Good Morning Florida Keys

Some email noise stimulated by yesterday’s Mario.Returned post.

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Sloan,

Don’t quote me, but might it not be more accurate to characterize Mario as BEING a cancer rather than his HAVING a cancer? Having cancer is a condition which entitles one to at least a modicum of sympathy. Being one makes one something that needs to be excised.

Hi, Unquotable.

I didn’t come right out and say it that way, but I do view the Gang of Three as something that needs to be excised, all other efforts to turn them in a new (Keys and Keys people) direction having failed, as far as I can see.

I read really hot comments in a front page article of today’s KW Citizen, from Frances Leach, about the County cutting out its shuttle, on which many of our seniors rely to get around, as well as for Hurricane evacuation. I play bridge with Frances at the Senior Center, adjacent to the Harvey Government Center in KW. She’s a terrific lady, and if she is all hot and bothered about something, our 5 county commissions ought to get into lockstep and do something about it.

[I forgot to mention to unquotable that I heard recently from the person who looks after the Senior Center for the County that it may be on the chopping block itself. I'm sure Frances will be thrilled to hear that.]

An excellent letter to the editor from Chuck Chartrand of Big Pine Key in this morning’s Citizen, about closing the Big Pine and other libraries, also is in point. I could not agree more with him and what many people are saying: We are going to close libraries while we move forward with the Vandenburg and sit on the Hickory House Restaurant? As I recall, Mario, Dixie and Sonny voted in lockstep on those two items.

It might amaze you to read what I’m about to say, but about three months ago, at a meet-the-candidates luncheon hosted by the Florida Keys Contractors Association at Sombrero County Club in Marathon, Dixie told the audience that there was no such thing at the Gang of Three, and they did not vote in lockstep. I nearly fell outta my chair. Then this awful thought came to me: maybe Dixie really believed what she said. I’m used to politicians saying what they hope they can get away with, but to hear one say something that is more than a wee bit beyond the edge of reality, well, the word “excise” suddenly just floated into my thoughts again.

Thanks, I suppose.

Sloan

Next morning P.S. to Unquotable:

It came up in conversation with someone else yesterday that we need the ability here in the Keys to recall, as in excise, elected officials by popular vote. I have felt since I ran for the county commission in 2006 that this self-help device needs to be available to the Keys electorate. The current Gang of Three — Mario, Dixie and Sonny — are splendid examples of the crying need for voter recall in the Keys.

Any person running for elected office in the Keys, and any person already holding an elected office, who truly believes in democracy, should be 100-percent in favor of bringing voter recall to the Keys. Otherwise, the Keys electorate is left with the arcane, also insane, remedy of proving in our courts that an elected official has committed a felony, or is legally insane, to get that official removed from office.

As far as I know, none of the current Gang of Three are felons. One of them is a living cancer, who believes he is a god-incarnate. Another doesn’t know reality from non-reality. Another is more interested in proving his is bigger than anyone else’s. This is blatantly evident in what he says about himself at candidate forums. But don’t take my word for it. Check out the sonny side of this week’s issue of KWTN and see for your own self. kwtn.com

Nowhere do any of the current three gangsters come across looking like they feel they are servants. And there is nothing the Keys electorate can do about it but bitch and moan, and wait on the next election to come around? Horseshit! The Keys electorate needs to be able to recall elected officials who assume airs and behave like they are royalty — when they need to be washing the feet of the serfs, instead!

At this moment in the history of the Conch Republic, creating a right to recall elected officials is the single most important issue facing Keys voters. Candidates who do not make voter recall of elected officials the centerpiece of their campaigns should be viewed by the electorate as wolves in sheep clothing and dismissed out of hand.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate, Sonny’s district

Political advertisement, in the dimension of reality, written, approved and paid for by me and some really pissed off angels, apparently.

I dreamt several nights ago of asking someone if I had talked with them yet about Mario’s cancer? Later dreams that same night, coupled with feeling like I had cancer in my G.I. tract and liver, left me feeling that I would write about Mario’s cancer, which I did. But there was no follow up nudge to publish it until dreams this past night took me back there, along with some nudging to tweak it a bit before publishing.

Perhaps the best place to begin this truly difficult writing assignment is with something I heard in my sleep in 1991: “When are you going to write a book about your leukemia?” I awoke in a state of shock. Right off, I called the office of an internal medicine doctor who was moving toward looking at disease as more than something only medicine could address. When we met, I told him that what I’d heard might not be about physical leukemia but I wanted the medical tests run just in case. He agreed. The tests came back negative.

I had not yet told my wife about any of this, and it wasn’t long before one of our friends came over and I was moved to tell her. She and my wife were studying Jungian psychology, and right away she said, “Sloan, leukemia is a blood disease and that message is about bloodlines.” My bloodlines. The leukemia was in the spirit: sins of the fathers. My father’s father had died of leukemia. He also had had a God complex, and had acted as if he was lord over the Bashinsky family. He had dominated my father and had nearly captured me. Thus began a series of books, some fiction, others novels, in which I did indeed wrote in various ways about my “leukemia.”

As time passed, I came to understand that whenever I dream someone having cancer, that is a message to me that he or she is infected with Evil. We all have seen “godfather” things Mario has done that caused us to shake our heads. Like when he had Kay Thacker evicted from a county commission meeting by a deputy sheriff after she gave a “thumbs-down” signal to a county commission vote that did not suit her. Like when he violates the Sunshine Law, and then acts as if he is is above it. Like when he votes to approve a waterfront development project the first time comes before the County Commission, before it has been publicly vetted, and after the County Attorney tells him it is out of order and/or will not likely be accepted by the Department of Community Affairs.

Like when Mario called me the evening of the last primary election in Key West, which left incumbent Mayor Morgan McPherson running slightly behind former Mayor Jimmy Weekley in a runoff. Mario was all agitated, commanding me to do all I could to get “that boy” (Morgan) reelected. “We need that boy.” Many times Mario said this, assuming I was in full agreement. Not once did he ask how I felt about it, which was that I was stunned to learn only just then that Mario was apparently linked at the hip with Morgan. More than stunned, I was terrified. Terrified for Key West, terrified for the Keys, and terrified for Morgan and his family.

I got my first close-up view of the “cancer” in Mario during a private conversation in his county commissioner office at the Marathon Airport, when I was running against incumbent commissioner George Neugent in 2006. A get-together suggested by Mario. During that visit, it did not seem to me that Mario heard or took in anything I said, about anything. He seemed to be all output and no input. The only thing he said that rang true to me was, “People tell me Sloan is crazy, and I tell them he is crazy like a fox!”

