Two articles in The Citizen today (keysnews.com) caught my attention.

One article is about the resurrection of the channel-widening study for much bigger cruise ships, which makes no mention of the environment and focuses on the business side of it and conflicts of interests three city commissioners seem to have because their businesses receive considerable revenue from cruise ships. Also, City Commissioner Tony Yaniz is quoted as saying Chamber of Commerce members have told him they fear speaking out against the channel widening because of threats of retaliation to their businesses if they do so. The Chamber was reported in a recent article in The Citizen as strongly in favor of the channel widening. The fear some have stated is, if the channel is not widened, when the much bigger cruise ships come online, Key West will lose its cruise ship business because the new ships will be unable to get into Key West’s harbor. On behalf of Mother Nature and her citizens, I simply offer this photo as proof Key West should not entertain even the small monster cruise ships now calling there:

Here is the other article that caught my attention:

Jara: Booker is target of second probe

Administrator says she’s being singled out by the district

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff

gfilosa@keysnews.com

The superintendent of the Monroe County School District said Friday he is further investigating the work of 11-year-veteran employee Sunny Booker as part of a review of whether high school students received more make-up credits than allowed.

“We can’t tolerate relaxed behavior around this process,” said Jesus Jara, who said the inquiry into Booker’s handling of a June graduation party for at-risk students is over — but that a second investigation that involves Booker is weeks under way.

“This is a bigger issue,” Jara said of his questions about the administration of EdOptions, an online “credit retrieval” program that allows students who have failed a course to make up the credits via the computer.

Jara said the district is looking into EdOptions use at several high schools, but that the alternative school where Booker was principal until a few months ago raised the first red flag.

In response, Booker said the district is singling her out after failing to find any wrongdoing over a graduation party she put on for her students at the alternative school.

“Why are they trying to destroy me?” Booker asked rhetorically on Friday, the first time she has spoken publicly since the School District leveled formal administrative charges against her in September. “I am a year-to-year contract person. There is no reason for all of this. I’ve worked 12 years with exemplary evaluations.”

Booker, whose career spans 21 years, including a decade before she came to the Florida Keys, said, “I’m a very hard worker. I have brought in a ton of money for the district.”

Since the initial complaints by the district accused her of misconduct, Booker has referred all questions to her attorney, Robert Cintron. But on Friday, she spoke out, questioning the motives behind Jara’s investigations.

Booker said she was written up for following the direction of the district’s auditors, who confirmed that she took their advice of not opening a personal account for the party.

The now-dispensed allegations, over the financial handling of a $1,200 graduation party luncheon Booker organized for her students at the alternative school, Academic Connections for Excellence, ended with a written reprimand by Superintendent Jara, dated Nov. 15, and not released by the district.

The June luncheon for ACE students was attended by School Board Vice Chairman Andy Griffiths, a keynote speaker for the program, board Chairman John Dick, along with then-superintendent Joe Burke.

ACE at the time had no internal accounts, preventing the school from holding fundraisers, Booker said. So she sought guidance from the district auditor and internal auditor Ken Gentile, and had luncheon guests pay $23 a plate, while accepting a total of $600 in donations from the Rotary Club and a colleague, and ponying up $500 herself for the rest of the lunch, decorations and certificates.

“I’m out $800,” Booker said Friday, adding that she has paid back $300 to teacher Sandy Ashwell, who provided a replacement check after Booker told her she had lost the first one, which was made out to Salute and deposited in the restaurant’s account after Booker endorsed it.

Jara said Friday that he had intended to release the Nov. 15 reprimand when the entire investigation was complete. For a month now, he said, the district has been reviewing whether students at the ACE school received too many credits in a year through EdOptions.

“We can’t use credit retrieval as the savior,” said Jara. “Why are kids not succeeding in the regular classrooms and sitting in front of a computer?”

In essence, the credit retrieval process is costing taxpayers double, he said.

The district’s investigation into possible extra credits cropped up from another investigation into why administrators signed off on a contract with EdOptions before receiving the required approval from the School Board.

“We are not going to go back and penalize students,” said Jara. “I want to know how they did it.”

Booker said the credit retrieval investigation will turn up nothing, and is a post-Salute attempt to paint her as a wrongdoer.

“It’s going to be the next thing, a big storm in the beginning,” said Booker. “Then they will allow me to find out what happened. Then it’ll be quiet and then they won’t tell you.”

“All of my spending money last year went to that school,” said Booker, who remains the director of Safe/Healthy Schools but has been reassigned since October as an assistant principal rotating at elementary schools.

