Key West Mayor Teri Johnston joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the city.
Four referendum bond items were approved at last week’s city commission meeting.
Johnston said, “It was an action packed agenda. I think we got out of our morning session at 1:30 snd had to go into a closed session with the city attorney at 2. So we discussed a lot. We got a lot done, we postponed a number of items. I’d like to explain the reasons for that. But the four referendum items, which are broken into four different questions on the November 5 ballot. The first one is for improvements for public infrastructure, and adaptation for weather resistant storm and flooding mitigation. So that’s a big one. I think we all know that Key West is very vulnerable to the effects of storms and sea level rise. So we’re trying to get a handle on that and make the improvements that we need so that Key West is around and livable for a long time to come. Then the second question is improving our parks and recreation and culture facilities. The third one is transportation, roadway and parking and the fourth one is police and fire. So all big important areas. I know that number of $300 million sometimes causes a pause in in our voters and our taxpayers. But that’s over a 30 year bond. So you think about it, it’s averaging out about $10 million of improvements to our community, every single year. When you think about what we have going on right now, we just completed United Street which was well over $5 million. We have the community center in Bahama village, as well as the John Jones Navigational Center on Stock Island going on and that brings us up to about $21 million there and then I know it’s an FDOT project but just take a look at South Roosevelt Boulevard and the repairs are another $28 million. That’s in four projects in the city of Key West, that’s almost $50 million. So it’s costly to maintain our community, but we need to, we need to get away from deferred maintenance and take care of things as they happen and keep them up to date and working properly for the residents of Key West.”
The fire stations need replacement and communications facilities may need upgrading.
Johnston said, “The great discussion that we had on Thursday night was the fact that that’s kind of a line of credit, do you have to use it? No, you don’t. Do you have to use it all at once? No, you don’t. We’re going to continue to seek out grants, and other types of funding as well as other revenue sources to offset this. So that we have a lot of options there. Before any project is put into the works, we put shovels into the ground, there is going to be excessive public input into that. Is this something you want? Is it something that you’d like to put off? Is it something that you feel is detrimental to your quality of life in the city of Key West? So lots of public input, you’ll have a chance to weigh in on every single thing that we will be doing the next 30 years.”
The second reading of the bond items will be on June 6.
Johnston said, “Then we will place those items on the November 5 ballot and it’s going to be a chuck full ballot, because we also have another item that’s coming in front of us on June 6, allowing the City Commission to acquire property without going out for referendum. That was added to our charter a number of years ago by a past commission and what we found particularly right now, when we have such a housing shortage is that that eliminates that the city of Key West from reacting to opportunities. The county has acquired a number of properties via a number of different methods to put in workforce housing, to put in their own employees to make sure that they can retain their employee status. The city of Key West doesn’t have that opportunity because we have that charter language. So we will have another referendum on there asking to please allow the city of Key West to acquire property without coming out for a referendum. That will be done by a supermajority vote. So the vast majority of the commissioners have to approve that and it has to be done for affordable workforce housing.”
There were also some postponements of some items from the meeting as well.
Johnston explained, “Probably the most significant one is that the rezoning requested by the Casa Marina has drawn a number of neighbors into the conversation. There’s a great concern in the neighborhoods. So we have postponed that item to November 14 and there will absolutely be a new commission seated for that meeting, which adds four new members. But what it also does is it gives the developers the time to sit down with the neighborhood another two or three times perhaps, but it also gives them time to come back into our planning department, because our planning department has recommended that that item be denied. Now clearly, there are concerns from our planning department who have probably the toughest job in the city of Key West is taking this small amount of land that we have and using it correctly and using it for the intended purpose and making sure that there are no unintended consequences with what we do with our land. So it also gives the developers time to sit down with our planning department to try and hammer out the differences that we have right now.”
Casa Marina is looking to rezone to allow the development of some units for both workforce housing and market rate units.
Johnston said, “The neighborhood objection, almost every communication that I have received or spoken to our residents is the fact that they are very concerned of the continued redevelopment, taking residential property and turning it into commercial. That’s been the crux of their concern. I think also the neighborhood is very concerned and although these current owners of that property, I believe bought that property in 2017, that property has been in a state of disrepair for years and years and years. The neighborhood is really upset about that. If you own a property, take care of it. That’s another issue that they have some really hard feelings about is that that area right around their neighborhood has been left in a dilapidated state for many, many years now.”
A postponement of a potential long term lease for the smaller cruise ships also happened at the commission meeting.
Johnston said, “I was really surprised at that. We had two people speak against that. It surprised me greatly because one of the stops of the passengers of the American Cruise Line is out at Truman Little White House. All that we have heard is raves from them about the type of economic value that this vessel brings in and the passengers on that vessel. We’ve heard from art shops that have been thrilled with them. Because these people come in, and they’re in Key West for two days and they go to plays, and they go to events and they eat at fine restaurants. They’re at the Truman Little White House, they’re seeing many of the historical venues that we have in the city and they have had quite an impact. So it was surprising that we got that negative comment from these two gentlemen. I think probably, that item is going to come back to us in September. They’re going to try and work out a deal because right now, American Cruise Lines, as in any cruise line that comes into pier B, can book three years out into advance. But this gentleman is trying to actually build two sea worthy vessels to add to the numbers that come to Key West regularly, which would increase our disembarkation fees also.”
The long term lease would not be exclusive.
Johnston said, “What they’re saying is we would like to book X number of days, 10 years out. It would not be an exclusive agreement. Any days that they are not in there, any vessel that meets the referendum requirements, has an opportunity to book with the city and join us in the city of Key West just like American Cruise Line has.”