the devil himself

Keynoter reporter Sean Kinney called me yesterday to say Key West Mayor Craig Cates had told him I had told Craig I was going to run against him again this year. I said I did not tell Craig, or anyone, I am going to run for mayor this year. I wrote that I will be surprised if I am not told to run, but I have not conceded it, because I don’t want to run again. I said when Todd German recently told me it looked like Craig and I might be the only two mayor candidates this year, I said I didn’t want to run again and did not want to be Craig’s campaign manager again, and if I did run again, my opening remarks at Hometown! PAC’s first call to candidates would be memorable. Sean said what I pulled off at the Hometown! PAC call to candidates in 2009 would be really hard to top. I agreed, then wondered out loud what my saying my opening remarks would be memorable meant? How could 2009 be topped?”

I told Sean I didn’t think it was time for him to do a piece on me. He asked, what if he just quoted what I said, without making it look like I had declared? He would tell me what he was going to say about me, to make sure it was right. I said, okay, send me the article and I will read it. Sean said he could not do that, but wanted to read what he had written down. I said that won’t stop Larry Kahn [Editor of the Keynoter] from writing over it. Sean said he would stay on top of it. I said, okay, read it. He said it would be something like, “Bashinsky said if he was told to run, he would run, but he does not know what’s going to happen.” I said it needed to say, “told by angels to run,” or readers who do not know me will wonder who would to tell me to run? Craig Cates? An enemy of Craig? The Mafia? See the problem? I said the angel talk will cause people who do not know me to write me off immediately, which is what I want them to do because I don’t want the job. Sean added in the angels and read it again, and I said okay.

Now we will see whether or not violating my own solemn oath last year, that I never again would be interviewed by a Keynoter or Citizen journalist, was idiotic. Sean said his article will be in Saturday’s Keynoter, so we will see what we will see.

God only knows what will happen at the first Hometown! PAC call to candidates in early August, if I am told by the angels to be there. Very few people ever believed I did not arrange for Aphrodite to burst topless into Hometown! PAC’s first call to candidates in 2009 and shout, “Nude beaches for Key West! Sloan for Mayor!,” just as a shy and nervous Craig Cates made his first public remarks ever as a candidate for office. I had no clue Aphrodite was going to do that and was as shocked and delighted as just about everyone else at Salute. I told Sean Aphrodite is living in Key West right now and she still doesn’t want to be my girlfriend. Hard to blame her, my daughters are a good bit older than she is and there probably isn’t enough digitalis to keep my heart beating. Ironically, I have not met another woman so tuned in to the spirit energies as Aphrodite is. I cannot imagine what it is like for her to be with people in her thirty-age generation, who have no clue what she experiences every moment of her life. Well, maybe I can imagine it, since the same thing happens to me.

Later yesterday, I called Todd German to tell him Sean had interviewed me and how it had gone. Todd is Chairman of Hometown! PAC. He said people asked him lately why he talks to me after I threw him under a bus? I said he threw himself under the bus by putting me to deal with what he had told me to stay out of because he would deal with being told by a PTA mom that City Commissioner Teri Johnston was at public meetings where the Hoace O’Bryant plans were present. I said the people who sided with him over what I wrote about that were still shitting in their diapers and needed to grow up. I asked why would I want to get elected and preside over a nursery? Todd agreed, it often is a nursery.

I said I still had not heard from former School Board member Pat Labrada, who put on an old Conch blog that there were many public meetings where the Horace O’Bryant plans were present. Todd said maybe Pat didn’t know what happened at those meetings. I agreed, said maybe that is why he didn’t call me back. I did not say maybe you can’t necessarily trust everything old Conchs say. Later, it occurred to me to use this again.

Todd said Horace O’Bryant is getting too much air time, there are far more important things that need attention. I said Sean Kinney said he really liked what I was writing about Horace O’Bryant; I was making really good points – Sean is on my email hit list. I said my writing so much about Horace O’Bryant tells me just how important the angels think it is compared to other things. Todd said Horace O’Bryant would work for my advantage in a campaign against Craig Cates. I said I had said that a month ago, that it and Glynn Archer would be the hottest issue in this years city races, and still I didn’t want to run.

Later, I wondered if Todd said Horace O’Bryant was getting too much air time because yesterday morning a Citizen article put his good friend Ed Swift in bright lights, as standing to make a bundle developing the School District’s land at Trumbo Point after Horace O’Bryant is built and the Glynn Archer Elementary students move there and the School Board moves its administrative offices from Trumbo Point to Glynn Archer.