Booker said that when the district didn’t provide a refrigerator for ACE, she brought in breakfast supplies for over a month and didn’t seek reimbursement.

The months of constant public scrutiny have taken a toll on her, said Booker. She has had people ask her if she had been arrested.

“I thought I was helping at-risk kids,” she said. “I chose not to have children. I chose to put my energy back into schools because that is what saved me. I know what it’s like to be homeless. I know what it’s like to grow up poor. I love working with kids who have those similarities.”

Booker’s principal job at ACE was handed off to a colleague in October. Jara has asked the School Board to combine three administrative jobs — ACE, adult education and dropout prevention — into one for 2012 to save money.

Booker said she is enjoying her assistant principal duties at various Keys elementaries, noting that some schools don’t even have counselors.

As for the proposed job crunch, which would eliminate her administrative job at ACE and be advertised as a new position, Booker said she understands the budget shortfall.

“I hope they do whatever they can that is best for the kids given the difficult circumstances we are in,” she said.

++++++++++++++++++++

I followed the alternative school party articles in The Citizen. Looked to me like much to do over nothing, while the school district was burning down elsewhere.

In a recent article in The Citizen, Sunny Booker’s lawyer, Robert Cintron, whom I know quite well, was reported as saying Superintendent Jara and the School District had not furnished records Cintron had requested on Sunny Booker’s behalf, records having to do with the School District’s investigation of and censure of Sunny Booker. Failure to disclose those records smells like seriously rotten fish to me.

Now Jara is on Booker about online makeup courses at a special school of perhaps 40-45 students, some of whom are learning disabled and the rest are kids seriously at risk – “headed to jail,” some would say. Some already were in jail. The very kids, if any there are, who probably need online make up courses. Some of which kids, I heard, dropped out of that school after Sunny Booker was reassigned by Jara.

I was at the School Board meeting in Key West when the Ed Options online make up program was brought up because of irregularities in how the Ed Options contract had not been property processed and brought before the School Board for approval. I became convinced at that meeting that Superintendent Jara had tried to derail the Ed Options program by keeping it away from the School Board because Jara wanted to give the business to mainland friends who had a similar product. I was astounded the School Board and its lawyer and its Internal Auditor Ken Genitle did not put Jara under severe cross-examination after he admitted he had friends on the mainland who had a similar product, after the word already was out that Jara had kept blocking the Ed Options contract from going before the School Board.

At that School Board meeting, almost like an accident, it came out that 500 Key West High School students had used the EdOptions online program to make up courses they had failed in the classroom, and that Key West High School was where that was the biggest problem in the School District. Jara should have jumped on the Principal of Key West High School the very next day.

Ah, but the Principal of Key West High School, Amber Boscoe (spelling?), was Jara’s appointee to replace now School District Chief Operating Officer Teresa Axford (spelling?). Ah, but Boscoe and Jara were buddies. Ah, but Axford and Jara were buddies. Ah, but if Jara jumped on Boscoe about 500 Key West High School Students using online courses to make up failed classes, that also would reflect on Axford. And, but all of that would reflect on Jara for appointing Boscoe to replace Axford as principal, and for promoting Axford to COO. Ah, but that would not bode well for Jara getting the three-year contract extension he later would spring without notice on the School Board at the last School Board meeting, for which indiscretion Jara was eviserated in Thursdays’ Editorial in The Citizen. Can’t help but wonder if Jara is trying to get fingers pointing at any place but at Jara, and Sunny Booker is one way to go about that.

Jara should have charged straight into Amber Boscoe’s office and demanded to know why so many Key West High School students were flunking courses and being allowed to make them up online at no expense to themselves or their families in a time when the School District is forced to make budget cuts after budget cuts. Jara should have demanded to know what was wrong in Key West High School that resulted in 500 students flunking courses.

Why did not the School Board order Jara to march into Amber Bosco’s office the next day and get to the bottom of it?

What do Jara and the School Board think the public reading in The Citizen about 500 Key West High School flunking classes and making it up online did for the .5 mil referendum’s passing? Voters want to continue that .5 mil for school operations when they see they are paying for 500 Key West High School students to flunk classes and make them up online? Voters want to vote for the referendum when it is common knowledge Key West High School students, especially, have to take remedial courses when they enter 2- or 4-year colleges? Maybe voters would rather see students flunked out and gotten off the county taxpayers’ backs, instead of passing the referendum to keep in school students who don’t pass classroom courses?

