Good Morning Florida Keys

A reply yesterday to yesterday’s ”invasion - homeland security” post from a distant in-law in Birmingham, Alabama. A developer up there when the economy is okay, he likes to spend time in Key West and has made a number of thoughtful contributions to my rantings.
 

Hi, Ron.
 
Interesting timing, your email. See the two front-page articles in today’s Key West Citizen  – keysnews.com – on a rebounding Key West real estate market because of cash buyers, and the havoc being wreaked in the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) by Governor Scott Growth, who put the lawyer of the biggest developer in Florida, St. Joe Paper Company, in charge of DCA and is slashing DCA’s staff to the bone and merging it with the Department of Transportation, the mission of which it not to please Mother Nature.
 
Actually, it are me, not Citizens Not Serfs, who keeps hitting on developers and their attorneys. I tried to think of times when I saw developers bring gifts in the Keys, and I couldn’t think of any. Perhaps I’m terminally biased due to my fond memories of the Keys before the development boom, memories going all the way back to 1956, when the small waterline coming down from the mainland was maxed out and new construction, if any, had to rely on cisterns for water.
 
We stayed at Ocean Reef Club that year, where I fell terminally in to love with the Keys. Ocean Reef was laid back, low key, funky, affordable. When I went in there last year for a candidate forum, my first revisit, I recognized nothing but Angelfish Creek, which is the way in and out of there from the Atlantic Ocean. I could not believe what developers and done to it. I never want to go back there.
 
You are right; you are preaching to the choir about affordable housing not being affordable to the citizens. When I ran against County Commissioner George Neugent in 2006, I came to see ”affordable housing” was a mantra hijacked by commercial developers and their lawyers, lobbyists and hip-pocket elected officials and government bureaucrats. A bait and switch. It matters not whether developers in the Keys are bubba conchs or carpetbaggers from the mainland. They live and breathe developing the Keys. It is their religion.
  
When I ran against George in 2006, I was called “the dark horse” candidate by the Citizen after the first candidate forum at Tropic Cinema hosted by Hometown! PAC. I had no idea what I was doing and didn’t want to be doing it. Later in that race, driving to a candidate forum at the Marathon Government Center in Marathon, it came to me to say, “No more new development, period the end. The Keys are way over-developed and there is not a person living in the Keys who can stand in front of a mirror and honestly argue otherwise.”
 
I had in mind commercial development, not an individual who owned a piece of land and wanted to build a home in which to live and be a part of the Keys community. Thanks to developers competing like ravaging sharks for building rights, people who owned property on which they wanted to build a home were unable to get building permits. They had to get in the back of the line. They had to wait years, even as all sorts of funny deals were cut for developers with imaginary paper rights that became hot commodities and made some shrewd developers and their lawyers a great deal of money.
 
“No more new development” became the mantra for the 2006 campaign. At the time, I thought it was to protect Mother Nature’s islands in the stream that I was moved to keep chanting the mantra. But as time passed, as I ran in later county and Key West races and was labeled “the gadfly” and “the perennial” and “the God” and “the lunatic” candidate, I realized the mantra was an attempt to save the Keys economy from going even further into the tank. I came to see over-development had broken the back of the Keys economy and society. I seemed to be the only person who saw it that way. I saw people who should have known better equivocating about property rights and free enterprise. I saw doublespeak. I saw madness.
 
Today, the Keys face the threat of rising wind and flood insurance rates, which would make development far less attractive. We hear serious threats coming out of FEMA about taking the Keys out of the federal flood insurance and disaster relief program, which would kill all development except homes and structures for the super rich, who can afford the much higher insurance premiums required by private casualty insurers.

I can’t really blame FEMA for wanting to come down hard on the Keys. Hurricane Wilma wreaked havoc with her super high tide that flooded out thousands of ground-level homes from Key West up to Marathon and even above. FEMA and insurance companies took a huge bath with Wilma, which took no lives. Wasn’t too difficult to see her target: development in the Keys.

It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody at FEMA comes up with the bright, economically sound idea to stop providing federal-backed flood insurance for new construction in the Keys. George Neugent told me ast year that he thought that would be a good compromise with FEMA and US Fish & Wildlife, which do not like development in the Keys.
 
Our new Governor is a growth fanatic, but, incredibly, his Republican gnomes in the state legislature recently refused to let Keys representatives speak against proposed legislation that will let property insurance carriers increase flood and windstorm rates significantly throughout Florida and the Keys, which will squash new development. I’m still trying to figure that one out, even as I cheer it on, being a dyed-in-the-wool opponent of the Termite People.
 
For me, this all looks very good for Mother Nature. It causes me to wonder if the “no more new development” mantra back into 2006 set up a vibration in the collective unconscious that produced these curious anomalies that favor no more new development. That wonderment might seem like New Age poppy cock, but I guarantee you New Age people in the Keys would not accept that view. Only prompted by my angel-handlers do I open my big mouth and say it. I bet Carl Jung would have a tough time disagreeing with me.
 
Let me also toss in this. Before she was elected to the county commission, Heather Carruthers was deeply involved in FIRM (Fair Insurance Rates Monroe) getting Tallahassee to keep property insurance rates in the Keys from going through the roof. After being elected, Heather frequently spoke at county commission meetings on the county not doing anything that would jeopardize the Keys being in the Federal flood insurance and disaster relief program. Heather was in the Keys delegation the new Governor’s Republican gnomes in the state legislature recently refused to receive and hear out.

Along with George Neugent and new commissioner David Rice, Heather does not want a rule that requires 4-1 or 4-0 county commission vote to change the comprehensive plan – most significant development applications require comp plan changes. Heather, George and David opposed Amendment 4, which, if it had passed on November 2 last year, would require a voter referendum to change the county’s comprehensive plan. Heather liked the Wisteria Island development application and praised county staff for how they had handled it. Staff defected to the developers.

This was on bigpinekey.com‘s Coconut Telegraph bitch & moan, tout & boast, show your ass & tell page yesterday:
 
FTR continues to spin like a wheel. If he were not so hurtful, he would almost be amusing … almost. Don’t trust anyone that talks as much as he does or continually tries to convert you to his side. Think for yourself. 
 
You know, if this comment had not begun with FTR, I would have thought it was aimed directly at me, except for the fact my wheels fell off years ago and frequently I write in my posts, and tell people in conversations, that they probably definitely don’t ever want to have happen to them what befell me and to give thanks it didn’t happen to them - yet.
 