Due to a legal technicality, the owners of Wisteria Island will get another crack at convincing Monroe County to let them build a resort and marina on the offshore island.

The owners — the Bernstein family, under the name F.E.B. Corp. — have proposed building 75 residential units on the island, as well as a marina, restaurant and shops.

F.E.B. pointed out it was notified as the “landowner” prior to a special County Commission meeting scheduled in March to discuss the island’s land use category, but it was not properly notified as “a surrounding property owner.” F.E.B. attorney Tim Koenig successfully argued that his client also should have been sent a notice as the owner of surrounding property because F.E.B. owns submerged land adjacent to the island.

F.E.B.’s notification as an “owner” also was delivered 25 days prior to the County Commission meeting, but that was insufficient by five days, said Assistant County Attorney Susan Grimsley, adding that county code is unclear on that point.

The March special commission meeting was cancelled due to the technical notification error, but Grimsley subsequently determined that the same notification error had occurred prior to a Nov. 3 Planning Commission meeting. Thus, the proposal must go back to that board for a second vote.

At the November meeting, planning commissioners voted 3-2 to limit development on the 21-acre island, despite objections from Roger Bernstein, the point man for the F.E.B. proposal, and his planning team. Commissioners Jim Cameron and Jeb Hale supported Bernstein’s position, saying the man-made island is neither environmentally sensitive nor home to protected plants and animals.

They said the residential conservation land use designation is too restrictive, and the owners should be allowed a designation that allows for commercial and residential uses.

However, Commissioners Liz Lustberg and Denise Werling and board Chairman Randy Wall disagreed. But Wall said he was on the fence on the issue.

“I fear I’m not going to vote my heart,” he said, and then voted for limiting development on the island

The Planning Commission, which will make a recommendation to the County Commission, is scheduled to discuss F.E.B.’s proposal at its May 25 meeting at the Marathon Government Center.

tohara@keysnews.com

Were I Key West’s mayor, after reading that, I would pick up the phone and call Roger Bernstein and say, “Over my dead body will Key West help you develop Wisteria Island with its assets.” Then, I would call the county commissioners and tell them the same thing and give them bloody hell for the County entertaining the Wisteria application and wasting the taxpayers’ money without having Key West on board, when the whole deal hinges on having Key West on board. Todd German is a big proponent of Key West giving Bernstein everything he wants. Todd can’t help it. A banker, he wants Roger’s business. Not a banker, I would tell Roger to comply with the County’s comprehensive plan and land development regulations, and build a few posh self-contained green homes on Wisteria, sell them to rich green people, and be done with the environmental nightmare he keeps telling us Wisteria Island is.

Correction to yesterday’s savvy & brutal – Key West, mostly post. It was after Todd German spoke to a Realtors meeting, not to a PTA meeting, that a woman-school child parent came up to him and complained that City Commissoner Teri Johnston had been at public meetings when the plans for the new Horace O’Bryant School were present.
 
Reply from Jim Brooks, Information Officer Naval Air Station Key West, to yesterday’s post:
 
Out of curiosity…were there any artist/architecture drawings provided of what the finished school was going to look like? You can toss numbers out at a meeting and people’s eyes are going to glaze over. I am not familiar with any construction project where an artist’s conception wasn’t provided. Heck, I’ve already seen a few for the proposed Truman waterfront park. Sure looked nice! Jim
 
Hi, Jim. Good questions, which I share and am trying to get answered. Consider this below from this morning, which is looking like it might be part of tomorrow’s harangue, thus some of my wising off in places . . . 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Pop quiz yesterday to the five School Board members, with copies to Margaret Romero of Key West, and City Commissioner Teri Johnston, in whose voting district Horace Obryant Middle School and the new Horace O’Bryant lie.
 
FW: savvy & brutal – Key West, mostly?
To John Dick, Andy Griffiths, Duncan Mathewson, robin@smith-martin.com, Ron Martin, concerns@tamehob.com, Teri Johnston
From: sloan bashinsky (keysmyhome@hotmail.com)
Sent: Wed 4/27/11 12:04 PM
To: John Dick (john.dick@keysschools.com); Andy Griffiths (andy@fishandy.com); Duncan Mathewson (duncan.mathewson@keysschools.com); robin@smith-martin.com; Ron Martin (ronmartin4mcsb@aol.com)
Cc: concerns@tamehob.com; Teri Johnston (johnston@keywestcity.com <mailto:johnston@keywestcity.com> )
 
Dear School Board members:
 
Here are emails today from Margaret Romeo and Teri Johnston.
 