School Board John Dick asked at the Key West School Board meeting where the 500 Key West High School students flunking classes and making them up online slipped out: How far is the School District willing to go to boost graduations rates? Nobody else said a word. The other four board members should have demanded answers then and there. I sat there astonished that such an opportunity had not been seized.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com

When Sandy Downs told me Christmas evening she had gone to Glad Tidings Tabernacle Church services in Key West that morning, I said I didn’t want to hear anything more about that church. She said Pastor Ernie had retired, another pastor was in charge now. I said I didn’t want to hear anything more about that church. She let it go.

Sandy and Pastor Ernie were buddies, and she and her family sometimes worked in the church kitchen preparing meals for homeless people. I got to know the church by being homeless and eating meals it had prepared, which was fine, except for associate pastors and church members talking down to homeless people who came to be fed.

I had direct dealings with two of associate pastors, who had lots to learn about the ways of Jesus and God; and I went to enough church services at Glad Tidings with the regular congregation to know it was not a church I figured Jesus would spend much time attending. They loved G.W. Bush and his wars, and had a high opinon of their standing with God.

The last Glad Tiding’s service I attended was at Sandy’s behest, maybe in 2008; she said she wanted me to give the church another chance. So I went, not happy about it.

Key West

I mentioned in yesterday’s journalism as a contact sport – Florida Keys post that about a month ago I was told in my sleep, “You will cause a lot of trouble next year,” and said it looked like I might be getting a headstart on that. I pulled part of yesterday’s post because I wasn’t sure it it wasn’t a bit overboard, and because I have gotten hammered plenty of times in the past by the angels for going a bit overboard in posts. However, during my morning passout time yesterday, dreams left me feeling the angels thought I got to loafing a bit yesterday and should roll a bowling ball a bit harder, and louder, so here is what I pulled from yesterday’s post because I was terrified of overstepping and incurring THE WRATH OF GOD.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Just after was Craig Cates was elected Mayor of Key West in 2009, he and his campaign manager both thanked me for Craig winning without a runoff, as I had told voters to vote for Craig if they did not vote for me. Craig then asked me if I would be on his homeless advisory committee? I said sure, just let me know when and where to show up. I never heard from Craig about that again.

When maybe a year later, I read in The Citizen that Craig was doing a mayor’s homeless tour, I called him on his cell phone and said I would like to tag along since it was something I knew about and he had asked me to be on his homeless advisory committee. He tried to talk me out of it, said he didn’t want trouble, which I was known to cause. I said I would be there.

I went on the mayor’s homeless tour, and it was I who introduced Craig to homeless people, while the others along stood back, including Police Chief Donie Lee and one of his Captains who was assigned to homeless outreach for the KWPD. Looked to me, if I had not been there, they would not have tried to meet any homeless people during that tour.

I am not the only person Craig shut out of his homeless advisory committee after inviting participation.

Craig asked Father Stephen Braddock, who runs Florida Keys Outreach Coalition, to be on the mayor’s homeless advisory committee. Steve accepted the invitation, then he never heard from Craig again. Craig told me that Steve was hard to get along with and did not want to participate. On learning of that from me, Steve rebutted with copies of emails from him to Craig asking to participate, emails that went unanswered by Craig.

It would be naive to think that rebuff by Craig did not influence Steve wanting FKOC to give KOTS back to the City of Key West to run. Steve never wanted FKOC to take on KOTS to begin with. In fact, FKOC delined to have anything to do with the building and opening of KOTS. Steve and I both told city officials KOTS would be a nightmare if the city opened it. We told them the truth, and only after the city begged Steve to come in and bail out the City did FKOC finally assume management of KOTS for the City at about 1/3 the fee commanded in the open market.

When I wrote about all of that some months ago, I said not long after Craig was sworn in, his daughter ran over a homeless man on his bicycle on North Roosevelt Blvd and the man later died from it. It appeared to be the man’s fault, but the trauma to Craig’s daughter was devastating, thus to her mother and father. I wrote that tragedy was coloring Craig’s judgment re the homeless.

Only as I wrote that did I recall that Craig’s wife Cheryl is a Realtor. No way do Realtors want any homeless people in Key West. Realtors, the Chamber of Commerce and Craig want homeless people converted back to mainstream living, or out of the Key West area altogether. Their One Human Family does not include homeless people.

So for various reasons, I suppose, on the homeless issue Craig is not in touch with reality, and since he asked me to be on his homeless advisory committee, I keep giving him minority reports which he keeps continuing to ignore because my reports do not agree with his illusion.