FTR stands for From The Right. He also writes near-daily political and economic diatribes, which are usually located at the bottom of each day’s Coconut Telegraph. A few months back, I had dinner with FTR and his wife, with Deer Ed who hosts and keeps the Coconut Telegraph going and somewhat orderly. I found FTR and his wife to be nice people. I did not see any horns on either of their heads. I did not see any crazed look in either of their eyes. I did not hear any idiotic statements come out of either of their mouths. Perhaps because Deer Ed and I hogged the conversation and supplied plenty of all of that. Perhaps if we two had kept our big mouths and opinions shut, Mr. and Mrs. FTR would have shown different stripes. Maybe one of them would have blamed President Obama for the impending invasion from Antares, where the first human-likes were seeded in this small galactic soup bowl. The Antareans are coming because their ancestors came to Earth a bejilliion years ago and started a colony here, which got a bit mixed up in its thinking after the Mothership left and some inbreeding with apelike natives occurred and now you know what the snake-in-the-Eden-weeds story is really about. Anyway, the Antareans are coming back to try to straighten out the mess President Obama caused because he ran for president claiming to be a black man, when he was only half a black man and half a white man and just as easily could have run as a white man, but no chance then would he have had of getting himself elected and giving FTR so much to write about. Now if the truth be told, the Antareans are a diversionary maneuver designed to draw the Antarean half-breeds’ attention away from the invasion from the Crab Nebulae led by distant ancestral relatives of TFR’s own beloved goddess, Sarah Palin, who is capable of making Barack Obama look like Jesus Christ by the time she is done weaving all of her spider webs. Me, I’m just sitting here watching and wondering if the real invasion will ever be noticed, or if it will even happen?
 
Meanwhile, on a slightly more down to earth front is this in from Citizens Not Serfs the other day.                                                                                                                                                                                            

 
As perhaps can be intuited from the above, CNS was hatched in from the grass roots to provide homeland defense for ordinary folks in the Keys against an invasion of developers and their lawyers, lobbyists, development-adoring elected government officials and strategically-placed government bureaucrats who breed and chomp like termites, thus their name: The Termite People. They have devoured all but a few quarter sections of the emerald forest that was the Keys before they gained control over just about everything they laid their greedy little paws and ravenous teeth on.
 
We also have in the Keys an outfit known as Last Stand, which has the mission of stopping The Termite People from eating any more living plants or animals in the Keys, who do not look like Termite People. And we have another crowd I came to call The Resistance, who are individuals that go after The Termite People in their borrows and drown and burn and gas their young because it is in their genes to go after them and do that. The Resistance people mount hunt and destroy missions without sanction from any group recognized by bureaucrats in the local, state or national government. They don’t worry about losing their IRS exempt status or grants because they don’t apply for exempt status or grants and thus weaken their ability to hunt and destroy The Termite People.
 
We also have a few stellar individuals who don’t fit to good into any category, so they get lumped into The Resistance.
 
One is Rose Dell, who when she isn’t helping her mom, who is Coco, run Coco’s Kitchen in the Big Pine Shopping Center or selling real estate, or nagging me, sits on the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority Board. How she even got on that board befuddles me, given her unceasing drive to cut costs, obey the rules, avoid even the mere appearance of impropriety, and to not roll over and spread the old legs for bubbas and bubbettes and the high and the mighty. Tokyo Rose’s last zero-sum mission was to try to stop the giving of raises to all the Aqueduct Authority employees, disguised as “merit bonuses,” which get to looking like raises when they are awarded every year. This year, the Executive Director’s $4,300 approximate merit bonus raised his $178,500 approximate annual salary to very close to what the head of the Mosquito Board was making, which caused such a commotion in the press during last year’s skeeter board races. Yet not a peep in the press about parallel goings on at the water company.
 
Another kamikaze type is Steve Estes, Publisher and Editor of the News-Barometer – newsbaromenter.com – on Big Pine. In this week’s issue, Steve takes on several quite serious issues in his typical cut-to-the-chase factual wry way. You want to stay on top of what is going on around Big Pine, you read the News-Barometer. You want to find out what is going on around sewerage and waste water, read the News-Barometer. You want to know what is going on around feral jaguars, attack opossums, rabbit-egg-eating raccoons, pythons, boas and anacondas, you read the News-Barometer. You want to find out what is going on at FEMA and US and Florida Fish & Wildlife, you read the News-Barometer. You want to know how many cars were destroyed on US 1 last month by buck Key deer dashing out of the bushes and stabbing the hapless vehicles’ radiators with their antlers, you read the News-Barometer. You want to know what is going on around windstorm and rising water insurance, you read the New-Barometer. You want to know what is going on in the minds of county officials, you read what Steve thinks is going in in their minds. If you want to laugh your ass off, you read this week’s Strictly Drivel column, which sends up a red alert, DEFCON 1, on the invasion of Big Pine by Key West wild chickens. After reading it yesterday, I called Steve and told him I couldn’t stop laughing and maybe the fowl invaders are Mother Nature’s homeland defense come to Big Pine to keep the invasive species awake all night with their crowing and clucking from their roosts in the pines, until all the invaders give up and move away. Maybe the fowl creatures got the idea for that tactic by watching Key West police keeping homeless people up all night, to make them all move up to Big Pine. 
 
If you still don’t know who all in the Keys belong to The Resistance, ask any of your five county commissioners, or any of your elected city officials, if you live in an incorporated area of the Keys. Better still, ask any developer operating in the Keys. You can bet the conch farm developers can print out a list with every member of the Resistance’s name on it. Yeah, you are wondering if that would be a hit list? You are wondering right. Maybe you would like to get your name on the list? The Resistance always is looking for more kamikaze pilots, which The Termite People call insurgents, terrorists, devils, loonies and so forth. In Japanese, kamikaze means Divine Wind.
 
For starters, Code Enforcement accepts anonymous code complaints. How about you law-abiding citizens file anonymous complaints against the owner of the illegal wall described in yesterday’s “Bubba Justice” post, so Code Enforcement can get on with doing what it should have done when this wall was built in 2001, in the middle of an easement, instead of along the property line, which the building permit application showed was where the wall would be built. The property owner had no intention of building the wall on the property line when he applied for the building permit. The current owner is not an innocent purchaser without notice. He was told before he bought the property that the wall was illegal, and the wall was excepted from his title insurance policy’s coverage.
 
Here’s the information you need for the complaint.
 
Property address: 177 Carambola Lane, Cudjoe Key, FL 33042. Mile Marker 20. Property owner: Harley Stock.
 
Click on this link to get to where you file the complaint.

You have to register, but if you click on the Anonymous box, you can file the complaint without providing any personal information.
 