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:03:55 -0400
From: concerns@tamehob.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: savvy & brutal – Key West, mostly
 
Sloan,
 
I went to KWHS the other morning. The 2004 dedication plaque on the outside wall at Key West High School indicates that Pat Labrada was the school board chairman at the time. Also on the board were Debra Walker, Eileen Quinn, Anne Kelly Cohan, and Andy Griffiths. It shows the Superintendent was Michael Lannon and the Program Manager was Ken East. Word around town, which I have not verified, is that Mr East was a “vendor” that handled the Sugarloaf School construction. I understand he is currently a VP of Coastal Construction which is building the new HOB. I am sure that the school district can provide you with the dates of his employment and his salary. I’ll bet that their purchasing dept can provide you with the terms of his contract and how much he was paid to “handle” Sugarloaf. Supposedly, the name of his company at that time was East-Dalton.
 
The plaque indicated that the architects were Fanning Howey Assoc and construction was performed by Heery International.
 
If I am not mistaken, Coastal has other past and current projects in the lower keys.
 
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 09:49:54 -0400
Subject: 3-10-10 meeting in Old City Hall
From: tjohnsto@keywestcity.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com mailto:keysmyhome@hotmail.com
 
Sloan,
 
Reviewed the DVD yesterday on this 3-10-10 School Board meeting held in Old City Hall. A black and white site plan showing the location of the buildings was presented by Mr.Sims.
 
Mr. Sims did say that he had forgotten to bring the elevations to the meeting which would show the height of each proposed building. This DVD is a public record if you would like to review.
 
Teri
 
I find it a bit odd that Simms, whom I understand is HOB project manager, did not bring site elevations to the public meeting. Actually, I find it more than odd. Did any of you see the new HOB building elevations before ground was broken?
 
I heard today from someone else in Key West, after Ken East left the School District and went into private business, consulting of some kind, Fred Simms replaced him at the School District. Now East is a Vice-President of the construction company doing HOB, for which Simms is project manager for the School District?
 
Following up on Margaret’s suggestion, I am asking you for Ken East’s dates of employment, if any, with the School District, and the amounts of compensation, if any, he was paid as a consultant or whatever for Sugarloaf School. I figure you can get that information easier than I can. And I figure you want to get it, given the current climate.
 
Sloan
 
I nearly included at the end something like, “Suspicious by nature, I get a lot more suspicious when I ask somebody something and don’t get an answer back.” Then, I decided to see what they would do with it, without the jibe.
 
My reply to Teri’s email:
 
RE: 3-10-10 meeting in Old City Hall?
To tjohnsto@keywestcity.com
From: sloan bashinsky (keysmyhome@hotmail.com)
Sent: Wed 4/27/11 12:11 PM
To: tjohnsto@keywestcity.com mailto:tjohnsto@keywestcity.com
 
Hi, Teri. This helps some. I sent you something separate just a moment ago. I found Pat Labrada’s phone in the telephone directory and called and left a message asking him to please call back and confirm he was at public meetings where the HOB elevations were available, he saw the elevations at those meetings, and where those meetings were held. It’s those meetings I keep hearing about that keep worrying me. Sloan
 
Jim Brooks’ reply:
 
My own person opinion, sounds like an example of groupthink. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
 
No argument here, Jim. Pulled this below from the link you provided, which seems a pretty good summary. Perhaps groupthink, about same thing as herdthink, probably close kin to mass psychosis.
 
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints. Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, structural faults, and situational context play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the decision-making process
The primary socially negative cost of groupthink is the loss of individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking. While this often causes groupthink to be portrayed in a negative light, groupthink under certain contexts can also help expedite decisions and improve efficiency. As a social science model, groupthink has an enormous reach and influences literature in the fields of communications, political science, social psychology, management, organizational theory, and information technology^[1] .
The majority of the initial research on groupthink was performed by Irving Janis. His original definition of the term was, “A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive ingroup, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action” (Janis, 1972) ^[2]. 
 
Symptoms of groupthink
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).
Type I: Overestimations of the group –its power and morality 

1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.

Type II: Closed-mindednes

1. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
2. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid.

Type III: Pressures toward uniformity

1. Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
2. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
3. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”
4. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision-making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking^[11]

1. Incomplete survey of alternatives
2. Incomplete survey of objectives
3. Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
4. Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
5. Poor information search
6. Selection bias in collecting information
7. Failure to work out contingency plans.