As I wrote twice before now, let KOTS be closed by Attorney Bart Smith’s lawsuit on behalf of the condo development near KOTS. Let Craig then try to move KOTS into another Key West neighborhood. Let then Craig find out for himself what Key West people are capable of, since he does not care to hear anything I tell him about homelessness in Key West.

If Craig ever goes through that fire baptism, he will think homeless people are wonderful compared to the Key West people he enraged by trying to relocate KOTS in their neighborhood.

If you still think I am inciting terrorism, you are insane. It is Craig Cates who will incite terrorism, if he tries to move KOTS to another Key West neighborhood. If Craig doesn’t believe me, he should speak with Jimmy Weekley, Julio Avael and John Jones, who got what for from that neighborhood near the soup kitchen on Flagler Avenue, for trying to put something like KOTS next to the west side of the airport.

But even that conversation might not get Craig’s attention. He has become a homeless religious fanatic. It may be that nothing will return him to sanity re homeless people. I could say the same thing about most of Key West re homeless people.

I told the the female shaman and her fellow I had over for Christmas dinner, for all I know, Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek will have me be homeless in Key West again. For all I know, I have not finished what they sent me homeless to Key West in late 2000 to do.

I can see those three telling me if I’m homeless again, for me to sue the City of Key West in Federal Court under the Pottinger case. I know how to do it, maybe it would make my life more interesting, although I certainly didn’t find living on the street before particularly interesting.

First, I get myself harassed by city police for sleeping outside at night in Key West. Then, I get myself thrown in jail for not getting up and moving on. After being released, or bailed out, might make an interesting front page piece in The Citizen, I file the lawsuit, now having legal standing to do so. Perhaps FKOC, or someone, lets me have a bed and access to a shower inside in exchange for my prosecuting the city under the Pottinger case. I have a laptop. All I need is access to a printer.

Accompanying the lawsuit is a request for injunctive relief against the city for not letting homeless people sleep outside, or in their vehicles, when there is no room in KOTS for them to sleep there.

Also is a request for CRIMINAL SANCTIONS (imprisonment) for Mayor Cates, the city commissioners, the city manager, the city attorney and the chief of police for subjecting me and all members of the class I represent to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution and in violation of the US Civil Rights Acts which provide for CRIMINAL PROSECUTION, as opposed to mere civil prosectution which was the Pottinger case.

A criminal prosecution similar to what I told Robert Krutko his lawyer should initiate against the City of Key West and against Key West attorney Michael Halpern and his plaintiffs, Judge David Audlin and State Attorney Dennis Ward and Assistant Attorney Mark Wilson, for what they did to Krutko and his family, which broke them and caused them to become homeless, about which crimes I wrote a good bit lately. I told Krutko his lawyer should take his and his family’s case to the F.B.I. and the US Department of Justice.

The Krutkos aside, the prosecution I file against Key West and its officials takes the definition of urban terrorism to an entirely new level. However, I do not expect to live very long after filing it, and I do not expect to hear from Todd German, nor from any of his politically-correct Key West friends, objection or concern that I incited local acts terrorism against myself by filing that prosecution. Au contraire, I expect to hear them say I got what I asked for.

The female shaman I had with her fellow over for Christmas and a fish dinner went bonkers when I said for all I know Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek might have me be homeless again. She hammered me over and over about having free will, the power to do what I wanted. She said I did not have to listen to Jesus, Michael and Melchizdek. I wondered where she got her shaman training?

I did not wonder why she was bonkers. It was obvious. She and her fellow were worried sick about running out of money and having to go homeless. Instead of facing up to that, instead of considering they were being tested, she projected all of her fear of going homeless again (she had tried it on once before in Montreal), and her hatred of God for it perhaps happening again, onto me and God.

She knew nothing about projection, which is the first thing Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek taught me, in spades. For years, they stood me in front of a mirror. It was horrible. For even more years, they had me do things I did not want to do. I have only known one person, who was a female shaman, who was my sixth wife, who really experienced what it is like to be fully leaned on my Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek unceasing, and by others they sometimes send in.

The Kingdom of God truly is not of this world. Simply stated, it is: “Not my but Thy will be done, O Lord.” That was why the female shaman met me, to hear that said over and over. That, and for me to be told to tell her to do a shaman journey to where Jesus, Michael and Melchizdek waited to speak to her about me, and about her. Maybe she will make that journey, maybe not. She said she would make it and would let me know what happened. If I hear from her about that, I imagine I will report what she said.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com

cartoon compliments my oldest Bashinsky first cousin Leo

The first half of today’s foreign exchange explores more school district finance, the second half more KOTS.