Maybe a two months ago, I learned that a sheriff deputy was stalking and harassing and even doing more than that with young Keys women. I met one of these women and heard her story and felt she had told me the truth. I was not told in dreams that she did not tell me the truth, which I would have been if she had made it up. Not long after that, she was approached at her place of work by one of Mario’s daughters, who said she had heard about the stalking and it was the same deputy who was stalking her. When I learned of this, I immediately called Mario on his cell phone, which was keyed into my cell phone directory. He answered right away. I told him what I had heard, as his wife heard him speaking to me. I said this was for real, this deputy was really messed up, and he, Mario, needed to check it out, because his daughter was at risk.

I later heard that Mario took the word of some people in the Sheriff’s Office that there was nothing to it, and he dismissed it. He did not believe his daughter or me. Me, whom he had said was crazy like a fox. Well, I did not call him as a fox. I called him because I have daughters myself, and I was concerned for his daughter, because I knew she was being stalked by this deputy. If it were not so, the angels would have corrected me after I called Mario about it, and then I would have had to call him back and tell him to forget it; there was nothing to it.

I spoke at the Marathon Library’s Coffee & Books gathering last winter. After I let it out that I was running for the County Commission, someone in the audience asked me what I thought about Mario? The question did not seem kind. I replied that Mario had died from the bends, while diving in the Mediterranean, and then he had miraculously come back from the dead. I had learned of this from him during that visit in his office in 2006. Mario told me that went over to the other side and some special stuff happened. Then he came back with a mission. We read about this kind of experience of today in books about near-death experiences. Mario really had this happen. About that I have no doubt, for the angels would have told me if it had not happened.

I told the people at Coffee & Books that I had had many, many experiences with the supernatural — thousands. I said such experiences are overwhelming, and easily lead to ego inflation and megalomania. I said I had often gotten into big trouble because of it, and often had to be rescued from myself. I said Mario came back from the dead filled up with what he had experienced on the other side, but he had no one to help him deal with it . I said I had seen this same thing happen with other people who’d had near-death or other kinds of supernatural experiences. They felt like they were on a special mission, were ordained, anointed.

What actually had happened merely was that they had been given another chance, and it then was theirs to take to where could go, or let it take them in the opposite direction. For after having such and experience as Mario had, there is no way to remain the same. Either you go toward God, or you go the other way.

I would be lost but for the fact that something keeps redirecting me every time I screw up, head off in a direction I really don’t want to go but don’t know it yet. Mario does not have this ongoing spirit assistance. Nor do most people who have powerful spirit experiences. They are left to fend for themselves, and they don’t tend to do very well.

Because of that, I have a bone to pick with heaven, which is that it should not send people back from the dead, unless they are going to be properly looked after when they come back to this life. The risk of them getting all messed up in their thinking and doing is simply too great, to send them back unprotected and unattended.

Some people who read this today might feel that I have been judgmental and harsh with Mario. Well, when a doctor tells a patient that he or she has cancer, does the patient feel the doctor has been judgmental or harsh toward the patient? Does the patient resent the doctor for breaking the awful news. No. What the patient does is look to the doctor to treat the cancer. Mario’s doctor is Jesus. I’m just the PA.

Mario has been on my email list since 2006. He tells me from time to time that he reads my emails. He will receive this post today.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, somewhere maybe, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by me and my dream maker

I drove up to Big Pine Key yesterday morning and met with Dick Beale for about an hour at his business, Skeeter Marine, on US 1, just a couple of city blocks up from the stoplight. Toward the end of our cordial conversation, Dick said something about how a Publix could have been located just up the highway from and tying into his property. I replied that I remembered one day about a year and a half ago, when I drove up to Marathon, and US 1 coming down the Keys was gridlocked all the way onto Bahia Honda bridge.

I had seen gridlocks on this stretch many times, but never one that went all the way to Bahia Honda bridge. A Florida State Trooper parked at the lower end of the bridge told me that the stoplight on Big Pine was the reason for the gridlock, and it frequently happened when the Flea Market on Big Pine was busy, and sometimes it did not clear out until 5 p.m. I told Dick that the only way to resolve the gridlocking was to build an overpass through Big Pine.

When I lived on Little Torch Key from March 2006-March 2007, I lobbied very hard against bringing a Publix onto Big Pine where the Flea Market now is, and against Walgreen’s putting a store on the old Scotties location. I simply could not see any sensible reason to put a second major grocery store and a second major drugstore on Big Pine, with yet another pharmacy already inside Winn-Dixie. I told the Walgreen’s lawyer at a Planning Board meeting that if they put a Wallgreen’s on Big Pine, I would do everything I could to initiate a consumer boycott of that store.

I heard a lot of complaining about the lack of amenities at Winn-Dixie, where I shopped. Yeah, it didn’t have Boarshead meats, and, yeah, it hired a lot of people who didn’t speak English well. But then, Big Pine wasn’t the mainland, I said back then, and maybe people who wanted mainland living ought to live on the mainland. Curiously, I learned yesterday afternoon from one of the people on my email list that Coastal Living Magazine had rated Big Pine as 4^th in a list of 10 wildlife hotspots in the world to visit. I checked it out; it was true – 4th. Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

I also learned online yesterday that there is no supportable evidence that the Key Deer were ever imported by white people to Big Pine Key. What I found was that the first writings about the Key Deer were by a Spanish sailor who was shipwrecked on Big Pine Key and captured by native peoples, who hunted and ate Key deer, which are a small version of the white tail deer that inhabit Florida and all of the southeast. Key deer are known to range away from Big Pine Key and No Name and other nearby Keys, but they shrink back toward Big Pine and No Name and the other nearby dominant habitat keys during dry seasons. Big Pine and No Name Keys have fresh water lenses which allow the Key Deer to survive, even when there is drought.

I told one of my friends up that way yesterday that the limestone on Big Pine is different from the limestone on all the other Keys, which is why the pine trees grow there so abundantly. Pine trees like the ones in south Florida and Alabama. I said the limestone and the habitat it produces are what makes Big Pine habitable to native Key Deer. I heard nothing in my sleep last night to contradict any of that, and if I was mistaken, I would have heard about it.

The reason I bring the Key deer into this is because they are the reason, as far as I can determine, that Big Pine Key was declared a national wildlife refuge, which brought Fish & Wildlife into the picture on Big Pine. It appears that pretty much everything that happens on Big Pine now has to pass Fish & Wildlife muster. Fish & Wildlife, and corresponding restrictive actions taken by our state and local governments regarding Big Pine, have brought development there to a near standstill, with little sign of change down the road. Dick and I seemed to agree yesterday that the only real cure is a Category 5 hurricane.