  
This reminds me of consensus-building gathering the directors of the Waldorf School called when I lived in Boulder, Colorado. My stepson attended the school, and I usually went to parent meetings because I figured they would come up with some New Age Yuppie hair-brained idea that would not suit my stepson or the school. Meaning, I took contrary positions at most meetings. However, on this occasion I’m about to share, I had told my wife, the boy’s mother, to go, as I was likely to be too abrupt and horsey, and maybe she could do better getting their attention. Then something came up she had to take care of, so I went after all, cussing the angels I knew had given my wife something else to do, so I would be at the meeting with the New Age Yuppie hair-brains.
 
The directors had brought in a high-paid consensus building hotshot woman from somewhere to help us all agree to do what the directors wanted us to do about a large project they wanted the school undertake a few miles from the existing campus. I thought the directors had lost their ever-loving minds, because they were only just getting going good on their “comprehensive plan” for the existing campus. The other land, which a parent of a kid in the school wanted to give to the school, was sacred land to the Native Americas out there and I was getting real strong vibes that land wanted to be left alone, and if it wasn’t left alone, then something nobody liked would happen to the land at the existing campus.
 
I said that at the meeting and held out and singularly defeated the consensus. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit fun, even as it was seriously aggravating to have to deal with their handwringing and whimpering and stares and New Age Yuppie Fukawi Indian we must all get along and be happy religion. The hotshot high-paid know it all from somewhere said I didn’t believe in consensus. I said I didn’t believe consensus was more important than doing what was best for the school and the children.
 
Even though no consensus was reached, the directors decided to move forward on the other land anyway. About two weeks after that, they discovered serious leaks in the natural gas lines under the school ground and buildings at the existing campus. That was how the angels taught me what they thought about consensus-building as a be and end all. They had done something similar a few years earlier, after I got certified in conflict mediation, to teach me how they felt about conflict mediation as a be and end all. I never had much use for either method of conflict resolution after that, and perhaps what you sent today on groupthink, about same thing as herdthink, probably close kin to mass psychosis, puts rational explanation to what I learned through on the job training.
 
From Christine Russell of Key West yesterday, on same general topic.
 
Sloan -

That is one marriage ceremony I won’t be attending!  WHO in their right mind could continue to promote ANY business partnership with this School District?!  In addition to bad blood the City has had the School district over the past several years (do you come to or pat attention to City Commission meetings?!) So now we have the School’s appraisal coming back $2 million + higher than the previous appraisal – Surprised?  Not me.   And now we have the School Board talking about headquarters in the middle keys instead of at Glynn Archer.  That makes a lot of sense – but that is logical, so I am sure they will not pursue this.  The City of Key West should run like hell away from ANY partnership with this school district, we have enough problems of our own without their problems and poor decision-making skills.  

 
Hi, Christine. I watched on Comcast about an hour and a half of the recent School Board budget meeting at Coral Shores High School. I fell asleep three times, as I recall. Then I turned it off. Sounds like you should have run for the School Board last year, given your education background and passion for the subject. I think it makes eminent sense to move the School District offices to Marathon. I had that discussion a couple of weeks ago with Steve Pribramsky, who reminded me he had promoted that during his campaign. I said I hear the top floor of Marathon High School is unused – they overbuilt that high school under pressure from that community, which wanted a high school as large as Key West High School, even though they didn’t have the student count to justify it. Recently, there was talk of putting lower school children into that empty space at Marathon High School, when then was shot down because it was said younger students should not mingle with high school students. I told Steve the School District offices should go into the top floor of Marathon High School, and into the white elephant next door - the now empty retirement home, wasn’t it?, Randy Acevedo had the School District buy. Fix that up for more administrative offices, instead of fixing up Glynn Archer for administrative offices. What more sensible idea than that, to call off the clearly unadvisable marriage your and my dear friend Mayor Craig Cates keeps pushing for the new City Hall to be at Glynn Archer with the new School District Offices? Let the School District get out of its Trumbo Point offices and unload that valuable waterfront property for mucho doubloons to a developer to help pay for things the School District cannot pay for now. The School District has lots of real estate it doesn’t need and should try to sell to shore up its skinny bank account. I imagine if the administrative offices are centralized in Marathon, that will seriously reduce a lot of administrative jobs, and travel at $4-plus a gallon. The argument has been, we need so many administrative positions up and down the Keys because of how long and and narrow the school district is. From Marathon, it’s only an hour drive up to Coral Shores High School and about the same down to Key West High School. They should have done this already. If they had, I imagine the new HOB would still be a middle school, because the Glynn Archer students would have stayed home. Meaning, the new HOB would be a lot smaller and a lot shorter, and we would not be having any of this insane discussion. I got something today on group insanity from Jim Brooks, check out link he provided, which you might find entertaining. I also got some other interesting stuff today, which I might air out tomorrow, as well. Sloan
 