Part I

Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:28:35 -0800
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: The Cat Is Out Of The Bag
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Sloan:

Some of your readers may not have heard Bill Becker’s interview of School Superintendent Jesus Jara last Friday on “Morning Magazine”. The interview proved to be very enlightening.

While discussing District finances, Supt. Jara commented that the budget deficit for next year, assuming failure of the .5 mil referendum, could reach $14 million! Becker immediately picked up on that number, noting that previous estimates were in the $12 million range and he asked for an explanation. Supt. Jara responded that the additional $2 million would be necessary to meet the state mandated Fund Balance of 3%.

As you know, it is not easy to follow the bouncing ball of District finances. Everyone should take a look at the “FY 2012/2013-Preliminary Analysis” prepared by Michael Kinneer, CFO, on December 1, 2011. That report was presented at the most recent meetings of both the Audit and Finance Committee and the School Board.

As of 12/1/11, Kinneer is projecting a deficit for next year, 2012-2013, of $2,809,793 at a minimum. For the District to replenish its Fund Balance to the state mandated 3%, that projected deficit would rise to $5,055,097. And, these are optimistic projections as they assume passage of the .5 mil referendum.

Further complicating matters is the suggestion by many, including Board member Robin Smith-Martin that the Fund Balance be raised to somewhere in the neighborhood of 5%. The argument is that beginning the year with a barely acceptable 3% Fund Balance is much too risky as budget amendments throughout the year always draw down the Fund Balance, as is currently the case.

While being exact is always difficult when it comes to District finances, a 1% Fund Balance number equals somewhere in the neighborhood of $750,000 to $1,000,000. If the Fund Balance is raised to 5%, for example, that would increase the projected deficit on the low side to $6,555,097 and to $7,055,097 on the high side!! Again, those deficit numbers presume passage of the .5 mil referendum.

CFO Kinneer is already projecting an end of year Fund Balance of 2.43% for the current 2011-12 fiscal year which will necessitate reporting that deficiency to the state. If history is any indicator, budget amendments for the remainder of the year are likely to cause Mr. Kinneer’s projection to fall even further. His projections for the current fiscal year assume no additional budget amendments, something that is as likely as snow in the Keys. I fully expect the Fund Balance to drop below the 2% threshold sometime this year and that will activate state involvement in the financial administration of the School District.

Supt. Jara is trying to cover the current deficit by reducing expenditures. Those recommendations, I believe, are suspect at best and I will have more to say on that subject later.

Other than that, how was your Christmas?

Larry

Larry Murray

Citizen Advocate

I did not hear the radio interview either. The school budget is seriously complicated.

I attended two Audit & Finance (AFC) meetings where the school district’s Chief Financial Officer Michael Kinneer painted a budget shortfall next fiscal school year of $13-15 million, if the .5 referendum failed to pass, and a $4-6 million shortfall if the referendum passed. During the first of those meetings, after Kinneer was pressed by others there to basically agree that there would be a flat flat income next year, I asked Kinneer if he believed income would remain flat? He said no, he felt it would fall due to falling land values, thus falling ad valorem tax revenues.

I was told by Larry Murray, and I had heard at school board meetings and at AFC meetings, the shool district is required by the state to maintain a 3 percent of revenues reserve, which is called the “fund balance.” If the fund balance falls below 3 percent, Larry said the school district has to notify the state, and then discussion is suppose to happen about how to get the fund balance back up to 3 percent. Larry said if the fund balance falls below 2 percent, the school district has to notify the state, and then the state comes down to the Keys and gets directly involved in running the school district and getting the fund balance back up to 3 percent.

I said the fund balance should never be allowed to fall below 3 percent, and when a required expenditure comes up that will deplete the fund balance below 3 percent, corresponding spending cuts should be made elsewhere to keep the fund balance from falling below 3 percent. Larry agreed. He agreed when I said the school should budget for the worst case scenario every year. And he agreed when I said the more confused the public is about school district finances, the more likely the public will vote against the .5 mil referendum, which represents $9 in school district income.

The school district budget this fiscal school year is around $80 million. So, if the referendum fails, the school district’s income this fiscal school year will be around $71 million.

For next year, decrease that by the $4-6 million Michael Kinneer said at the AFC meetings will have to come off regardless of how the .5 mil referendum goes, and you end up with a $65-67 million budget for next year, if the referendum fails.