We also seemed to agree that, as Big Pine goes, the Keys also go. There is where Dick and I depart. I am flat opposed to any further commercial development in the Keys. Not that I expect there to be no more commercial development, for I know there will be. But I oppose it nonetheless, for reasons I have written many times before, which I will summarize: the Keys are way, way over developed, and it’s time we the people, or if not us, then our courts, and if not our courts, then Mother Nature, put a stop to any further development. It’s time for the Keys’ property rights to come first. And it looks to me that Big Pine Key and its little neighbor, No Name Key, are where the line in the sand has been drawn by the Powers That Be.

The other day, on my Big.Pine post to the FlaKey Drivel page of goodmorningfloridakeys.com, I wrote about a life-changing experience I had in early January 1995 in the middle of No Name Key Bridge. I heard yesterday from someone who lives near that bridge that other people have reported having unusual sensations on the bridge and there appears to be some sort of energy there. While I was surprised to hear this, I shouldn’t have been.

In late 2004, I took a woman I loved dearly out to the middle of the bridge, and she was taken over by something huge and her breath was taken away and she burst into tears and her heart started heaving and she barely could stand up and had to hold onto the railing of the bridge until it passed. It was the same thing I had felt in 1995, when I was told during it, “Because you love this place so much, you will be used to help preserve it.”

I went to No Name Key Bridge yesterday, and walked out to the middle of it. Nothing spectacular happened, but I felt I was on holy ground. I walked back to my car at the fish camp and drove all the way out to the end of No Name, where I saw two does and a buck with new horns in felt. I nearly always see Key deer on that road. They seem pretty tame, like they are used to getting snacks from people in cars — people who read the “Don‘t fee the deer signs” and do it anyway. I once had a doe out there come over to the car and lick my hand, and one of the does yesterday seemed interested in coming toward me, but waved her goodbye and drove back toward Big Pine, wondering what it was all about?

I stopped off at CoCo’s Cantina in the Winn-Dixie shopping plaza, and had one of Rose’s wonderful lunches at a price slightly below what I would pay in Key West for the same fare. Then I headed back down to Key West. En route, I stopped an offered a teenage boy standing at a bus stop a ride into town. I do that a lot on US 1. Started doing it when I lived on Little Torch. Meet a lot of interesting people in that way.

When I got back to Key West yesterday afternoon, I went online and found an email pointing out that we already have a marine vocational school at Florida Keys Community College, which marine school is struggling to get by because it doesn’t have enough students. FKKC has no student housing, and that is a big reason for it’s ongoing struggle to attract students to all of its programs. I understand that the student housing problem is being worked on. I hope it is resolved, because I believe FKCC is a sleeping giant that will inject new life into the lower Keys if it has student housing. I believe FKCC would attract students from all over America and beyond, if it has student housing.

Back to Big Pine, Dick Beal moved this family there many years ago, and started purchasing land. This was before Big Pine became a protected area. Before the county and state governments and Fish & Wildlife stepped in. Dick feels his property effectively was taken away from him by retroactive changes in laws and development plans. He is correct. That is what happened. And not just to him. I happened to a lot of property owners on Big Pine, and he is just one of the more vocal ones. Dick writes about this and other concerns on his blog: The Taking of Big Pine.

Dick told me yesterday, and says on his blog, that the zoning was changed on Big Pine without public input, in violation of state law, but I was told by someone else yesterday afternoon that there was public input before the change was made. That was before my involvement in Keys politics, and I leave it to readers to do their own investigation and form their own conclusions.

A conclusion I have formed, which is very strong, is that Dick Beal, like many Keys people, has made the Keys his home. He and his family have put in their hearts and souls, and do not want to leave the Keys. Dick says he wants to change the marine business he now operates with his son, Mike, so they can put a vocational school where Skeeter’s Mearine now is, and build housing which Dick says would be used by the school’s teachers and students.

Dick has a map of the school and housing hanging in his office. It isn’t a very big project. It isn’t anything like what would happen if Seahorse Trailer Park on Big Pine is bulldozed and turned into a vacation home/transient rental resort. I would much rather see a local family like Dick’s get relief from the Big Pine development gridlock, than I care to see a another chain like Walgreen’s go into Big Pine. Or a Publix.

Anywhere in Florida but the Keys, I suppose, Dick’s vision would be a sure thing. But this ain’t the mainland and everything here is a bit, or a lot different. And Big Pine and the Key deer are dead in the heart of it. Dead in the heart of it.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by me

Below is a further email from Dick Beal about his vision for a marine vocational school on Big Pine Key. And below that are some of my own thoughts.

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RE: Caya Place Townhouses 

Sloan,

You ask some questions and even posted them on BPK.com…. So, here’s the answers about Caya Place Townhouses and my proposed re-development:

I’m personally the only developer of the project. I applied (12/07/2006)for and received my Land Development Rights letter and my Letter Of Understand from the County in early 2007. I then at the request of the planning department wrote and submitted a full Development Agreement along with my 9500 bucks. The planner and I agreed on the development agreement draft copy and the planning department advertised and posted the date of 6/12/2007 for the Development Review Committee meeting. I arrived and seconds before going into the meeting was told by Susan Grimsley (the staff attorney) and Aref Joulani (the acting growth management director) I had no application because the county had not bought enough land to offset the “harvest bank” (“H”) 3 to 1 ratio that is the conforming rule for the Habitat Conservation Plan and the Incidental Take Permit with Fish and Wildlife Service. Three months later the BOCC issued my 9500 back less the advertising fees and my project was dropped into never never land because of the “H” issue.

Back to the Caya Place project overview:

Yes the housing would be used to fund the school in part and used to house the students, and staff. The school would be a marine vocational school that teaches students of all ages the full scope of the marine repair trade. A student would apply and pay a percentage from his or her pocket and receive a grant for a percentage. He or she would then work with a skilled technician side by side doing the same jobs we have done for over 28 years. With full one on one training learning every aspect of the trade, from service order writing, doing the repair, clear through to the billing and customer relations, he or she would leave the school as a valued starting employee and be able to generate profit the first day on the job for their new employer.

I really have no intentions of selling the property and moving away, besides my son Michael, would continue doing what we both do every day, being devoted to serving the marine customers in the BPK area. Being 65, my wish is to see the property potential possibilities achieved while I’m still alive and able to reap the benefits not only financially but also with an understanding that I’ve accomplished a good thing for my family and community that will withstand the test of time.