The more complaints filed, the louder it will get.
 
Yeah, I already painted a bulls-eye on my front and back, so yeah, I filed an anonymous complaint.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
keywmyhome@hotmail.com
 
goodmorningfloridakeys.com, goodmorningkeywest.com
 
 
This below, compliments another FTR person I know in the Keys.
 
 
Six Truths in Life

Here’s a tale of bubba justice that rivals what I so far have read in BUBBA JUSTICE IN KEY WEST: POOPING ON THE PEOPLE IN PARADISE. I got this tale from Attorney Lee Rohe yesterday, and then confirmed it by talking with one of the eight affected Cudjoe Key property owners. I’m going to send this report to the county commissioners and county manager, to remind them that little people are just as important as the wealthy and influential.
 
Way back a ways, eight homes were built on Cudjoe Key off of Colson Road. Between these homes ran a 25-foot-wide a private easement for a ways, then it became a 50-foot wide private easement. A two-rut gravel road called Farah Way, also known as Carambola Lane, ran down the middle of the easement from a paved county road to a cove on the Atlantic Ocean where boats could be launched and taken out of the water. 
 
In 2001, one of the eight owners, Jamie Goodman, M.D., who now lives in Islamorada, applied to the county for a permit to erect a six-foot-high concrete wall along 220 feet of his property line adjacent to Farah Way, aka Crambola Lane. However, the wall was built down the middle of the private easement, and the effect was to bring one-half of the easement into Goodman’s yard and block off a view of and access to the launch site by any property owner but Goodman. The wall looks like a miniversion of the Great Wall of China. The county permitted the wall, but after it was built not in conformance with the permit, the county did not require the wall to be taken down.   
 
Goodman eventually sold his home, and it then changed hands a few times until Harley Stock bought it. Stock was told by property owners on Farah Way, which becomes Crambola Lane, there were problems with the private road and the wall, and the problems were excepted in the title insurance company’s binder issued prior to Stock purchasing the home. I don’t know for sure what the law in Florida is, but the law in Alabama is a purchaser of real estate acquires all of that property’s problems and is responsible for them.
 
Lee Rohe was hired by one of the other seven property owners to get this straightened out. Lee filed suit in the local courts, and the case was assigned to Judge David Audlin. However, for some reason Judge Audlin was unable to try the case, and Judge Sandra Taylor tried it and found for the plaintiff and against Harley Stock, who was represented by Attorney David Paul Horan.
 
Horan filed an appeal for Stock, and without issuing an opinion, the state appellate court affirmed Judge Taylor’s decision and remanded the case to the lower court for enforcement of Judge Taylor’s decision. All of this took nearly three years. After the case was filed, Stock spent a lot of money landscaping and fixing up the part of the easement on his side of the wall – as if he knew all along he would not have to take it down, Lee Rohe said to me.
 
After being unable to persuade Horan and his client to comply with Judge Taylor’s Order, Lee asked Judge Audlin to find Stock in contempt of court for not removing the illegal wall his predecessor in title had built. Enter county code enforcement, led by its attorney, Lisa Granger, who testified under oath, that is, she told Judge Audlin that because all eight property owners owned 1/8 undivided interests in the private easement, they also each owned 1/8 undivided interests in the illegal wall, even though seven of them had nothing to do with the wall being built. Granger said application by all eight property owners was required for a demolition permit to be issued. Judge Audlin bought that argument, but excluded Stock from the application requirement.
 
Getting the other seven property owners on board became problematic.  Two owners, one who has only an empty lot on Farah Wayand a second who has ocean access on their property and donot use Farah Way will not sign the demolition permit. Neither of these two owners are affected on a daily basis by the wall’s blockage of Farah Way.  Represented by David Paul Horan, these two property owners, not incuding Harely Stock, filed a new lawsuit seeking to block the enforcement of the case that had been tried and affirmed on appeal. Not parties to that case, the two new plaintiffs were not bound by its outcome.
 
Another property owner then went to Code Enforcement to file a complaint about the wall being built in the middle of the private road in violation of the permit. Code Enforcement told this property owner he could not file a complaint, because he was one of the eight property owners and all of them would have to apply for a demolition permit to take the wall down.
 
When Lee told me this, I guffawed, “Yeah, they were trying to protect him from waiving his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. That was all they were worried about.” Lee guffawed, as did that property owner when I repeated it to him.
 
Lee wanted to know what happens in a condominium development, when one condo owner violates the county code on common property? Are all of the other condo owners banned from filing a complaint with Code Enforcement? Or do all of them have to file the complaint for Code Enforcement to receive and process it?
 
Lee also wanted to know if I would file a complaint with Code Enforcement, which takes complaints from citizens and even anonymous complaints? I said I would have to sleep on that, but I liked this case in a macabre sort of way and I felt like sinking my teeth into it, starting with publishing it to my websites and through the Coconut Telegraph (the mouth of the Keys) of bigpinekey.com. I told the property owner the same thing, and said I knew all five commissioners, the county attorney and the county administrator, and I would let them know about this not all that unusual tale of bubba justice.

I asked the property owner how he felt about going back to Code Enforcement and demand they cite all eight property owners for code violation and give them a time certain to take the wall down, or start getting daily fines. He said he had checked with a well-known Keys contractor and had gotten a $3,000-$5,000 estimate to demolish and remove the wall, which he had no problem divvying eight ways. I said if he goes to Code Enforcement and tell them that, they might mess in their pants. In any event, it would be interesting to see what they did with it. He seemed to like the idea. He figured it had been rigged in Code Enforcement, but how to prove it?
 
When I ran that idea by Lee Rohe, to make sure he was okay with it, he said sure. Code Enforcement never recognized statutes of limitations. I said even court cases said Code Enforcement did not have to honor statutes of limitations. Lee said yep. He asked if I thought there was corruption involved?, I said perhaps, but I had seem some really idiotic stuff come out of county staff. Or it might be both idiocy and corruption. In all events, I said, it sure looked like a great tale to include in any sequel written to BUBBA JUSTICE, which the county libraries carried until the bubbas learned of it and made the libraries get rid of all of their copies.
 
I told the property owner that I am not a journalist and don’t have to operate by journalist rules. I said I wonder out loud about a lot of things, without necessarily saying they are true, even if I think they might be true, even if I would bet the conch farm they are true. It ain’t no big secret David Paul Horan is chummy with county staff, and who knows what all went on that nobody will ever come forward and say went on?
 