It’s now pre-dawn Thursday, April 28. No reply yet from Pat Labrada or the School Board to my inquires. From Naja Girard, I received a history of schools in Key West dating back into 2006, as reported in The Citizen. After reading those news reports, I, like School Board member John Dick, don’t know how Horace O’Bryant became a K-8 school. Seems that idea was nixed by strong opposition in community meetings. New HOB became a serious rush job in 2010 because of time limits related to a low interest federal stimulus money loan that would be used to build it. Such a rush job that maybe the kind of public vetting that had occurred in the past for Key West school issues was not feasible and still use the stimulus money. In one article, see below, School Superintendent Joe Burke is quoted as saying they should give the stimulus check back, if they were not going forward on new Horace O’Bryant with all due speed. After reading this article, I wondered how the hell did we got from there to here? Then I thought, well, it was rigged. That’s how. Somebody is making a bundle off of HOB who should not, and now there may be no way to stop it.
 
Financial woes on School Board agenda - 03/09/2010

Then, I see see this exciting front-page groupthink news today in The Citizen, which caused me to resurrect the New Age Yuppie groupthink story I had included in last night’s draft of this harangue, but then deleted it earlier this morning because I felt maybe it was extraneous. No chance, of course, the angels didn’t know when they sent me back to Boulder yesterday that this Florida version of New Age Yuppie groupthink was going to be in the news today.
  

BY MANDY MILES Citizen Staff
mmiles@keysnews.com School District officials are looking into ways to lower the height of the buildings still slated for construction at the Horace O’Bryant school campus, but still will enter into inter-governmental mediation over remaining discrepancies.
City officials met Wednesday with School District personnel and the architect who designed the new school, which features a new middle school building that stands more than 30 feet higher than city law allows.
“They said they still want to look into lowering the height of the buildings still to be constructed, and that’s been my position all along,” City Manager Jim Scholl said Wednesday evening.
The city’s planning department is in the process of identifying variances, or exceptions to city law, that will be needed for the project, Scholl said.
The planning department did not review the plans before the $36 million construction project began. School officials contend they do not have to comply with city building laws because educational facilities have their own set of state-mandated regulations.
City Attorney Shawn Smith has said the School District must comply with the city’s land development regulations, which regulate height. Horace O’Bryant school is in a neighborhood with a 25-foot height cap, and the new middle school building is 56 feet tall, according to School District plans. It may be even higher when measured using city standards.
The School District must build from a height that is one foot above the flood plain level, and as such measures the building as 56 feet tall. The city measures building height from the crown of the nearest road, which is an estimated 8 feet lower than the building site, meaning the building would be considered 64 feet high.
“This is one of the real remaining points we have to figure out, regarding the city’s height regulation from the crown of the road versus the School District’s requirements from flood plain level,” Scholl said.
The inter-governmental conflict resolution process, outlined in Chapter 164 of the state statutes, began Tuesday when the Monroe County School Board approved a resolution to begin the process.
Scholl said that he and Smith believe the process is the appropriate way to proceed.
“It is the intent of the Legislature that conflicts between governmental entities be resolved to the greatest extent possible without litigation,” the law states.
It requires the head of each entity or their designee to participate in a “conflict assessment” meeting within 30 days of the start of the process. If no agreement is reached, both government bodies are to meet in a joint public meeting. If no agreement is reached then, the entities would select an impartial mediator and explore all avenues of mediation before taking the case to court.
“An impartial third party will give us the opportunity to come up with a mutually agreeable solution,” Scholl said. “There are still some discrepancies in our interpretation of different elements of the state statutes.”
Fred Sims, the School District’s facilities director, also participated in Wednesday’s meeting, but did not return phone calls seeking comment.
mmiles@keysnews.com
 
Fred Simms did not return phone calls. Imagine that! I’d love to run Simms through a polygraph. Then, I’d love to run other people through it. Then, I’d love to see some pirate justice dispensed. Watching defendants walk the plank in shark-infested waters probably would not be nearly as satisfying as watching them be keel-hauled backwards over the barnacles on the bottom of the hull in shark-infested waters.
 