I hope this clears up most of yours and other’s questions.

Richard Beal

The Taking of Big Pine www.skeetersmarine.com
www.cayaplace.com
www.storm-safe.com 

I feel Dick’s vision is commendable and is in keeping with the marine spirit of the Keys and the poor working stiffs who live here and earn a living in the marine sector of our economy. I understood from Dick that the school and its students would receive financial aid from Federal grants, and perhaps from other kinds of grants. My difficulty is that we have an acute shortage of affordable housing for the poor working stiffs living in the Keys, and, as I told Dick on the telephone day before yesterday, I do not see that what he has in mind will provide them with affordable housing. As I understood Dick, his teachers and students mostly would come in from outside the Keys, and would live the housing Dick had built. The housing would be either rented or sold, but if sold, only the housing itself would be sold and title to the land would remain with Dick. Similar, he said, to how Habitat For Humanity “sells” the affordable homes it builds. In fact, Dick said he had already constructed and sold a few homes on this basis, on Big Pine Key.

Dicks’s development model may be a private-sector way of going about providing affordable housing on private land that the County needs to look into. Housing that is truly affordable. Like what a county commissioner could afford, relying solely on a county commissioner’s salary, which is around $44,000 a year, close to what our school teachers make. However, I remain of the view that no new residential housing should be built for people who are not going to live in the Keys full-time. We already went way, way the other way, and we have a community in which a very high percentage of our homeowners do not live full-time in the Keys. In fact, many of them do not even live here half-time. And it is no great secret that many of our part-time homeowners homestead their Keys homes, instead of the home (or homes) they have elsewhere, because the ad valorem taxes are higher in the Keys than in the states where they have their other home (or other homes). Meaning, we are losing tax revenue because part-time residences are homesteading here, instead of where they probably ought to homestead. Furthermore, it’s no great secret that a great many residences that have been built are not residences at all, but are transient rental units, or time shares, in which the “owners” are here only a week or two a year, and other “owners” are only here a week or two a year, and so on.

Another model would be for the County to loosen up and let people on Big Pine, and elsewhere, rent out spare rooms in their homes to students and anyone else who needs an affordable place to stay. Beyond that, let people enclose their downstairs to include a rental, if they wish. Or let people live in tents or RVs on their property. Beyond that, set up a department in the Housing Authority that rents and manages residences for absent owners. Like maybe we have thousands of such residences in the Keys, it seems when I drive through any neighborhood south of Marathon, and I doubt it’s much different above Seven Mile Bridge. What are we doing building new residences in the Keys with so many existing homes standing vacant/for sale? Makes no sense to me. What makes sense is that we figure out a way to use these vacant/for sale residences, and all of our residential peoperties, to the owners’ and the Keys best advantage. That would be a caya vocation we all could benefit from, don’t you think?

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by me

An email exchange yesterday with Dick Beale, of Big Pine Key.

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Sloan

Big Pine Vision.

After reading your vision that the pelicans so clearly imprinted on you, I too had a calling to go to Big Pine Key. Mine came in the form of my love to fish. After vacationing on Big Pine over Christmas 1980, I only had one mission, that was to finish my life on Big Pine. I’ve never known another life than to work every day so after coming to the Keys completely broke and borrowing $900.00 from a friend, my gal, 3 kids, and I arrived Aug. of 81. With the help (not money)from several super friends, family, and some very hard work, I purchased my property on US 1 in the middle of Big Pine Key. I keep my nose to the grindstone, staying broke by paying every penny toward the future. Along came the 90′s, a great time for the boat and repair business. At one time I had a crew of 12 employees, all working and learning the business. You see my dream and vision is somewhat different, I want to die knowing that I have been a good teacher by training all around me in the fields of which I’ve mastered.

One Sunday morning back some 35 years ago, as most Sundays at 10:am, I was watching the show Sunday Morning. The story was about a Blacksmith in Salt Lake City, not just any Blacksmith but a artist in the trade of design and fabrication of very special ornamental decorative steel work of making fences and scroll work of different distinctive designs for almost every prominent family, doctors and lawyers all over the Salt Lake City area. The story went on to show his masterpieces and interviewing the people he had built things for. If I remember he was then 92 years of age and still started his forge every day continued his daily tasks. When ask if he had any regrets in his life, he paused for a monument and said, “yes I do, I regret that there is no one here to carry on my trade. Although I have had many helpers over the years, not one of them wanted to put the time in to learn the trade and now I’m alone and my shop will surly be closed when I die”.

Back to Big Pine:

I have kept this mans vision and statement in my head and stayed focused on building a vocational school on my Big Pine property. We all should focus on making a place for our young people to prosper and succeed in life, not move away because of disappointment and failure. This is the reason I’m so disturbed by the land use issues here on Big Pine. We live all our life’s working for the things each and every one of use feel are important for us.

Self serving you might say…… Hell Yes, why not? To be able to do as the county code is written is not wrong until a few people decide someone else’s future.

My feeling is if there is going to be a change to the rules and the zoning on 9400 some parcels of property, then let the 9400 property owners vote on the change. Why should un-vested parties decide our future?

We live in the United States and we should have Commissioners that read and abide by the written law and change the written law within the written law.

Richard Beal, author of The Taking of Big Pine

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I’m having some trouble with your story, Dick, because I know you have been trying to commercially develop your land on Big Pine Key, by working through developers or being your own developer, and you and the developers have been denied building permits. I have heard you speak about it, and have heard others tell me how upset you are about it. But what I don’t know, and perhaps I could assume it, but I’d rather not do that, is do you need to develop and cash in on your property, in order to finance a vocational school? In all events, what would be the main focus of the school curriculum? Marine? General?

I, too, had a blacksmith vision, in August 1994, when dreamt of a huge black blacksmith standing before me, and then of a huge, black storm coming toward me. That very day, a poem about it fell out of me, which I cannot fully remember today, but the feeing of it will never leave me. I knew in my bones that I was going to be turned very which a way but loose by that blacksmith. A couple of years later, to my great embarrassment, I realized the blacksmith was the Christ. It was and still is relentless with me. My experiences with it have given me an entirely different perspective from what I perceived before this all began; and an entirely different perspective from anyone else I know, including a couple people I know who are being turned every which a way but loose themselves.

