Kristen Livengood, Public Information Officer for Monroe County, joined KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
The county is watching the storm front very closely.
Livengood said, “We’re just getting some updates from the National Weather Service in Key West. And then, of course, our interim director, Corey Schwisow, he is keeping us updated on what’s going on, and he said at this point they are expecting Tropical Storm Erin to turn into a hurricane, but they are also expecting her to eventually take a northward turn. So he said that toward next week we are expecting maybe some bigger swells and things like that, wave wise and along those lines. But hopefully nothing too bad on our end. But we are going into our major hurricane season. September is typically when we really pick up our height of hurricane season, when we really need to be vigilant about what’s going on. So obviously, make sure your coconuts are out of your tree and have a plan if we do need to evacuate somewhere at some point, know where you’re going to go, whose house you’re going to stay at if you’re going to go to a relative’s house or a friend’s house whose couch you might surf on, or whose friend’s house you might be able to stay in their spare room, or a hotel that you might stay at on the mainland, or where you would go if you need to go somewhere. Obviously, we have shelters and things like that, but they’re not very comfortable, so you definitely want to know where you would go, and it’s definitely more comfortable staying in a friend’s house or a family member’s house on the mainland than it is staying at a shelter.”
Monroe County earned advanced payments for participation in the state’s Disaster Preparedness Program, scoring the highest with the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Florida Recovery Obligation Calculation Program.
Livengood said, “Our Finance and Budget team, Julie Cuneo, she’s in our Finance and Budget Office, and she really spearheads this, and she, over the years, has gone out of her way to make sure that our paperwork gets filed correctly after hurricanes and before hurricanes and they participated in the pilot project a few years ago to help the state work on this system, this paperwork system, on making sure that we’re filing things correctly. It’s a very complicated system. They helped with the pilot program on it. Now that the state has rolled it out, they participated, obviously and it was 441, I believe other municipalities and other counties and nonprofits and anyone, basically in the state of Florida who can get reimbursement, and they scored a 60% which is basically perfect. There were only three participants that actually scored perfect, and Monroe County was one of them. So we can actually get those advanced payments now, rather than have to pay for it upfront and then get reimbursed for it afterwards, so it’s kind of a big deal. It’s actually a really big deal, one that we did so well on this scoring and then also that we can get some of these things obligated and paid for up front. So a major, major kudos to our budget and finance team at Monroe County for being able to help the state with getting this program on its feet, and then also by being able to, obviously, do so great on it as well.”
There have been 134 derelict vessels so far removed from waters around the Keys and one was a yellow submarine.
Livengood said, “The 96 foot submarine was towed away yesterday. Actually, it made its way from Marathon down to Key West yesterday. So, quite a visual. They’re actually breaking it down, and it’s going to be recycled. It’s mostly made of steel, so they’re able to do a lot of recycling on it, actually. Once I sent that press release out yesterday, I got a lot of press inquiries about it. I had, like, USA Today call and a lot of people were very interested in that submarine, a very interesting derelict vessel here in the Florida Keys, that is for sure. It has been in Boot Key, I guess, for quite some years. It had fallen through the cracks, unfortunately over the years and had gotten into a derelict state. Luckily, the state of Florida, FWC has a program where we’re able to remove these derelict vessels, and Brittany Burtner, with Marine Resources, has gone out of her way, especially at the state level. I was up there with her last year during Florida Keys Day, when she actually was working with FWC to get a lot of these programs kicked off so that the wait time to get these derelict vessels out of the water was shortened by, I mean, usually it would take six months to get approvals and she was able to get up there and get in front of everybody and say, like, hey, if you give me the approvals and we can work this out, we can get these things out of the water in weeks instead of months. She really pushed for that and now we’re really seeing some major improvements on getting these derelict vessels out. Actually, next week, as long as the weather is permitting, we should be seeing that boat off of Bahia Honda, I think everyone’s been driving by it and wondering what’s going on with that. That boat should be getting removed next week. Then there’s also the shrimp boat off of Islamorada that will be being removed too. So those are two pretty key derelict vessels as well that that will be getting removed. So she’s very, very good about moving those forward.”
Budget meetings are coming up.
Livengood said, “We have our budget meetings coming up, September 3 in Key West, and then September 10 in Key Largo. Our final budget meeting will be that September 10 one and we will finalize our budget. So we are continuing our summer studies going into that. Actually, I had a presentation sent out the other day from our IT director. He’s looking into ways to save money and whether or not to keep our WiFi, at all of our public areas. It’s very expensive. We’re going through basically every little line item, saying, hey, where can we save money? We’re still doing that throughout the summer. And September 3 and September 10 we will be continuing to discuss that. Then August 20, we have our regular meeting, and that’s 9am at the Harvey Government Center, and we’ll have staff reports from Brittany Burtner from our Marine Resources staff person, administrator, she’ll be giving an update on all the derelict vessels and buoys and all the other things marine resources does, which is pretty extensive. Then also our solid waste recycling administrator, she is extremely busy all the time doing things in the community with recycling. She’s got a couple tire events coming up on September 6, where the community members are able to bring in six tires from their backyards, that they have piling up. But we have those events coming back up, so she’ll be talking about that. She’s also been this summer, doing the skip the stuff campaign. If you get to go food or anything like that, and you’re coming back to your house and you already have forks and knives and plates, and if you can skip the stuff, the plastic, the plastic wares and things like that, to do that, and she’s still pushing that, so she’s going to give an update on all that as well at the meeting. So that’s on August 20, at 9am at the Harvey Government Center. All of our meetings are hybrid still. So if you can’t make it in person, the Keys are 110 miles long. So sometimes they’re in Key West, Marathon, Key Largo. But if you can’t make it in person, you can watch them online. You can watch them on Channel 76 or 99 depending on if you’ve Comcast or AT&T, but if you go to our website, you can find our agenda on there. And then also, during the day of the day of the meeting, there is a live video link, and you can also find the link for the Zoom meeting, where, if you wanted to participate, or even have public comments or anything like that, for any of the agenda items, you can you can participate that way as well. So we try to make it as accessible as possible for community members, considering our geographical challenges of being 110 miles long. I always like to always make sure that everyone knows that.”
South Cliff Estates in Key Largo has affordable housing units and the application period has opened that is specifically for workers in the tourism industry.
Livengood said, “If you go to the county’s website you can get more information on the application process there, and also at that August 20 meeting, I believe some of the other projects in the other Keys will be discussed on that agenda. There’s going to be projects, obviously in Marathon and Key West, and that $35 million is really going to help some of our workforce housing. So those will be discussed at that meeting as well. So trying to get those off the ground.”
For more information, click here: https://monroecounty-fl.gov/