You tell me, how will the school district be able to spend keep the fund balance above 2 percent and stop the state from coming in and taking over the school district, if the .5 mil referendum fails to pass?

Tell me how the school district will be able to spend a penny on school sports, band, elective courses, make up courses, online courses, new charter school enrollments, with that much lower a budget?

Tell me how will the school district be able to keep all schools open?

How will the school district be able to avoid bussing grammar school kids, with older kids, to high schools?

Tell me how the school district will keep the good teachers after cutting their pay in the highest cost of living county in the state?

Tell me why the school district has not already made $6 million worst case scenario in cost cuts Michael Kinner predicts for next fiscal school year, even if the .5 referendum passes?

Tell me why the school district keeps putting off to next year what needs to be dealt with this year?

If the school district and school board do not think the public are wondering the same thing, the school district is mistaken.

The teachers’ union learned the school district has to operate within its means when the state recently ruled the school district’s dire financial situation was good reason for it to renegotiate a collective bargaining agreement the school district and the school board never should have agreed to in the first place.

Larry Murray told me that he told superintendent Joe Burke and board chairman John Dick that he did not see enough money to fund the collective bargaining agreement.

I wonder how much it cost the school district to pay an outside labor lawyer to fix what would have been avoided if the school district and the school board had listened to Larry Murray?

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com.

Part II

A Key Largo reply to yesterday’s What would Jesus do –Key West’s homeless? post:

Hi Sloan,

I am still of the opinion that this new KOTS “changes” initiative is really all about the potential of getting grant money. The people now running it come from that grant mentality, idealistic, “well-meaning”.

Of all the comments in the Citizen article, AB Molloy’s were the most realistic, probably because she is on the front lines of crazy addicted every day at the GCC.

As for KW officials not consulting you or others who have personal experience, it’s about who impresses them. You don’t impress them. That guy who did the presentation about his (alleged) success some place – he impressed them. They’ve got it backwards and it’s their loss. Also the homeless’ and community’s loss. Bunch of amateurs fiddling with peoples’ lives. Which is not to say the homeless have no responsibility for their actions. They still have to conduct themselves within the boundaries, mostly for their own immediate well being.

The KOTS facility is not currently physically arranged for areas to offer any social services, job hunting or counseling. And that’s no loss, because those services are already available elsewhere in KW, and the KOTS residents probably know that. To use those services or not use those services is – so far – the residents’ choice to make.

Forcing or not forcing people to use “helping” “services” (both words are dubious) is a very old dilemma, the subject of volumes, source of many college professors’ incomes.

Very bothersome to me are people who can not just accept, who must always imprint their theories ideologies, make people bend to whatever social norm is currently in vogue. Those people are in just as much denial as the people they think they are trying to help, or more. Sometimes, providing safe sleep and food is the most that can be done. Although that does not appease the judgement passers, or law enforcers.

Switching thoughts –

How are the people the neighborhood next to KOTS any different than the people in neighborhoods where a future shelter might be placed? They’re not. What you say about those KW’ers – that they don’t want it, is exactly what the current neighbors are saying. The difference is that the current neighbors had no say in the decision, but future neighbors will have the opportunity to protest. Preserving home values is sacrosanct, and the city (county?) violated that covenant.

Hi, Sue

Received this email comment today from distant in-law who used to vacation a good bit in Key West:

SLOAN – I read your post regarding the KOTS agenda. It is really difficult for me to believe that the ” enabler mafia” does not have more common sense. I sense that the current direction that has been dictated for KOTS will come to no good end.

On another note….. I hope you have a productive and peaceful new year. “fair winds”

Ron

Been so long since I’ve seen “fair winds,” I wonder if such even exist. Seems ill winds are blowing strong around KOTS.

Perhaps, as you say, it is about them hoping to get grant money. However, if they turn KOTS into a rehab shelter, or a pay to stay shelter, or both, they will run off a lot of their “regulars” and the city will be in a serious bind trying to stop them from living as they did before KOTS gave the city an excuse to arrest them for sleeping outside. The city either doesn’t see the downside, or feels impervious.

Looks to me, the best case scenario for the city is to leave KOTS alone and hope the condominium association plaintiffs do not win the lawsuit and shut KOTS down. Why be experimenting with KOTS when you don’t even know if it will remain in existence? I imagine any grant applications will have to require disclosure of the lawsuit, so the solicited grant providers will know KOTs could cease to exist. I imagine not disclosing the lawsuit in grant applications might be some sort of crime.