What’s most important, I learned, is to do my very best at what is given to me to do, without flinching or running away, and without injuring anyone else. Some people have a somewhat different view of injury than I came to have. I came to see that it is soul injury that I must attempt at all costs to avoid causing, while injury to the views and ways of this world might be the very best thing that can be done for people, in an effort to spring them loose from the various prisons in which we have become incarcerated.

If you wish, I can come up to Big Pine and we can have a meal over what is going on up there. I doubt I’ve heard everything I need to hear, and I miss the place. My cell phone # is (305) 407-4285. You probably don’t have to use 305.

Sloan

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It’s now the next morning. Dick called me and we spoke maybe 15 minutes. I learned the vocational school would be marine-based, and that he wants to build affordable housing for the school’s students and teachers. We commiserated over how truly screwed up the “development plan” for Big Pine Key is, to the point of agreeing that it may not be able to be fixed at all. I said I wanted to come up there tomorrow morning and visit, and that’s where it now stands.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by me

Received this email yesterday (24 June). My reply follows.

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Hey Sloan,

So tell the Big Pine property owners what you would do for the future about the HCP & ITP and fish & wildlife.

Dick

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Hi, Dick, and thanks for your question. I will answer it is several ways.

I attended a Planning Board meeting on Big Pine several months ago, and it was then that I got an ear and stomach-full of just how convoluted the formula is for building even one more new home there. I commented to someone at the meeting that the formula seemed to have been designed on purpose, and I saw no way to work with it.

I also spoke with Alicia Putney about building homes on Big Pine and No Name Key. She and her husband Mick, and quite a few other people on Big Pine are very, very committed to keeping that island and its neighbor where they live, No Name Key, pretty much as they are. Alicia and I discussed building permits for residences, and we both agreed that we were okay with permits being issued to people who will build a home on land they own, or have purchased, in which they will live full-time. Otherwise, we both were opposed to new residencies being built on either island.

This position also was pretty much in keeping with my stance toward development Keys-wide, which I started singing when I ran against George Neugent for the County Commission in 2006: No more new commercial development, period, the end. The Keys are already way, way overbuilt, we have thousands of homes for sale, including plenty of homes for sale on Big Pine Key, and it makes no sense whatsoever for any new homes to be built, unless the owners will be full-time residents.

Now I will tell you a story about my own personal love affair with Big Pine Key, and its little neighbor.

In 1995, I lived in Boulder, Colorado. One very cold winter night, sitting in my favorite chair with my writing journal, looking out the window at the moon through the limbs of a large black willow tree, I was seized and wrote down these words: “Go to Big Pine Key. Go as soon as possible. This in important.”

This came from out of nowhere. I was not thinking about Big Pine Key, and had not been thinking about it. But I knew about it, because in March 1966, fishing out of Old Wooden Bridge Fish Camp, several hundred yards inside (bayside) the charred remnants of the old wooden bridge over to No Name Key, I had caught and released my first tarpon. I was fishing with contemporaries of my father in Birmingham, Alabama. As the years passed, I came to view catching that great fish as a rite of passage, a symbolic moving away from the influence of my father into my own destiny.

The night of the advisory for me to go to Big Pine Key as soon as possible, I dreamt that I was at a ticket counter at Stapleton Airport in Denver, purchasing an airline ticket to Big Pine Key, while standing nearby in another ticket line were my father and his brother, purchasing tickets to Islamorada. I had gown up fishing Islamorada, where they both hung out. Now I was going to Big Pine Key, and they were going to Islamorada. So to Big Pine Key I went, not having a clue why.

After one night at the Big Pine Key Inn, I relocated to Parmer’s Resort on Little Torch Key. Then I started fooling around and waiting, and wondering why I was there.

On the seventh day of the trip, I went out to No Name Key Bridge for the second time that week. At the fish camp, I saw a couple getting into a skiff with their bait and tackle. I felt an urge to speak to them and learned they were environmentalists. They said they had lived for a good while on Key Largo, but it had been destroyed by development and they had moved to Big Pine Key because it was the last unspoiled place in the Keys. They were doing what they could to keep it that way, the man said.

I offered to teach them a “prayer,” which I said might help them in their endeavor. The woman seemed interested, but the man seemed put off and in a hurry to get in the skiff and leave. The woman gave me what seemed like an apologetic look and got into the skiff and they cranked up the engine and idled toward the exit from the marina.

By the time I reached No Name Key Bridge on foot, they were headed under the bridge toward the backcountry. When they came out the other side of the bridge, I saw pelicans flying all around them. I told the pelicans to teach them what I had not been able to teach them. Then I walked out on the bridge and across it to No Name Key, where I turned around and started walking back the other way toward the fish camp.

When I reached the top of the rise on the bridge, I was moved to turn and look down Spanish Harbor toward Bahia Honda. Pelicans were flying all around me. Something huge came around and inside of me. My breath was snatched away. I burst into tears. My heart heaved so hard that it felt like it might jump out of my body. I clung tightly to the concrete railing, to keep from falling down. Then I heard, “Because you love this place so much, you will be used to help preserve it.” Then I really started crying and heaving.

That night a poem came to me, as I ate dinner at a restaurant on Big Pine Key, which no longer is there (the restaurant).

Behold the pelican!
Slow, clumsy, ugly afoot,
But in the air,
A great fisher indeed!
And in time of want
It plucks out its own breast meat
to feed its young.

For some years I had known that in the Holy Grail tradition the pelican is viewed as the Christ bird because in time of want it plucks out its own breast meat to feed its young. My middle name is Young. And, that morning I had been surrounded by pelicans. Surrounded.

When I read in the Keynoter two days later that a building moratorium had been adopted by/imposed on Big Pine Key, my heart leaped for joy. The next day I returned to Boulder, wondering what it all really meant and how it would play out? I came back to Big Pine Key that March, hoping to get to the bottom of it. I stayed at Parmer’s again, but nothing developed. I returned again the following Christmas, this time staying at the Old Wooden Bridge Fish Camp, in the apartment above the bait shop. Nothing developed that time, either. So I quit trying to make something happen.

Time went by. Stuff happened I wouldn’t want to see visited on anyone. Finally, in mid-December 2000, I was on Maui, flat broke. I awoke one morning hearing a voice say, “Go to Big Pine Key.” That suited me just fine, because I was weary of Maui and wondering if I was marooned there for the remainder of my days. Yet I had no money, I told the voice. Within three days’ time, this and that had happened, and I was en route to Los Angeles, and not long afterward, was on a Greyhound bus to Key West. Passing through Tallahassee, I passed out and was told I was getting into politics, which scared the living shit out of me, because I hated politics.