Meanwhile, some sanity from my oldest Bashinsky first cousin yesterday, who took a Masters in Clinical Social Work at Florida State University and subsequently taught and worked with mentally-challenged children:

Sloan, I just received this from Donna. The writer is correct in saying a school must comply with DOE’s ruling of so much space per number of students to be attending the school. Interesting letter.  Peg
 
Hi, Peggy. Thanks for sharing this. Donna Windle never saw a development she didn’t like. However, this letter was not written by her, but by a former member of the School Board. My thoughts in CAPS, in the body. Sloan

 
Hi Sloan, I’ll admit that I’m “totaling” out of my element in this argument. Whether you respect Donna or she respects you isn’t really my business. I didn’t realize it had originally been planned for k-8; I thought it was to be a middle school – period. Now, I understand why it had to be larger. That part of it befuddled me. I hope it gets straightened out to everyone’s satisfaction, though I don’t really know how that can happen. I just hope the kids aren’t the losers in the whole situation.

Try to have a peaceful Easter Sunday, Sloan.

Peggy

Email back and forth, mostly yesterday, with Mandy Miles, who writes for The Citizen, the Keys only daily newspaper – keysnews.com.
 
Hi Sloan,Just letting you know that the HOB architect is Rick Z. Smith of Tampa, and I believe the main contractor is Coastal Construction. I mentioned both names in an article a week, maybe 10 days, ago and quoted Rick Smith, as I was able to reach him in his Tampa office.Take care, Mandy Miles Key West Citizen

Hi, Mandy. I’m yet reluctant to name and huamanize them. Re John Dick saying on US 1 Radio today that the School District had received code vioaltion for HOB. Do you know if this is same as red-tag – stop work order? Or is is something else (less strict)? Thanks. Sloan
 
I’m wondering the same thing. Am trying to track down a copy of the notice and find out the specific implications as compared to a stop-work order. I’m hearing that it requires the school district to take “corrective action” on the height violation within 10 days, but I haven’t seen a copy myself yet. The school district is telling me I can’t get a copy of it until Monday and the city is closed for Good Friday, so I’m hoping to reach someone on their cell phone today. I’ll let you know if I hear anything more specific. Mandy

Thanks, heard the same thing. I emailed Teri Johnston asking if there is a difference between notice of violation and red-tag stop work? If there is, and if only a notice of violation was issued, I will not be as enthusiastic. I put in a call for Lee Rohe, figuring he knows if there is a difference between the two. Will let you know if I hear back from him. Didn’t occur to me today is a gov’t holiday. Some years ago, I started wondering why it is called Good Friday?

Sloan
 
I think the same woman has already been in touch with Anne Margaret Swary, the business reporter here at The Citizen. (I think they’re personal friends) because I just gave Anne Margaret the names and numbers of John Dick and Margaret Romero to pass on to the Fort Myers journalist.
 
Last I heard Lee County School Board was supposed to make its decision following three days of interviews May 11-13. Burke has made the short list for that post, but the same thing happened in Indian River. He made it through the last round of cuts, and went up there for an interview but was not hired.

Also on topic today is this letter to the editor in The Citizen from someone who atteneded Yale Law School for a year, or so.
 
City and School District being unfairly blamed
I would like to help us tone down the angry finger-pointing about who is to blame for the Horace O’Bryant School height violation, for being “asleep at the switch” until it was too late. In fact, the Florida statutes governing school construction are extremely long, detailed, confusing, redundant, and even self-contradictory in places.
To the point, FS 1013.33, 15(b) says “Local government review or approval is not required for: … (b) Proposed renovation or construction on existing school sites. …” On the face of it, this excuses both the School District for not submitting their plans to the city for approval, and the city for not seeking such oversight.
The reason this seemingly plain language does not apply to our height limitation laws is the [state] attorney general’s very complex reasoning in a 2004 opinion on another seemingly clear-cut statute, FS 1013.371(1)(a), which states that schools are “exempt from all other state building codes; county, municipal, and local amendments …” besides the state building and fire codes. In 2004, the AG ruled that locally adopted comprehensive plans take precedence over countervailing statutes, as such was the clear intent of the Legislature as expressed forcefully in other statutes.
Compounding the confusion is the fact that the statutes clearly do work to exempt school construction from oversight and fees levied by other government agencies, in a similarly clear intent to expedite the process of building schools. The general thrust of the statutes, in my reading, is indeed to trust the school districts to build with a minimum of bureaucratic interference. Only local comprehensive plans overrule this general predisposition.
We have a problem we have to fix. Getting angry with each other while trying to affix blame accomplishes nothing. Let’s check the architect’s bond and the specifics of the Bank of America loan and try to find some deep and responsible pockets. Of course, the district and city do make legal errors, but in my opinion both have been excessively and somewhat unfairly blamed in this case.
Rick Boettger
Key West

At Wednesday’s County Commission meeting in Key West, the Board of County Commissioners decided to tak no action on the letter from a FEMA underling saying the County should not have granted the Brown family of Cudjoe Key a hardship variance so their paraplegic son Darren could continue to live in the downstairs enclosure to their home. Before the Browns bought the home, a woman who used a wheel chair lived in the downstairs enclosure. After they bought it, Darren was injured in a motorcycle accident and rendered paralyzed from the waist down. He cannnot climb stairs. The family cannot afford an elevator, but even if they could, the upstairs would have to be entirely rebuilt because all of the doors are too narrow for an wheelchair to pass through and the bathroom has a tup and Darren needs a shower.
 