A.B. Maloy is a lawyer. Although still pretty new heading up the Guidance-Care Clinic, she could be saying to the press and Mayor Cates, there is no way KOTS can be operated as a rehab shelter unless KOTS users are required to pass urine tests. Of course, everyone involved in KOTS knows such screening will reduce KOTS users by about 95 percent, and guess where they would sleep? Right, where they slept before they used KOTS. Catch-22, if you kick them out of KOTS, you have to let them sleep somewhere, according to the Pottinger case anyway. Same US District Court which decided Pottinger, re Miami’s homeless, has jurisdiction over Key West.

It looks to me like Mayor Cates, and others, have turned rehabbing homeless people into a religious crusade, the undercurrent of which is to run out of the Key West area all homeless to do not buy into Mayor Cates and the others’ religion for homeless people. Doesn’t look to me they have factored in the Pottinger case.

Yes, homeless people are responsible for their side of this, and some of them act responsibility and some of them do not. However, acting responsibly doesn’t mean the same thing to most homeless people, that it means to most mainstream people. That’s how it is with homeless people, and it’s not going to change because Mayor Cates and others want it to change.

As for your last question, KOTS is at the end of a paved road where the sheriff headquarters and jail are. A separate road to the east goes into the nearest neighborhood, which is the condominium development that sued to have KOTS closed because the proper goverment building permits were not obtained. As far as I know, the homeless don’t even use that road, and my sense is there is more to that lawsuit than direct concern about homeless people in the area.

Also, KOTS is on county property in the Key West city limits, and that condo development is on city land. So I don’t think the condo development had much leverage re KOTS going in by the sheriff headquarters and jail, easily the safest place to put it. There was a county commission meeting on it back when Dixie Spehar was County Mayor. I asked the county commissioners at that meeting why they were undertaking to bail Key West out of its problem which was not the county’s problem? So KOTS was publicly vetted.

Am interested to see how the judge who got the condo association’s lawsuit will field it. Will the case go by the rule of law, or by the bubba justice method? Key West operated by the bubba justice method until the Duck Tours case spoiled that party. Now we have the Krutko’s lawsuit againt the bubba justice method, and now the condominium association’s lawsuit. Maybe the rule of law will become dominant in Key West.

Sloan

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com.

This was in The Citizen yesterday, my thoughts in CAPS:

It’s been a very long time since I had a day off from writing for same day publication. Years. It also has been a long time since I had what I felt was a good Christmas. Maybe today will be better. Am having two new friends over to break bread at a late lunch. I met the younger couple earlier in the week. They drove up from Key West after we had exchanged these emails:

~I found your t-shirt in the thrift store [my 2009 Key West mayor's race capaign t-shirt, see home page of goodmorningkeywest.com]

And then decided to look into your campaign, and you. My girlfriend and I are recently arrived but maybe soon departing from your adopted home, KW. it seems as though very few people appreciate quality, truth, competence, integrity, personality, etc anymore, and have whole heartedly embraced mediocrity.

you seem different. my girlfriend and I would like to have a coffee or beer or something with you if you have the time and inclination. She, more than I, has suffered greatly from being real, and feels something going on your way. She’d also like to hear more about your time in Australia with the aborigines and your dreams and your inner spiritual journey.

our phone is 973-865-6247. She is presently pounding the pavement looking for that elusive bartender’s job, but we can meet up pretty much any time, if you have time, once you are done with your laundry.

Take care, good luck and hang in there with your endeavors. you aren’t crazy…..

Joe and Donia
Treewizard1@gmail.com

~You have more copies of that T-shirt than I. You two sound interesting. I live on Little Torch Key these days, but could drive down to KW to visit. Friday better for me than today or tomorrow. I like to hang out at Harpoon Harry’s. Perhaps late lunch while the morning shift, I call them my harem, still there. Here’s my landline, call me this evening or in the morning.

(305) 872-1705.

What is a tree wizard?

~you can have the TShirt when I leave the Keys. I ran into one of your supporters today at the health food store, so don’t lose faith. you have a secret underground army waiting in the wings, ready to give all, bear all, and bare all for the causes.

I would be happy to take a ride out to Little Torch to meet up if that is going to be easier than your coming here. I’d temporarily have to give up my coveted parking spot should I dare to move the car, but I wouldn’t mind at al getting off KW for a few hours, and it does seem a bit unseemly to worry about parking in Paradise…”. On the negative side, if we drive to you, I don’t get to meet your harem, and I’ve always wanted to know what a harem looks like…..