On reaching Big Pine Key, I was told to go on down to Key West, where I indeed started getting involved in politics late the following spring. I then was Sloan Young, because I had dropped Bashinsky off my name for reasons I have written elsewhere. I was broke and truly lived like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. And always in the back of my mind was “Go to Big Pine Key.” What was that about?

In 2006, my circumstances changed, thanks to an inheritance from my father. I purchased a trailer on an acre of land of SR 4A on Little Torch Key, next to a state wildlife refuge. With the purchase came a letter from Monroe County saying, with proper permitting, the trailer could be demolished and removed, and a permanent residence could be built on the property. I started hanging out some on Big Pine Key. Next thing I knew, I was running as an Independent against George Neugent for the County Commission. George’s county commission office is on Big Pine Key.

During that campaign my “letter writing” began. My email list grew. Eventually, I learned of bigpinekey.com, and started checking out it‘s Coconut Telegraph gossip column. I sent some stuff to the web host, who started posting it to a omnibus page on the Coconut Telegraph page. He gave me some editorial advice about how to make my writing more available to online readers. Then he offered to set me up a blog. That’s how goodmorningkeywest.com came into being, and later goodmorningfloridakeys.com.

Along the way, I got to know “Capt. Conch” personally, after Steve Estes, Editor and Publisher of the brave little NEWS-BAROMETER, headquartered on Big Pine Key, told me his real name. After Capt. Conch got where he trusted me, he had me come over to his place, where he was able to sit with me by the computer and show me how to manage my own website. We became friends. I came to see him as a true member of the Resistance.

He and his wife live stuck away in the woods somewhere on Big Pine. A beautiful place. Key deer and other wild life abound. He has much the same view of the Keys that I do, and of most things. He very definitely does not trust the Establishment. Yet another piece of the “Go to Big Pine Key” puzzle, that was first given to me in January 1995.

Another piece of the puzzle is Bill Becker and US 1 Radio, which is headquartered on Big Pine. I got to know Bill, who sometimes interviewed me on his news program. Bill’s show is perhaps the single most important breaking news source in its listener range. US 1 Radio seems more pro-establishment than I’m comfortable with, but it is certainly an important piece of the Big Pine Key puzzle, and the bigger puzzle in which Big Pine Key sits at the heart, in my opinion.

Regardless of how people feel pro or con about development on Big Pine Key (and No Name Key), my view is that God has seen enough development there, and in the Keys in general. Even the State of Florida recognized Big Pine Key as a special area, needing special protection. The State also recognized the Keys in their entirety as an area of “critical concern,” after the people of the Keys did not do that. And it sure looks to me that the center of the Resistance is Big Pine and No Name Keys. They must be protected at all costs, and from there the Resistance just might spread and strengthen throughout the Keys. Perhaps with some help from the pelicans.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, designed by pelicans, written, swiped, swooped, approved and paid for by me

I understood from my dreams last night that I would write about something different today, but what? By the time I reached Sippin’ Internet Café on Eaton Street in Old Town Key West, my “office,” so to speak, I was getting a glimmer that it would have to do with artistic expression. Opening my email account, I found an email from Lynne Vantriglia, accompanied by this just below:

June 23^rd, 2008: Press release: for immediate publication

Former participants of Art Behind Bars, the art-based community service program for inmates, are pleased to announce an event to honor the program that helped them turn their lives around. There will be a party at the Oldest House Museum, 322 Duval Street, Key West, on Sunday, June 29^th, from 1-5 p.m. There will be food, entertainment, creative activities for children, a fifty-fifty raffle, a show of Art AFTER Bars, and more. Admission is $10; cash bar.

This event is to honor and celebrate the volunteers and staff of the organization that has touched the lives of so many participants and their families, as well as the community at large. According to event organizer Melinda Mitchell, “I want to celebrate and honor the Founder, Board Members and Volunteers of Art Behind Bars that have so freely given their time and support to us participants. We are holding a benefit to give back and support keeping the program alive; I need your help in making this endeavor successful.”

Program founder and art teacher Lynne Vantriglia has served as mentor to many people making the difficult transition from jail back into the community. Most recently, in May, former participant Candy Mense graduated from FKCC with honors in addiction therapy. Art Behind Bars was the highest-scoring program in the state of Florida at a recent review of Art in Education programs, out of 66 programs state-wide, and has been invited to have a show at the Division of Cultural Affairs headquarters in Tallahassee this coming September.

This has been a year of milestones for the program. It conducted its 1,000^th class in March, has served 7,250 students since 1994, [850 in the last year alone], and donated artwork valued at $94,000 to 370 non-profit organizations. For more information about the program or the event, visit www.artbehindbars.org or phone 830-377-3299.

________________________________________________________

What I, Sloan, know from Lynne Vantriglia about Art Behind Bars, which is not precisely stated in the Press Release, is that Art Behind Bars inmates at the detention center on Stock Island have a lower recidivism rate than the rest of the Florida inmate population. In fact, Art Behind Bars has a lower inmate recidivism rate than any other Florida inmate-help program. Furthermore, there is a considerable waiting list to get into the Arts Behind Bars program. Beyond all of that, Art Behind Bars produces a great deal of one-of-a-kind greeting/post cards, which it donates to different organizations.

And, as you see from the Press Release, there is an Art AFTER Bars program for its graduates. I own two wonderful pieces by graduate Candy Mense, mentioned in the Press Release. The second piece of hers that I purchased is called “When Pigs Fly,” and a reproduction of it hangs in the office of Key West City Commissioner Teri Johnston. I own several other pieces from the these amazing programs, all of which, frankly, I believe are masterpieces. I do not own the masterpiece that heads this post because I did not know Lynne Vantriglia or about Art Behind Bars when that piece was done. And I didn’t have an money; I was homeless. A different kind of bars to be behind, I suppose. But then, who isn’t behind some kind of bars? Who isn’t?

I’m sure I have left out other important aspects of what these two amazing art programs do, but just on the face of what I wrote above, one would assume that Art Behind Bars is having money thrown at it, to help it keep up the good work and increase its outreach to more inmates. Such is not the case. Lynne Vantriglia several times has told me that Art Behind Bars is at the bottom of the philanthropic food chain in the Keys, that it’s a constant struggle to find enough money to keep the programs going, and that she spends far too much time scrounging for money and not nearly enough time working with inmates. Not nearly enough time.

I hope every person who reads this post will join me with their checkbooks at the Oldest House Museum this coming Sunday afternoon. This is one human family we ALL need to support.

Sloan Bashinsky

Recent events brought several rough political challenges.