Lee said Harley Stock is a psychologist and he lives in Broward County and his Cudjoe Key home is a get-away place for him. Lee said he had heard Stock belongs to a small psychologist group that does a lot of business with the criminal justice system evaluating defendants in criminal cases, to determine whether or not they are competent to stand trial. A very lucrative practice, Lee said he had heard. Lucrative enough, Lee wondered, to enable Stock to covertly fund the second lawsuit Horan filed to block enforcement of the first lawsuit the appellate court affirmed and remanded for enforcement. I said I wondered if Stock was in need of psychological evaluation himself?
 
What I can’t comprehend is why Judge Audlin gave Lisa Granger’s testimony any weight. What did it matter whether or not one or all eight property owners owned that easement? Clearly the wall dividing the easement did not comply with the building permit and was illegal. Isn’t it the court’s affirmative duty to enforce the law when there is no dispute in fact? Especially after receiving a remand for enforcement from the appellate court? Judge Audlin had Code Enforcement’s attorney before him. He could have told her to enforce the county code, or he would hold her in contempt of court and jail her.
 
What I also cannot comprehend is why Code Enforcement, once learning of the code violation, did not itself enforce the county code. What did it matter who owned the wall? It was illegal. Isn’t Code Enforcement supposed to enforce the county code? Code Enforcement has enforced the county code against me on Little Torch Key for letting the grass in my yard get too high. I was threatened with a fine, if I did not take care of it. I wasn’t living there but was letting someone live there who could not afford to rent a place to live. Code Enforcement has made lots of people tear out and remove downstairs enclosures. Code Enforcement has made a lot of people who wanted to fix up their kitchen or bathroom, or repair their driveway or put on a new roof, or whatever bring everything out of code on their property into code compliance.
 
I asked the property owner what did he think would happen if he and the plaintiff Lee Rohe represented, to get revenge, built a wall across Farah Way and blocked Harley Stock’s access to his property altogether? Did he think Code Enforcement would sit still for that? Did he think Code Enforcement would tell him to get that wall taken down, or start getting fined heapum wampum a day and be dragged in front of a Code Enforcement Magistrate? He said, yep, that is what would happen. Of course that is what would happen.
 
The more I sit with Lee’s question, do I think corruption is involved?, the more I think maybe idiocy in Code Enforcement has nothing to do with this case. Somebody got smooched or stroked or promised something, or threatened with something. Code Enforcement needs no one’s permission to enforce the county code. Code Enforcement should cite Harley Stock and order him to tear down and get toted away Jamie Goodman’s wall, which Stock bought with his eyes wide open after being warned about it.  
 
Yeah, if Code Enforcement orders Stock to do that, he might (probably will) get David Paul Horan to appeal Code Enforcement’s citation to the Code Enforcement Magistrate, or to the County Commission sitting in its quasi-judicial capacity. So what.? Code Enforcement should enforce the county code and spare the people it is supposed to protect from having to go through the ordeal Lee Rohe’s client has endured.
 
I told Lee that if I were a county commissioner and got wind of this case back when, or even now, me and the county administrator, the growth management director and Lisa Granger would have ourselves a prayer meeting with Jesus over why Code Enforcement had not already gotten this straightened out all by itself. And if that prayer meeting did not get it straightened out, I would hang them all out to dry in plain view, like I’m doing now. And I would do it at a county commission meeting, so it would be carried over the county television station.
 
And then I might pick up the phone and call the State Attorney and file a criminal complaint against Code Enforcement staff for knowingly aiding and abetting a crime.
 
There is another post today on another kind of justice at goodmorningkeywest.com.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
keysmyhome@hotmail.com
 
goodmorningfloridakeys.com

 
 
A former Key West resident’s critique of these comments by me in a recent post on Key West’s Truman Waterfront:
 
“I also never liked the elder facility being located at Truman Waterfront, or the city giving the property to a developer, or the facility soliciting elder residents from ouside the city limits. I felt such a facility should be limited only to full-time Key West residents. No snowbirds, in other words. I also feel such a facility should be located near the hospital, for obvious reasons, instead of in the most difficult part of Key West for ambulances to reach. I will be surprised, if the facility is built on Truman Waterfront, if it does not turn out to be a retirement home for rich people.”
 
Hi Sloan,

I know you all probably get very weary of my continuing to poke my head into something that’s (probably, again) considered none of my business by some, or maybe even many, since I left Key West a year ago. But, darn it, just because I couldn’t afford to continue to live there doesn’t mean I don’t still love the island or that my heart was in leaving it, ’cause it just isn’t so.

With that said, I’m going to poke once again and just offer this one thing: I believe that when Joan Higgs and the rest of the committee came up with the waterfront affordable senior housing/assisted living facility, they were sincere in believing if they put it within walking distance of Old Town, those who were still able to get around, via their own two feet, adult trikes, a facility shuttle – however they could get around, the socialization of getting out to go into the shops, Tropic Cinema, the galleries, bookstores, church, etc. would help to keep them more active mentally and physically because they would not be inclined to sit alone in a room staring at four walls instead of interacting with other human beings, as too many would be inclined to do if it were anywhere else. This, in turn, would keep them healthier for the life they have remaining. And, even if their daily activity consisted only of going outside their unit to watch the sunrise or sunset (or both) or going to a market on the waterfront for some fresh foods, they still would be better off because doing even these small daily activities would bring some degree of interaction with others outside their four walls, plus give them daily exercise of a pleasant nature.

Plus, when the committee was considering it, they knew the land had already been given to the city, whereas the city would have to buy land on Stock Island or anywhere else – if there were ‘anywhere else left to build down there’. I truly believe their hearts were in the right place on this, Sloan.

And, I’m sorry, I can’t buy that the ambulances would have a difficult time getting to them there because before any units were finished and occupied, there would have to be good access roads built directly to them. Most of the roads already exist and just have to have paving from the end of them to the facility. I’ve had to go to the hospital in Key West and I lived on Petronia at the time. There are few roads in Key West as narrow as Petronia between Whitehead and Duval where I lived but the ambulance just stopped in the middle of the street and if anyone wanted around it, he just waited or backed up and went somewhere else if he could manage it. It happened all the time with emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles, the Conch Train, etc, because there was no room to pass anyone.

Ambulances where I live now have to traverse difficult to get to areas all the time, either because of the amount of traffic on as many as four lanes one way or because of the conditions of some of the roads that might not be in incorporated areas – I know because I worked on one of the ambulances in my time and most of those places still exist – and people just move out of the way, even on the older one lane roads, so they can get through to the injured or ill person. And, traffic there on the busiest of days is nothing like here on any given day. After an ambulance picked up the elderly resident of the facility on the waterfront, it would have to go less than five miles from anywhere there, but here ambulances go much further than that to the patient or hospital on nearly every call. If a tourist or local not living on the waterfront got hurt while walking or riding a bike down at the Waterfront Park, would the ambulance not have to go to that person? Of course. Same difference.