This was as clear a case for a hardship variance as could be presented to the County, but county Code Enforcement and Growth Management consistently recommended against granting the variance and even tried to keep the Brown’s application from coming before the County Commission. Then, Key West Citizen writer Tim O’Hara did a story on the Browns, and that’s how County Commissioner George Neugent, in whose voting district the Browns live, learned what had been going on. And that’s how the Browns’ application was put on the County Commissioner agenda and was approved 4-1, Commissioner Sylvia Murphy dissenting. Thus were the Browns not evicted from their home by their own county government. For they could not live there, if Darren could not live in the downstairs enclosure. They would have found another place to live and let the mortgate company foreclose.
 
Before the County Commission took this matter up last Wednesday afternoon, I had lunch with George Neugent and Tim O’Hara. It was not pre-arranged. It just happened. And if you believe that, you really haven’t been paying attention. Of course it was pre-arranged. The angels pre-arranged it.
 
During lunch George opined the obvious, but dumb me had not seen the obvious. George said variances are granted because of unusual circumstances. Variences are taken up case by case. You cannot make up a general rule that says variances will only be granted for this or that.
 
After lunch, the County Commission had a special meeting scheduled on a legal matter the public was not entitled to hear. The Browns showed up and we got to talking. One of them had spoken with Growth Management Director Christine Hurley, under whose department Code Enforcement lies. Christine admitted they’d had no applications for hardship variances on downstairs enclosures since the Browns’ hardship variance. There had been no stampede by the public, as had been predicted by some, to request hardship variances on downstairs enclosures because people could not go up and down stairs. That would be said to the county commissioners by Darren’s father.
 
I followed Chief Assistant Attorney Bob Shillinger who had recommended to the county commissioners that they do nothing. I led off because I had signed up first to speak during citizen comments.
 
I said I agreed with Bob. Then, I said a variance is granted when unusual circumstances indicate it should be granted. It takes the operation of human thinking and compassion to grant a variance. I said FEMA is a machine. It operates like a computer. It does not operate like a human being. I said perhaps way up at the top of FEMA is  a human being is capable of thinking and compassion. I said if this variance is disallowed, it will be on Sixty Minutes, Bill  Maher and perhaps before the United Nations. I said top brass at FEMA will not like that. Nor, inferred, will the County.
 
After Rory and  Darren spoke, their Attorney Lee Rohe eviscerated the letter written by the FEMA underling, who was an engineer, machine. After it seemed generally agreed FEMA would not take Monroe County out of the Federal Flood Insurance Program just because the County took no action on the letter from a FEMA engineer, a machine, the human county commissioners agreed unanimously not to take any action on the machine-generated letter. As George, Tim and I had discussed over lunch, another step was taken toward loosening FEMA’s death grip on the county. Another step was taken for humanity. Perhaps another giant step.
 
Some philosophy on government winds up this post. It was forwarded yesterday by a fellow I went to high school with in Birmingham, Alabama. Long before I realized angels were arranging things.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
keysmyhome@hotmail.com
 

Yesterday, from a crusty poet on Solares Hill in Key West:
 
Greetings from the Hill.
 
Great reporting…

Why are the names of
contractor
lawyer
architect
of the HOB scandal
never mentioned.

MJ

I dunno why. The architect and the contractor are from the mainland, as is the bond attorney. The School District’s and the School Board’s lawyers are local firms, their names no big secret either. I don’t recall any names. Calling them by their professions causes them to sound more like good targets for a lawsuit – the evil contractor, the evil lawyers, the evil architect
 
I suppose calling Key West the City causes it to sound more like a good target for a lawsuit by property owners HOB has scandalized. Maybe nobody will sue the City for diminishment in the value of their property caused by the City not enforcing its own Charter ordinance, comprehensive plan and Land Development Use regulation against HOB, but I ain’t holding my breath on that. Nor am I holding my breath on the City doing anything about the behemoth already up. Maybe they talk the School District into not constructing the other five buildings slated to be taller than the 25-foot height limit.
 