The first was the Statement Of Ethical Campaign Practices oath I was required to sign when I qualified to run as a non-affiliated candidate for the District 3 seat of the County Commission now held by Republican Commissioner Sonny McCoy. Especially troubling in the oath was: “I will not permit the use of untruths or innuendoes about an opponent’s personal life.” What troubled me about this is I have very little personal life, because I am required by my Boss to tell almost everything about myself, so the voters will know me even if they don’t really want to know me.

The next rough challenge was being asked yesterday by Kay Thacker of Key Largo to pose my own questions to the County Commission candidates. The rough part of the challenge was posing questions I myself could answer in plain English. As there are 5 county commission seats, I decided to ask a 5-ish question:

TO ALL COUNTY COMMISSION CANDIDATES:

Please list, without any input from anyone else, what you personally feel are the five most important issues facing the Keys. Note, the Keys, not the mainland. In stating what you feel are the 5 most important issues, please also state, without any input from anyone else, what you personally feel are the odds of those issues being resolved in your lifetime. In rating the odds, please use a scale of 1-5, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest. 0 is permitted, if 1 isn’t low enough.

Here is my own personal list, accompanied by my view of the odds:

1. Saving the reef – 1 in 5

2. Stopping human pollution of Keys waters – 2 in 5

3. Providing affordable housing for the poor and lower middle-class people of the Keys – 0

4. Stopping further commercial development in the Keys – 0

5. Having only elected officials who put their duty to the Keys and Keys people ahead of their duty to themselves, their families, their friends, and their political and business associations – 0

The next rough challenge was sent forwarded by Penny Johnson, co-owner of Sippin’ Internet Café in Key West, where I spend most mornings putting together and sending out my daily cock-a-doodle-dos. The challenge here is trying to imagine any politicians in the Keys, or anywhere, who do not remind me of the hero in this story.

Homer was in the egg business. He had several hundred younglayers (hens) called “pullets,” and 10 roosters to fertilize the eggs. He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

Homer’s favorite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but one morning he noticed old Butch’s bell hadn’t rung at all! When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, could run for cover. To Homer’s amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn’t ring. He’d sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

Homer was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No-Bell Piece Prize, but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren’t paying attention.

Vote carefully this year…the bells are not always audible

The last rough challenge, which is supposed to be today’s comic relief, was forwarded by Frankie Zeh, who does volunteer work for Tropic Cinema in Key West and sometimes puts up with me at party bridge. The challenge was coming up with what seemed like a good retort to:

OPEC sells oil for $136.00 a barrel.
OPEC nations buy U.S. grain at $7.00 a bushel.
Solution: Sell grain for $136.00 a bushel.
Can’t buy it? Tough! Eat your oil!
Ought to go well with a nice thick grilled filet of camel ass!!!

I rather imagine the Russians, Canadians and Chinese would just love to sell their grain to OPEC at $7.00 a bushel, in exchange for OPEC’s oil. Instead of going to war again, maybe we should give serious consideration to raising and riding camels, which we can feed our grain.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, designed by Fate, written, swiped, swooped, approved and paid for by me

P.S., in case anyone is interested, yesterday I received from Capt. Conch, host of bigpinekeky.com and its famed — or is it infamed? — Coconut Telegraph (shame on you Jimmy Buffet for claiming to have invented the coconut telegraph which was here before you wuz even born), that goodmorningfloridakeys.com received 5,717 hits in May, and goodmorningkeywest.com had 6,570. Mere chickenfeed, compared to the number of hits bigpinekey.com receives each month. But then, last May the total hits for goodmorningkeywest.com was around 3,000 and goodmorningflorida.keys.com was but a mere figment in Capt. Conch’s vivid imagination. He also be the one who designed and set up Sandra Downs campaign website: sandyforsheriff.com, which was hacked the day it went online, as was the Coconut Telegraph hacked and put out of commission the same day. Of course, the hacking had nothing to do with what was so unfavorably mentioned about the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office on Sandy’s website. Nothing whatsoever to do with it at all. The hacker must have been one of those Middle Eastern camel riders. Yeah, it had to be that. No way was the hacker connected to the Sheriff’s Office. No way.

Good morning, Florida Keys,

I received a reply to yesterday’s “Endangered Species” post from someone I only barely know, disclosing that he is an Ocean Reef Club member. He sketched the lay of the land there, and said it might be that honorary memberships are granted to county officials, the sheriff, etc., whoever can do Ocean Reef Club favors. He also mentioned once seeing a deputy playing golf there. When I wrote back asking how I might find out who had honorary memberships, he replied that I might try the Sunshine Law and Freedom of Information Act. I don’t think either apply, but since Sheriff Roth, State Attorney Mark Kohl, and all five County Commissioners are on my email list, I’m asking each of them straight up: Do you have an Honorary membership at the Ocean Reef Club? Or any kind of membership there?

When I wrote yesterday, I already had in my email account something I had asked Sandra Downs to write for me, describing the environmental practices of the Chairwoman of the Keys Republican Party, Carey Goodman, and her family. What Sandy wrote bothers me as much today as it did the first time I heard it from her about a year ago. It caused me to want to throw up, like learning years ago that a federal judge had fined the Ocean Reef Club $60,000 a day for dumping its raw sewerage into the Atlantic Ocean had caused me to want to throw up.

___________________________________________________

In the ocean waters, offshore of the Goodman property, sat a nice little uninhabited state-owned mangrove island. The Goodman’s wanted to trim the island’s 15 ft. tall red mangroves to get a better view from their 3 story home. So they asked DEP for a permit. DEP must abide by the 1996 Mangrove Protection Act when issuing permits to private citizens. There is no permit available to a citizen to trim state owned mangroves for a view! But laws didn’t stop the Goodmans or DEP. No siree! DEP came up with a loophole permit, found in phosphate mining to allow the Goodman’s to trim a section of the state’s mangroves. But, instead of abiding by the “loophole permit” the Goodmans were so “fortunate” to get, the Goodmans ignored the permit boundaries and over-cut the mangroves both in height and area, and did not use a professional mangrove trimmer opting to do the massacre themselves. They killed the mangroves by cutting them too short, AND they cut an additional 5000 sq. ft more than they had been permitted to cut. DEP has conceded it was an illegal use of the phosphate mining permit, and DEP promised the 6 Senators that questioned them, they would never use it again.