I’m giving your number to Donia, my partner, girlfriend, et al, to set things up. She is much more spiritual than I, or at least more articulate than I am about it. I prefer to chauffeur. And I am a tree wizard, an arborist, tree climber, and more…

We’ll talk soon!

Joe

Hi, Joe.

Maybe you have met Sandy Downs and her crew at Tarzan’s Tree Care? she used to be married to an aborist, who was Tarzan, climbed trees, and more …

What health food store, Help Yourself, I know Charley, Randesh and some of the other folks who hang out there, but didn’t know any were my secret followers, figured they thought I was seriously around any bends they could see on the horizon, although sometimes some of them come up here to be in nature for a while. I also know the owner of Sugar Apple, we have play some spirited chess games. He has a nice girlfriend.

Shortly after replying to you earlier today, wasn’t it?, it occurred to me that perhaps you two would like to get away from down there and come up here. Perhaps you’d like seeing my “farm” in the woods, and to meet my pet feral cat I got from the animal shelter down there because they said she was a varmint cat, which I sorely needed to live here due to big time woods rat community. First night she was in the trailer, Miss Kitty convened the rats for a prayer meeting with Jesus, and since then, they have stayed out of the inside of my abode, except for two or three very young ones who didn’t have better sense. Sometimes she treats me like one of the rats, sometimes she’s nice to me – a bit unpredictable lady, what’s new?

Spirituality is a nice name for mostly awful experiences, but if that were told straight out in the books that make authors rich and famous, or not, nobody would buy many of the books. I imagine that’s why so many people go to churches and retreats and to gurus and so forth instead. Count yourself fortunate you have a chauffer, and a lady one at that. You can meet my harem pretty easily I imagine by going into Harpoon Harry’s most any morning and telling the women servers Sloan sent you in there to meet his harem. Great bunch of ladies, they even put up with and sometimes even seem glad to see me come in there.

I await Donia’s call. Sort of sounds goddessy. Maybe she has a magic wand? I could use some help I hear often enough, feel in agreement usually, but not always with the precise help suggested. If you two arrive around meal time, there are some places nearby we can go that might not be up to Key West fare, but do in a pinch. Some of the harem around here, too. It’s a bit more rural up here than KW. Think almost redneck, but not entirely, except sometimes.

Sloan

I heard in dream just before rising last Sunday, “Something will happen next Sunday.” I awoke, realized that would be Christmas Day. Perhaps this meal with new friends, and perhaps with a brave old friend, is what was to happen today. Perhaps it is something else. Whatever, I imagine by tonight I might have a better grip on it.

Meanwhile, this younger couple look to me like they need some help fitting into Key West. He is an arborist, she says she is a terrific bartender, although i imagine she is plenty more than that, based on stories she told me about her own experiences with that which cannot be seen, heard or felt by normal human means. She said she speaks five languages. They conversed in French and Portugese (Brazilian) when they were with me.

The fish is the sign for Pices, Jesus was Pices. Maybe some day it will be recognized in Christendom that he was not born December 25, or even in December. Maybe some day other things about Jesus will be recognized in Christendom, like his teachings, which Donia said the other night do not apply today, but she has an urge to eat fish.

Well, perhaps that’s enough jabber for today, other than Joe and Donia meeting me, and vice versa, was clearly arranged by the angels, just as my meeting Sandy was just as clearly arranged by the angels, but I’ve told that story before.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com, but this being the day before Christmas, I might go down to Key West to visit with my Harem at Harpoon Harry’s and get whomped by my good friend and chess teacher Patrick the Terminator and see the old Virginia Street trees which might not see another Christmas …

Sleep with one eye open

[NMA Comment: Judge Audlin ordered Robert Krutko, who lives near Columbus, Ohio, to appear in his courtroom in Key West. Robert did not appear to answer these charges. As a result, the Judge ordered him extradited from Ohio to answer the charges against his ”blogging” activities. He was incarcerated for approximately 6 months in Ohio and Florida. That adventure is described “in his own words.”]

[NMA Comment: Robert Krutko blew the whistle on “Fury Management, Inc.” for operating illegally on state bay-bottom leased property which he discovered during his inquiry. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) found the complaints valid and fined Fury Management and Ocean Key Resort to protect wildlife reserve property. In retribution, Fury and others filed suit against Krutko to silence him and deny him use of the internet.]

The Extradition Experience In His Own Words