Ron Saunders, manager of the village of Islamorada, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the village.
The state budget is always a concern for local municipalities.
Saunders said, “Several weeks ago, a lot of us were up there for Florida Keys Day, and we met with some legislators and agency heads, etc, but in our discussions, obviously, the budget’s the main thing the legislature has to get done. Hopefully they’re getting closer, but we’re monitoring it closely. We have our lobbyists. We have two sets of lobbyists for us in Tallahassee. In fact, today, at four o’clock, we have a weekly update from our lobbying team. It’s open to the public, and they give us an update on what happened this week in Tallahassee, what’s planned to happen next week. So it’s interesting to find out what’s going on there, but we certainly have some budget things that we want to take care of, particularly environmental issues. We want to get some funding from the state for, so we’re monitoring it very closely, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
Has anything come out about the property taxes?
Saunders said, “I think that they are looking at being more conservative as far as drastic cuts to property tax, because it affects local governments. Nobody likes property taxes. None of us like paying them. But there is a cost of having government, law enforcement, firefighters, parks, roads, etc, so you’ve got to pay for it somehow. So I don’t see drastic cuts coming out of the Senate. They have to agree, then it has to go to the ballot. It needs 60% to pass. And so if you pass something too drastic, I think the voters would realize that’s probably not something they want to do. And so in my opinion, what will happen is maybe an increase in existing homestead exemption, because it hasn’t been increased for a while. So I think maybe jumping that up to a higher number, which gives you more tax relief for homestead properties, is probably what I would project will happen. But you never know.”
What’s going on with the charter review committee?
Saunders said, “We have a seven member charter review committee. They were all appointed by our five village council members. Each one had an appointment. Then they had two at large, and they’ve had three meetings so far, very productive meetings, they’re going to meet again next week. The primary focus has been on council terms and whether they should be staggered. Under our current charter, we have five council members, all are up every two years, which doesn’t lead to a lot of stability. For example, if you’re trying to attract a village manager and you tell them, hey, all five of your bosses are going to be up for election at one time, that doesn’t lead to a very stable situation. So what they’re talking about doing is go from a two year term to a three year term. In the past, they’ve had four year terms and that has been rejected by the voters. Also staggering them, kind of like Marathon does, where two will be up one cycle, then three we have the next cycle. I think that leads to more stability. Also it gives you more experience. Because the problem with the two year term is it takes about a year, if you’re new, to learn the budget, to learn the things, and then the next year you’re up for election, and it becomes campaign time. So I think the three year term sounds reasonable. Once again, I don’t have any vote on it. I don’t have any real input on it, and in the end, the council and the voters will make that decision, but that is their primary focus at this point, talking about whether there should be three year terms, whether they should stagger them.”
March 10 will be the next village council meeting.
Saunders said, “One thing we do every regular council meeting is have an update from the aqueduct authority on the pipeline project, because they’re making a lot of progress, but of course, it also creates pretty bad traffic backups at times. It’s been particularly bad now because they’re doing work by the bridge, by Tavernier Creek Bridge, and it has been backing up. But we’ve been working close to the sheriff’s department and the aqueduct authorities contractors to try to keep things moving. And I tell people like, sooner or later you have to replace that pipeline. It’s old, and we’ve had breaks in it, and so it’s never been a good time to replace a water line. But I think the aqueduct authority has done a good job. We’re working closely with them, so we always get an update every month from them, and let businesses know when they might have an impact on access to their business, for example, letting people know you maybe take a little more time to take your kid to school or go to your doctor’s appointment. I think the more information the better. We have two meetings. We have one on March 10, was the regular village meeting, and then we have one two days later on the 12th which is our land use meeting, that does have a couple of items there. If you want to watch a council meeting, you want to watch the charter review committee, you can see their meetings on our videos, and I think that’s very helpful. Because somebody asked me, well, how come you don’t have more people coming to your meetings? That’s I think, because they know they have access to online videos, etc, and that they’re pretty happy. We’ve had some issues the Freebee contract, peacocks.”
What’s going on with the baseball field?
Saunders said, “I am going to have a discussion today with our school superintendent, Ed Tierney. We’re trying to hammer out the final agreement for the baseball license agreement. The Coral Shores High baseball team, for the last 25 years, has been using the field at Founders Park. The village owns the park. We own the field, but we allow the high school baseball and JV and varsity to use that field. The original local agreement expired several years ago, so we’re working on a new license agreement, and we’ve had some back and forth. And Ed Tierney and I are kind of on the same level. So we wanted to have a direct conversation to see if we can get these done, because we’re in the middle of this baseball season, but they want to start the work right after the season ends. In order to do that, we need to have an agreement in place, and so we want to kind of push this farther down the road and see if we can come to an agreement. So hopefully I’ll have something to report back to the council at our March 10 meeting regarding the baseball field. He and I have a good relationship. We’re both relatively new to our positions, but I’m president of the Education Foundation, which runs Take Stock in Children, and because he’s superintendent, he’s on the board. And so we meet regularly and we’ve formed a pretty good relationship. I think he’s done a great job so far as superintendent. We both have the same goal in mind, is to have the best field possible for the baseball team, make sure it works well.
The Giant Nautical Market raised about $450,000 overall over a two day period.
Saunders said, “We consider Founders Park to be a jewel for the village, and whether it’s the park as a whole or the ball field, and we want to make sure that it’s in pristine condition and that people enjoy it and it’s used properly. We have some upcoming events. We have a lot of events there, and we enjoy having it open to the public so that they can come enjoy it too.”