Yesterday’s moral witness – Key West & School District post again raised the ugly specter of Horace O’Bryant being rigged, because it looks and smells rigged, and because the angels told me it was rigged. I opined I had no details of the rig and perhaps I never will. I said perhaps the angels think it’s more important to be able to instinctively know when something is rigged, than it is to know the details.
 
Well, as yesterday wore on, someone came along and filled in some blank spaces, could be called connecting some dots, which were there all along but my learning curve had not absorbed it yet. That’s how it goes: the angels bring me up to speed in work situations one step at a time. Each step building on the previous step.
 
So what I came to see yesterday is a Bermuda Triangle consisting of the School District offices at Trumbo Point, Glynn Archer Elementary School (a proposed future site for Key West’s new City Hall), and old Horace O’Bryant Middle School, which now is being rebuilt to be Horace O’Bryant K-8 School. School Board Chairman John Dick said at Tuesday night’s city commission meeting that he had no idea how the new Horace O’Bryant went from being a middle school to a K-8 school.
 
I heard several times that the School  District wishes to abandon its Trumbo Point offices, which are run down, and move its offices into part of a re-done Glynn Archer, sharing that re-done school with the new City Hall. I heard yesterday the School District is moving to Glynn Archer regardless of whether or not it partners with the City there. That move is what required the Glynn Archer Elementary School students to be shifted to the new Horace O’Bryant K-8 School, which is why it became so much larger than old Horace O’Bryant Middle School, which was run down and needed to be razed and replaced.
 
Back to Trumbo Point. It’s on the waterfront and is super prime real estate a developer would pay a bundle. Next door is about one-acre of undeveloped land owned by the City of Key West. Next door to the City’s land is the old Steam Plant owned by Key West mogul and developer Ed Swift. In August 2007, the School District, at then School Superintendent Randy Acevedo’s behest, gave Swift an option, renewable at $1 a year for the term (unknown to me) to convert the option into a 99-year lease. That option would allow Swift, or whomever he transferred the option, to develop the School District’s land commercially. Probably some sort of high-end condo development, or a hotel.
 
On School District land, arguably the new development would not be subject to the City’s 25-foot building height limit, since the School District claims it is not subject to that building height limit. Imagine a high-rise like you see on Miami Beach. Imagine even a casino, which would require not entirely far-fetched political dealing in Tallahassee to make legal. Imagine the City making a bundle on its key one acre lying between the School District Trumbo land and Ed Swift’s Steam Plant land. Mayor Cates had hoped to swap the City Trumbo land for the City’s interest in Glynn Archer, but city commissioners shot that down, saying the City’s Trumbo land was too valuable to swap for Glynn Archer. They might be right, because the City’s Trumbo land is the key parcel between the two properties Swift either owns or has the option to lease.
 
Now is this evidence of a fix? No. What it is evidence of is fertile ground for a fix. As is the $22,000,000 tax credit BankAmerica is said to have received for issuing a $36,000,000 bond to the School District. That’s a dollar for dollar offset against BankAmerica’s income tax liability. That’s like being given greenbacks. Superintendent Burke went out and pulled that deal in. He pushed the School Board to accept it. He pushed for ground to be broken at the new Horace O’Bryant Middle School, which turned out to be a new K-8 school.
   
Dianne Bureldsen asked at Tuesday night’s city commission meeting, who is getting a commission on this? I see lots of opportunities for a commission in this mix. Other definitions of commissions could be bribe, kickback, payola, etc. Nobody who has lived in the Keys for more than a couple of weeks, unless he/she is an ostrich, does not know how things work down here. The fix is always in play. The devil is in figuring it out and stopping it. Sometimes it gets figured out. Sometimes it even gets stopped. But most times it doesn’t even get found out unless you have a really good nose or angels talking to you. Or both.
 
Oh, did I say yet, don’t think so, that after Tuesday night’s city commission meeting, a Key West member of The Resistance told me local architects, who don’t want to upset the powers that be by getting their names and faces attached to it, are privately saying the real cost of re-doing 80-plus-year-old Glynn Archer will be about double the $15,000,000 or so being tossed out for redoing Glynn Archer? I redid two hold historic homes in Birmingham, one for a law office, one for my home. They cost more than I had hoped going in. I hope these reputed architects step up to the plate and come to the next City Commission meeting and tell the city officials and public what they think Glynn Archer really will cost.

Sloan Bashinsky
 
keysmyhome@hotmail.com