Whether the facility would truly be affordable is another point, entirely, and I agree with you on that. I saw the last figures and if $1100 for a studio was the best they still can come up with, then no, it is not affordable and probably would become the home of the more affluent Key Westers, as you predict. That’s my primary reason for leaving Key West. That is not affordable housing in anyone’s book.

So, in concluding my poke into the business of current Key Westers, I do think having the facility there – not directly on the water, as it isn’t planned for being directly on the water, but within a few feet from the water – is a good idea for the same reasons Joan and the others gave us – the socialization and the convenience of getting out to the shops, theater, galleries, bookstores and other affordable places they like to go right there in Old Town. Yes, Tennessee Williams Theatre is on Stock Island, but how many can afford those prices on a fixed income? I rarely could after I moved down there, as I could when I was still working and a tourist. And, there’s one, maybe two galleries on Stock Island, but no bookstores which the elderly like to frequent (unless one’s just opened up). There’s no way anyone could get to Old Town from Stock Island if they no longer were able to drive, or the spouse was no longer able to drive, except to take the shuttle every time and that isn’t the best way to see Old Town and they’d always have to be concerned about schedules from out there. That would just add one more stress factor to their lives. They certainly could not ride a trike or bike there from Stock Island, even if the facility were on College Rd because there’s no sidewalks until they’d get to U. S. 1. They’d be crazy to ride on U.S. 1 coming into Key West or to try to walk across U. S. 1 to get to the art gallery or to watch the sun rise or set over the water. No, can’t see that as feasible at all.

Okay, I’ve poked enough so will take myself off to bed where I should have been hours ago!

Enjoy today, Sloan!

Peg

My response:
 
I agree with Peggy, the people who began this project were well-intentioned and not trying to profit from it.
 
As for $1100 not being affordable rent for a studio in this facility, I paid $1150 rent, utilities and one parking space included, for a city-designated affordable efficiency apartment just off Duval Street from March 2007-March 2010. The city had determined that was affordable rent. I had to sign special papers for the city, to keep the landlord able to rent the apartment under the city’s affordable rent program. I seriously doubt $1100 per month for a studio in the proposed Truman Waterfront assisted living facility is likely to pan out. More like $2000 a month if and by the time the dust settles.
 
I do not agree with Peggy’s ambulance argument. This facility has been billed as assisted living. Although not every resident would need assisted living help, many residents would. In all events, this facility would house elders and need easy access to ambulances. I suppose that is why the nursing home on Stock Island is situated near the hospital and its helipad. The nursing home keeps opening and closing, I suppose because it isn’t making money. I’m not convinced an assisted living faciliity on Truman Waterfront, or anywhere in Key West, would do any better. I don’t think the city should give land to a project that looks this iffy going in, no matter how noble the intentions are.
 
I agree with Peggy, there is no free land on Stock Island known to me, on which an assisted living facility could be built. Nor do I believe elders are entitled to waterfront living. Very few people in Key West have waterfront living, and those who do are, in most cases, wealthy. I remain convinced the proposed assisted living facility on Truman Waterfront would end up being a rich-people’s retirement home. The rich can afford assisted living care in their homes and do not need an assisted living facility. I am not sympathetic to the argument I have heard that local elders need to sell their large homes because they don’t need large homes any more, and so they can move into the proposed assisted living facility. They can sell their large home and buy a smaller home, or rent a small apartment or condo, and pay for assisted living care.
 
Peggy does not address my objection to a commercial developer being given city land on which to build a facility intended to house elderly people who live outside of Key West. I do not believe city assets should be given to private interests in any event, and certainly not to benefit people who do not live in Key West. It was acknowleged at public meetings that there would not be enough demand from within Key West to fill the elder facility and make it economically viable. It was said that it was hoped the facility could be filled from within the Keys, but if that didn’t happen, the facility would be marketed to elders living on the mainland.
 
Again, I believe the idea for this project was well-intended, but but if someone like Peggy could not afford to live there, that alone makes it not right for Key West to subsidize it. I realize that probably is a minority of one viewpoint, as is this idea: Key West is said to have more churches for its size than any city in America. Let the churches dig into their treasuries and build and operate, or pay someone to build and operate, an assisted living facility in or near Key West. Isn’t that what Jesus would tell them to do, if he were among us today?

On another Truman Waterfront front is today’s Key West Citizen – keysnews.com – article about Bill Spottswood wanting the City of Key West to allow Meisel & Spottswood to move ahead with a privately financed development of a mega-yacht marina at Truman Waterfront on terms similar to what business owners at Garrison Bite pay the city, a monthly rent or a percentage of gross sales if that is greater than the monthly rent. Spottswood says in the article that the idea for a mega-yacht marina originated in city documents back in 2002 and he and his group are simply following through on that.
 
Meisel & Spottswood appear to have given up trying to use public money to finance this project. If they get approval from the city and obtain private financing, they will have their own assets on the line to guarantee that financing. Several times, at city commission meetings and in my posts, I criticized Meisel & Spottswood for trying to use public money to finance a private business venture, instead of putting their own assets at risk. So this is a step in a better direction, even though I remain skeptical that a mega-yacht marina is a good idea. Time will be the proof of that, just as time was the proof of what kind of idea Beachside was, a Spottswood Taj Mahal condo development at the top of Key West. I don’t imagine the Spottswoods today think Beachside was a good idea. Nor, I don’t imagine, does the bank that financed it and Spottswoods’ individual partners in that devleopment.
 
I still feel the city should approach the Bernsteins and Walshes about developing the Truman Waterfront property under a 99-year token lease and the city getting one percent of the gross revenues, an easement over Admiral Cut, and Wisteria Island for a public park. Another minority of one report.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
keysmyhome@hotmail.com
 
goodmorningkeywest.com goodmorningfloridakeys.com

comic relief from the usual source, I tweaked them some to fit the Keys

I met a fairy in Key West yesterday who said she would grant me one wish.
 
“I want to live forever,” I said.
 
“Sorry,” said the fairy, “I’m not allowed to grant wishes like that!”
 
“Fine,” I said, “then I want to die after our politicians get their heads out of their asses!”
 
“You crafty bastard,” said the fairy.

Email exchange yesterday with an old friend in my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, about a recent post critical of how the Wisteria Island development application was handled by Monroe County.