When the Goodmans’ atrocities of the mangroves were found, DEP issued a Violation Notice, and said in stern language that DEP was going to take action. But DEP did not take corrective action. Instead of fining the Goodman’s and requiring restoration, the DEP gave the Goodman’s another illegal permit to trim all 7400 sq. ft. of the mangroves permanently. This of course was aided and abetted by our county planning attorney, Mr. Wolfe, who spoke up for the Goodmans, and Carey Goodman herself, who told DEP that her family did not want to be fined nor penalized for what they had done. Furthermore the Goodmans told DEP they would be willing to pay $0.00 and wanted another permit that allowed them to permanently trim the mangroves. The Goodmans also wanted to be relieved the of using the Professional Mangrove Trimmer as required by law. So DEP caved in to Carey Goodman, the chair of the Republican Party’s demands. DEP fined
them $0.00, gave a permit to permanently trim all 7400 sq ft. of mangroves, and to not have to use a Professional Mangrove Trimmer. DEP failed us.

Sandy Downs

___________________________________________________

Sandy spent a good bit of time this year trying to get DEP to reverse itself, do the right thing, and she got nowhere, so far. What this all suggests to me is maybe DEP has one set of rules for powerful Republicans and another set for everyone else. Meanwhile, is another entirely different line of thought, which I expressed the other day: private-party-initiated civil litigation that seeks to have our courts put the rights of Mother Nature first, when push comes to shove between Her and private property owners and developers. There is strong legal precedent for our courts favoring Mother Nature:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them . . .” (emphasis added)

Along somewhat different lines is a story I got up in the wee hours to write this morning, telling some of the evolution of my soul relationship with the Keys before I got involved in politics – see “Love Affair” page of goodmorningfloridakeys.com.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, shaped by various courses of events, written, swiped, approved and paid for by me

Yesterday afternoon, I attended Phil Mandina’s sheriff campaign kick-off party at Shanna Key restaurant and lounge in Key West. Phil is one of the two Republican candidates for sheriff. The other is former DEA agent, Ken Davis.

A practicing lawyer with law enforcement experience, Phil lost a son after he became so hooked on drugs that he saw no way out and took his own life. We talked some about that yesterday. I listened to, observed and felt in my sprit a deeply-haunted father. A father I can only imagine will be very tough on drug dealers if he became our sheriff. Dealers of drugs that kill people and wreck families. Drugs like crack, crystal meth, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin and contraband prescription narcotics. Somehow I just don’t see Phil spending a lot of time, effort or tax payer money chasing down marijuana growers and dealers, which appears to have been Ken Davis’ specialty.

I told Phil yesterday that I feel it is very important for him to challenge Ken Davis about the Sheriff Substation at the Ocean Reef Club. Phil already knew that Ken had refused to answer any of my questions about the Sheriff’s Office, after telling me that I would see that he would answer all of my questions promptly. Phil knows that, plain and simple, I, a taxpayer, want to know up front where Ken Davis stands on the Ocean Reef Substation. Plain and simple, everyone living in the Keys should want to know where Ken Davis stands on that part of our reef. Here’s why.

Phil told me last night that we have 8 sheriff deputies assigned to Ocean Reef, which has its own huge private security force. Phil said our 8 deputies are not allowed to patrol Ocean Reef Club, and they sit or stand around the Substation twiddling their thumbs to the tune of $900,000 a year of the tax payers’ money. Not one arrest have those 8 deputies made in Ocean Reef in the last 6 (I think it was 6) years, Phil said.

Phil agreed that those 8 deputies ought to be out on our public roads and in our neighborhoods, actually doing what deputies are supposed to do, and that the $900,000 saved by closing the Ocean Reef Substation would be well spent raising ALL deputies’ salaries, so they could more easily afford to live in the Keys. Currently, over one-half of our deputies live on the mainland and commute to the Keys to work. We need deputies who live in the Keys, send their children to our schools, know us, and have as much invested in the Keys as we do.

Phil also said Ocean Reef Club owes Monroe County $6,000,000. I learned yesterday that Ocean Reef now has 340 (I think was the number) registered Keys voters. I remember from another time when I wrote about this that the initiation fee for residential members now is somewhere close to $500,000. Residential members pay that on top of the millions they spend on a lot and to build a home in there. To most of these people $6,000,000 is not all that big a deal. To their entire community $6,000,000 is chicken feed. I could see the $6,000,000 to being collected with all due speed used to keep our county employees from being let go and/or their salaries cut, and our libraries operating at regular capacity, and so forth.

ORCA also has special memberships for people who do not live there, whose initiation fees are lower. Like maybe one-half as much as resident memberships. I would love to see Ocean Reef’s special membership list, so I could see who in the Keys has one of those memberships. I would hope to see that none of our public officials or candidates for office have a special membership. I and I would like to see if any those special memberships were gifted instead of paid for. As would the IRS, I suppose.

With a wry grin, Phil told me last night that he used to live at Ocean Reef Club.

One could assume that Ken Davis’ muteness on Ocean Reef indicates that he intends to keep their Sheriff Substation open. One could assume Ken hopes to get campaign contributions and the political endorsement of ORCA (Ocean Reef Club Association). Cute acronym, but I seriously doubt there has been a killer whale in Keys waters since the last ice age, although in other ways ORCA does sort of remind me of a huge predator.

Back to Shanna Key last night. Shortly after I got there, a fellow introduced himself as the Chairman of the Southernmost Republican Club. Not the same as the Keys Republican Party, he explained, which is chaired by Carey Goodman. On learning this, I said I wanted to ask him about something. He told me to go ahead. “What is your position on the Sheriff Substation at Ocean Reef Club?” Turned out he did not have a position because he didn’t know anything about the Substation. After getting over the shock of hearing that from the Chairman of the Southernmost Republican Club, which shock I made rather plain to him, I explained it all, which took a while and some leaning on my part. After getting over the shock of my lambast, he said he was going to ask some questions and I would hear back from him. I said I would very much like to hear back from him. I hope I don’t have to hold my breath for as long as I have held it for Ken Davis to promptly answer my questions.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-affiliated county commission candidate

Political advertisement kindly designed by ORCA and its promptly-answer-all-of-your-questions-sheriff-candidate, Ken Davis, written, swiped, paid for and approved by me

P.S. Sorry, Phil. I tried to do what you asked: shorten the paragraphs and say less, so it wouldn’t’ take so long to read. But there was so much fertile ground to cover, or perhaps plow might be more accurate, and I didn’t want even one morsel, uh, parcel to feel left out. Besides, I suppose those league-of-women-voter activists you know on Key Largo could read this entire diatribe about the poor endangered species in less than 5 minutes J .