underwent a major renovation during which the boardwalk was rebuilt out of recycled plastic. Boynton Beach's Oceanfront Park was voted the best family beach in Palm Beach County by The Palm Beach Post in 2001. In 2011 the boardwalk was renovated again, replacing the plastic with ipe (pronounced ee-pay) wood (commonly known as Brazilian walnut). In 2012 improvements were made to the buildings along the boardwalk, including total refurbishment of the restrooms. Hurricane Wilma struck Boynton Beach on October 24, 2005, causing widespread damage to homes and businesses. In 2006, the city government authorized the demolition of the historic Seaboard rail station, which had survived intact in private hands since passenger service to the station halted in 1971. On March 8 2022, Ty Penserga was elected mayor of Boynton Beach in Florida, making him the first openly gay mayor of the city as well as the first out LGBTQ Asian American mayor elected in Florida state history. A high school biology and chemistry teacher, Penserga was sworn into office by State Attorney Dave Aronberg. Crime 2006 saw an increase in gang-related violent crime. This mirrored a similar increase across Palm Beach County. A gang-related shooting that resulted in a death at the city's popular Boynton Beach Mall on Christmas Eve of 2006 caught the national attention on many news networks, such as CBS. There were ten known operating gangs in the city as of 2007, according to police, including the notorious South Florida Haitian Zoe Pound gang. As of 2009, countywide gang violence had fallen three percent. On January 27, 2012, Mayor Jose Rodriguez was suspended from office by the state governor for trying to influence a police investigation into his personal affairs. The crime rate started decreasing in 2017 and hit its lowest number in 20 years in 2020. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's 2020 Annual Crime Report, the total crime rate decreased by 28 percent in the city compared to 2019 and 64 percent compared to