 
Hi, Linda. Thanks for your thoughts and encouragement. Gosh, I didn’t realize you were a high city official.
 
Deb wrote her impressions. Our process is what you describe as Bham City’s process. Our county staff receive and process applications, negotiate with development applicants, then make recommendations to the Planning Commission, which then passes on its recommendations to the County Commission.
 
The Wisteria application was atypical because the whole deal hinged on another municipality, Key West, agreeing to participate. This was known from the day the application was filed. Also known at the beginning, Key West already had showed this development the door, when it tried to come in through the city annexing the island. Instead of dealing with that then, county staff proceeded as if there was no third party. Aggravating, county staff knew how Key West had slam-dunked this developer in 2007. Further aggravating, county staff actually adopted quite disingenuous arguments the developer was making, which clearly ran counter to the county’s comprehensive plan.
 
The merit of the application, the normal issues that any development had to be worked through under the county’s comprehensive plan and land use regulations, were entirely distinct from the fact that the developer was attempting to jam Key West with a fait acompli through the county. What kind of good neighbor would the city be, if the county approved the application and then the city told the county to take a hike, especially when the developer clearly would sue the county for a huge sum, if the city declined and the county then could not provide the infrastructure and services the development needed, which the county could not do due to physical remoteness of its assets from Wisteria Island.
 
I can’t prove it, but it would not surprise me that there was some sort of payola, not necessarily cash or equivalent, but payola nonetheless.
 
The previous Growth Management Director got caught after the fact for having gone offshore fishing with developers and their paid talking heads, before recommending their applications to the County Commission. By the time that fish tale came public, the County Commission had approved the applications, but, thankfully, this county was still under oversight by the Florida Department of Community Affairs, which oversaw all of our comp plan changes, which these developments required. DCA shot down the developments, and by the time they came back before the County Commission, two of the developer-friendly commissioners had been voted out of office, and somewhat more public-interest-oriented commissioners had replaced them. The development applications were denied and now I think those developers are in bankruptcy. Ironically, if those developers had not been egged on by county staff, they might not have gotten in so deep.
 
Back to the Wisteria application. The way county staff let the developers set it up, it would not have been put to Key West until after the County Commission and DCA both had signed off on it. What happened to derail that slick scheme was, at a county commission meeting, the County Mayor preemptively demanded county staff poll Key West, to see where it stood. So invited, the Key West City Commission, getting much earfuls of no way, Hosea from constituents, and resenting the end run attempt to jam the city, said no way, Hosea.
 
I told a friend of the developers that if they had come to me instead of to Jim Hendrick, my old chess-playing buddy, I could have saved them a great deal of money and grief. Ditto had I been on the County Commission. Once I got wind of that application, I would have made it an agenda item at the next county commission meeting because of the obvious cart before the horse and the enormous amount of time staff was going to have to put into the application, while having plenty of reason to guess how Key West would go on it. I would have tried to get the other commissioners to agree to instruct county staff to poll Key West then, to save the city, the county, the taxpayers, and the developer a lot of time, money and grief.
 
Perhaps I’m crazy, but I believe someone who has the title Director of Growth Management, and several county departments under her, and a nice salary and benefits, should be smart and responsible enough to make that call, instead of proceeding like a robot that is not paid to think.
 
That’s more than you asked for, but maybe it will star in a post. You are used to starring roles, oui?
 
Ciao.
 
Sloan
 
Email exchange yesterday with a former Key West resident regarding recent Wisteria Island posts:
 
Dear Sloan,

Please pass my condolences on to Naja and her family. The Girards are nice people I met when her little boy’s book came out a few years ago.

Kahlil Gibran is my favorite philosopher and I have the poem on death she quotes. My favorite of all his works is The Prophet. Such a wise man and such a brave man to have hung on for as long as he could against the evil in his native land. (I took belly dancing once for exercise and relief from stress, and my dancing name, Kaleah, came from Kahlil, Karen, my oldest daughter, and Suzy, my youngest’s middle name, Leigh. I didn’t do the dancing long (should have, as I was still a really trim person, then) but the name stuck, of course, as my AOL address.)

I, too, find it sad what’s happened to Wisteria Island and have wondered what they could have done to destroy the pines like that. Of course, it is the Bernsteins’ property to do with as they wish, but I wish they’d have left it as it was and just donated it to the city for a beautiful natural beach, naturist beach, whatever – anything but what it seems is going to happen to it, no matter what anyone else wants – another Sunset Key to block Key West’s beautiful sunsets on the water.

I’m sorry but, even though, granted, the county has paid for the island’s clean-up and the people have enjoyed it all these years, which seems as though it should entitle the people of the county to its use, forever, sort of like a common-law marriage, I think it’s inevitable that’s what will happen one day (the development) because money always seems to speak loudest down there.

I do agree with Naja, that if Fish and Wildlife tags the vessels because they are on ‘public property’, that sends quite a mixed message to the public.

I had to laugh when he claimed Wisteria was not an “offshore island”, wondering when they picked it up and connected it to the mainland.

Best of luck to the Girards and all of you who continue to fight, without hope, it seems, for this (once) beautiful little island to remain so.  By the way, I love your rainbow poem, Life, Sloan.

Enjoy this beautiful day.
 Peggy

Hi, Peggy. Thanks. Apologies for so long replying. This Wisteria thing seems to run very deep, given how much I have written on it. Wish I knew where this curious trail I’m trying to stay on is going, but surprise rules the day. The Prophet and the two biographies affected me in ways I could only feel back in the early 1990s, when Gibran stumbled into me, so to speak. That was around the time the rainbow imagry, visions and poems came from out of nowhere. Another life, sometimes there are flashbacks; maybe some day they will play out in ways I didn’t see back then. Most things deep keep at it even unobserved. Sloan

Historically, money does seem to have always spoken the loudest down here, although Hurricane Wilma seemed not to be too concerned about that. Looks to me like Mother Nature and God are conspiring to try to create new priorities. No predictions, other than to say I don’t think Those Two are going to go down without a helluva fight.

Sloan Bashinsky

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

goodmorningfloridakeys.com

There is a conprehensive post on Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter (KOTS) today at this link: goodmorningkeywest.com  

Excerpts from mail back and forth with a member of The Resistance living down Key West way, prompted by day before yesterday’s ”life and death – Wisteria Island” post.

Hi, Deb. Your email puzzles me, because you attended the county meetings on Wisteria. You saw Growth Management do just what I wrote today that they did. I published quite a few posts about it back then and you did not disagree and encouraged me to keep writing and attending public meetings on Wisteria.
 
I don’t think I was alone in being incredulous that county staff spent so much time on Wisteria while not having a clue, nor even seeming to think it was relevant, what Key West might do. After the jolting reality check in Old City Hall, and getting some earfuls from Sylvia Murphy and, I imagine, other county commissioners, Christine Hurley and her staff did a 180 and started sounding like they worked for the county and the taxpayers, and not for the Wisteria developers.
 
I heard yesterday that it does not seem Wisteria has been assigned the FLUM designation it was told by the county commissioners to come up with, which will limit Wisteria to just 2 or perhaps as many as 5 homes being built on it. Don’t know what’s up with that, do you?
 
I have been to other county meetings where Christine and her staff were involved. Yes, they have tough job, balancing all the diverse interests. I did not see anything at those meetings that alarmed me about county staff, although I remain not terribly thrilled with the county paying Keith & Schnars $1,000,000 to facilitate the development of a new comp plan, which Christine and her staff could have done, if the county commission had told them to do it. 
 
Sloan  

Hi again, Deb.
 
Not sure we are entirely on the same page with Wisteria Island application. This was not your typical application, as it depended entirely on Key West coming on board, which the developers and county staff knew was a crapshoot. Clearly, the developers intended to put pressure on Key West to come on board by getting county and DCA approval. County staff clearly knew this and played along, instead of declining to play at all until the Key West question mark was resolved.
 
Do you remember Mitch Garvey arguing at a county meeting, just because the comprehensive plan says the county is supposed to discourage development in remote areas doesn’t mean the county cannot allow development there? Mitch spoke for Growth Management, including Christine Hurley, when he said that. I told him during a break that he sounded like he was bought. When he was unresponsive, I said it again and asked if he heard me? He said, yes, but he was not bought. I said he acted like it.
 
Heather Carruthers got very angry after the town hall meeting she hosted on Wisteria, when I told her off to the side that it was cart before the horse, when it all hinged on Key West. She said the developers were entitled to due process, or something like that. I already knew from her demeanor chairing the meeting that she also was in the developers’ pocket. Her due process argument and anger nailed it shut, as far as I was concerned.
 
The morning after the Key West City Commission declined for the city to get involved in the Wisteria development, the developers withdrew their application from that day’s county commission agenda. During the ensuing discussion, Heather praised county staff for the way they had handled the Wisteria application. What should have been done was rake county staff over the coals in plain public view. I imagine some commissioners did that privately, for staff then started singing an entirely different tune about Wisteria Island.
 
Your first email to me yesterday, telling me, it seemed, I was mistaken about county staff in the Wisteria deal, and taking up for them, left me more than puzzled. If left me wondering if you had lost your mind? If you trying to butter up county staff? If you were trying to be politically correct? I was outright alarmed. You are part of The Resistance. You are not supposed to pamper or take up for county or city staff who sell out to developers.
 
As we learned last week, we have the same thing brewing in City Hall over Truman Waterfront. You see how I dealt with that in today’s “taming the beast – Key West” post. Unlike Christine Russell, and I imagine quite a few other people, I’m not willing to pretend, or hope, it was not a sneak attack reminiscent of the stuff we saw happen around Safe Harbor during the reign of the last version of the Gang of Three county commission. I’m not willing to kiss and make up with people I don’t see looking out for the public interest.
 
Perhaps your advice for me to stop dreaming and get back into activism was well-given, as today I addressed Truman Waterfront head-on. However, my dreams the past two days pointed me in that direction. My dreams always point me toward what I am to take on, and then my dreams lead me through it and correct me when I get mixed up or upside down in my thinking. So in that sense, it would be a very big train wreck if I stopped dreaming. I would be totally lost, blind, deaf and dumb, because my dreams tell me what I need to know about everything I’m involved in, including personal matters.
 
For example, on both business and personal fronts, during the Wisteria saga, Jim Hendrick came to me in dreams, to explain how he was setting the county up for a nasty taking lawsuit. I wrote about that back then, but given ongoing effort to revive the Wisteria development, it probably needs to be said again. Jim and the Bernsteins and Walshes are nowhere near close to accepting defeat. .

I will continue to monitor the No Name Key situation. I view No Name as a last stand for Mother Nature in the Keys. As No Name goes, so will the Keys eventually go. Wisteria Island is similar to No Name in that respect.
 
Sloan

There is one other aspect of the Wisteria Island saga that came up again yesterday, in a Key West Citizen - keysnew.com – about the tresspass case being prosecuted against two men for being on the beach out there. Only one part of that case interests me: the public easement defense raised by one of the defendants, or perhaps by both of them. As I understand the law, if a property owner allows public use of the owner’s land for a long enough period of time, then the public acquires the right to continue using the land. If a public right to use the Wistera beach areas has been established in that way, then that is a good defense to the prosecution, in my opinion. It also is something the developer is stuck with in all future attempts to develop the island, for once a public easement is created in this way, it remains a public easement. 
 
Sloan

keysmyhome@hotmail.com
 
goodmorningkeywest.com, goodmorningfloridakeys.com 

 
The comic relief today is the above post.
 
I found two cheery posts on yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph of bigpinekey.com.
 

“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”  New York Times Co. v. United States -  US Supreme Court – June 30, 1971

*Number of Iraqis slaughtered since The U.S. invaded Iraq-1,421,933

*Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) in America’s War on Iraq:  4,754 

*Number of  International Occupation Force Troops slaughtered in Afghanistan-  2,330

*Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan- $1,154,121,429,003

 
Last night, I watched on television part of a documentary of US Marines taking a small town in Afghanistan from the Taliban. Two things leapt out at me. First, the marines seemed to have a sporting event attitude toward rousting and killing Taliban; like it was a game they enjoyed. Second, some civilian adults and children were killed in an explosion detonated by the Marines, and the way it was handled to make the peace was the families were paid $1,500 a head for their dead relatives.
 
Let us not forget our current president, who promised change and hope in his bid for the office, whom his followers believed would end the Bush wars, did not end the Bush wars but continued them in much the same vein Bush had fought them. Yes, the same president did that, who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely to deserve it. What a sickness, America, that it elects such presidents.
 
Three nights before 911, a voice I had come to trust with my life and my soul asked me in my sleep, “Will you make a prayer for a divine intervention for all of humanity?” I awoke and asked for a divine intervention for all of humanity. I don’t know if the prayer was answered. Maybe I didn’t know what to look for. Maybe it came and I didn’t see it.
 
What I did see was, on the one year anniversary of being asked that, I was asked the same thing again by the same voice in my sleep, and that time, in my sleep I asked for a divine intervention for all of humanity, and then I said, “And let it begin in me!” It’s been pretty much awful for me ever since.
 
SB

Christine Russell’s reply to day before yesterday’s be drunken, lovely trollops & dastardly termites post about the Truman Waterfront sneak attack in Key West. My reply follows.

The Truman Waterfront Advisory Board strongly supports the following upland components of the Truman Waterfront Conceptual Plan 
 
• Eaton Street Connectivity,

• Water features with public access,

• Oval green space with an amphitheater and multiuse recreational field of no less than the size of a regulation soccer field,

• Promenade walkway with access across Admiral’s Cut,

• Maritime Museum,

• Pedestrian and Bicycle access thru feeder streets including (Geraldine, Angela and Eaton Streets),

• Pool open to the public,

• Elimination of the road north of the identified Ferry Dock area to create more green space if possible,

• Bicycle paths along all roadways,

• Preserving and creating view corridors and entry ways or gateway features,

• Public access boat ramp with public parking available,

• Market space on the identified Presidential Lawn and Event Plaza.

The support of the conceptual plan and the above listed components are conditioned by the following:

• The Board has taken no position on the actual development, ownership or control of the parcel at this time,

• The location and arrangement of the above design should be determined by a professional park planning firm chosen through the City’s request for qualification (RFQ) or appropriate process,

• The identified 6.6 acres along Fort Street are not part of the recommendations to the LRA at this time but would like to emphasize that the look of the park and access elements to all portions of the property be coordinated,

• That use of proposed facilities or areas by a particular group not be identified at this time,

• All construction Comply with Florida Building Codes Florida Statute 255.2575(2) (Green Buildings).

***********************

Hi, Christine. Thanks for your comprehensive assessment, questions and suggestions.  Sweet-talking you is about as much fun as sweet-talking a cactus. Here are my own thoughts, not anyone else’s as far as I know.
 
I never saw anything this diverse where everyone all got along on it. What ended up happening was a lot of concessions that ended up being called a consensus, which sounded good but a lot of people were left not feeling very happy about the outcome. However, they pretended it was okay, since that was the politically correct thing to do.

I ran into Robert Spottswood maybe two years ago at Finnegan’s Wake. He said he wanted to get together with me and talk about Truman Waterfront. I said, fine, let me know when and where and I would be there. That was as far as it went.
 
Todd German told me maybe six months after that brief talk with Robert Spottswood that Jack Spottswood wanted to have lunch with Todd and me. I said, fine, let me know when and where and I would be there. That was as far as it went.
 
It would not surprise me if the Spottswoods are getting double talk out of city staff and perhaps even elected citiy officials. It would not surprise me if promises and/or assurances were made to the Spottswoods but when public heat appeared, promises and/or assurances were forgotten.
 
I remain convinced the resolution that got pulled was an attempted sneak attack launched through allegiant county staff with tacit nod from one or more elected city officials acting under plausible deniability if it went sour. My dream radar operators still see it that way.
 
I now am convinced Mayor Cates, whom you know I personally like, is way out of his depth in seriously deep shark-infested waters. I told Todd day before yesterday that I do not feel Craig is capable of conceiving, therefore able to realistically deal with the sharks. Todd, who also likes Craig, said I might be right about that.
 
Looked to me all along that the Spottswoods only wanted to include part of the Truman Waterfront upland in their proposal as inducement for them to get the marina, which was their only real interest at Truman Waterfront. Getting part of the upland to develop also would give the Spottswoods assess to Tourist Development funds not available to the development of the proposed mega yacht marina.
 
I never liked the Spottswoods not putting their own assets at risk in their Truman Waterfront proposal and looking to Tourist Development Council and city-backed revenue bonds to do the development.
 
I also never liked the elder facility being located at Truman Waterfront, or the city giving the property to a developer, or the facility soliciting elder residents from ouside the city limits. I felt such a facility should be limited only to full-time Key West residents. No snowbirds, in other words. I also feel such a facility should be located near the hospital, for obvious reasons, instead of in the most difficult part of Key West for ambulances to reach. I will be surprised, if the facility is built on Truman Waterfront, if it does not turn out to be a retirement home for rich people.
 
I had hoped Bahama Conch Community Land Trust would be able to live up to its vision for its assigned parcel of Truman Waterfront, but that hope did not pan out.
 
If it were my call, I would lump all of the Truman Waterfront, except for the outer mole, back into the same pot.
 
I would make the outer mole public space anyone can use to park their vehicles, walk, jog, bicycle, swim, fish, picnic, watch sunsets, etc., like it was used by the public several years ago.
 
The rest of Truman Waterfront needs to be seriously examined for toxic wastes in the land and in the harbor bottom. Until that has been dealt with, including toxic waste removal, nothing should be done there.
 
Once the toxic wastes are dealt with, I would offer ALL of Truman Waterfront, except the outer mole, to the Washes and Bernsteins, under a 99-year lease. They have the know how and the horses to develop it in keeping with that part of Key West. Just around the corner is the Walshes 5-star hotel and upscale commercial waterfront. Looks like a perfect fit to me. If the Bernsteins and the Walshes want to build a marina, or license that out to the Spottswoods, that will be their prerogative under the 99-year lease.
 
In exchange, the Walshes grant an easement over Admiral Cut, the city gets one percent of the gross off the top of what the Walshes and Bernsteings make on Truman Waterfront, and the Bernsteins deed Wisteria Island to the city, on condition the island be turned into a city nature park, in perpetuity. Taking title to Wisteria probably will require a city referendum, as the city cannot annex or purchase real estate without voter approval. 
 
All of that have I written before, and nobody seemed to think it was a good idea. I still think it’s a good idea, and so do the angels I often am accused of inventing. Meaning, I don’t see me getting terribly thrilled about anything else I have seen suggested for Truman Waterfront.
 
However, if I have to choose between the other ideas, I vote for all of the Truman Waterfront upland area to be public space: walks, gardens, sports fields, a small outdoor concert area, and lots of space left for parking during events such as the power boat races. With the Navy’s blessing, I vote for the marina being turned into a sea museum in keeping Key West’s pirate, shipwrecker and US naval history.

The city does not need another commercial marina, because the marinas it and Stock Island already have are begging for more customers. Nor does the  city need another public swimming pool. There is a beautiful olympic-size pool with an ocean view at the Martin Luther King Center in Bahama Village.

Sloan

keysmyhome@hotmail.com
 
goodmorningkeykwest.com, goodmorningfloridakeys.com