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.
Today is Earth Day as well as the Key West Sustainability Coordinator’s birthday.
Johnston said, “The wonderful Alison Higgins turns 50 today on Earth Day, so happy birthday to Alison. She has done so much for the city of Key West as far as sustainability. It is so important to us. In fact, on Friday, I had had the privilege of speaking to a group of 30 college students from the University of South Carolina. They were here in Key West visiting and it’s just amazing how our young people have embraced protecting our planet and protecting our environment and creating a better environment for their children and they are just all onboard. It’s very impressive. We’ve got a great future ahead of us if they’re the ones that are leading the earth.”
There are cleanups going on in the city this week.
Johnston said, “On Friday. We’re going to be on US 1 out by Dion’s and we’re going to meet up with the crew from Stock Island and we’re going to clean that area. Then on Saturday, we will be at Grace Lutheran. All of these things start at 8. We’ll ask an hour of your time, but it certainly has a tremendous impact on our community. Tonight, I’ll be supporting reef relief at 601 Front Street for the first ever infinite bottle celebration. Right now we’ve got an organization called Proud Source, which provides aluminum water bottles. If you’ve ever seen our debris and our pickup on a Friday, most of it is plastic and many of it is plastic water bottles. Proud Source provides aluminum water bottles for the Hyatt, the Hyatt collects them, sends them off to be recycled and all of the funding that they get back from those recycling efforts goes right back to reef relief. So thank you very much to the Hyatt Centric but that will be tonight.”
Parking is another topic in the city.
Johnston said, “There are several hot button issues that I’d like to share with your listeners. These are issues that we get questions on every single week. But parking. People wonder what we’re doing out there with parking, people parking illegally in residential spots and things of that nature. We issue about 1,000 parking tickets every week. We’ve got a number of residential parking places that are clearly marked and if you do not have a residential parking sticker, you cannot park in there. So our parking department is very, very assertive as far as making sure that our locals have a spot to park when they bought that that inexpensive parking pass. So we do take care of that. One of our biggest problems really is our privately owned lots in the city of Key West because, unfortunately their signage is very similar to the city of Key West public parking signage and we get a lot of complaints regarding that.”
Another issue is e-bikes.
Johnston said, “We get a lot of complaints with e-bikes, and yet they are one of the most cost effective forms of transportation to get our labor force in and out of Key West every day. So our Key West Police Department had a couple of weeks ago, 75 moving vehicle citations that they gave out in one week. That’s in comparison to 180 e-bike, bicycle, golf cart and stand up scooter violations. We want people to operate safely. We want them to operate within the law. So the Key West Police Department certainly is doing everything that they can to make sure that that happens. We are also trying to help that out in the city of Key West by providing new wide safe bicycle lanes, and that’s part of our Complete Streets project. You can see our efforts on United on Southern Street on Bertha Street, and also South Street for our new project. We’re creating new, wide bicycle lanes so that we can get these types of bicycles and e-bikes off of the sidewalks and back out and into a lane.”
Affordable housing is another discussion point, as always.
Johnston said, “That’s been one of our critical issues. We have a wonderful Director of Housing and Community Development, Tina Burns. I just want you to know that Tina answers about 250 calls per week, trying to figure out how people can find housing, where they can find it, who qualifies, who doesn’t. She is out there to help everyone.”
The Conch Republic Independence Day celebration will be this week.
Johnston said, “I’ll be opening up the Conch Republic Independence Day celebration on Tuesday night in front of the Ingham. On Wednesday night we’re going to host the USS Key West reception here in City Hall. And on Friday, we’re going to be in full swing for the commissioners with our first of many 2024-2025 budget season sessions.”
The hospital taskforce discussions will also begin soon.
Johnston said, “I applaud Vice Mayor Kaufman. It’s something where we need to have a community come conversation about it. We have a lot of needs and concerns. In 2007, we had a commission retreat, and even in 2007, our number one threat to the viability of our community was a lack of health care in our community. So it hasn’t changed. We have a lot of needs. It’s a concern of our community, and we need to talk about it. We need those types of conversations to go back to the organizations that are making the determination about what kind of health care we are going to have in the future in Key West.”
The bond issue will be discussed in May.
Johnston said, “In May we will have bond language that comes in front of us. The Commission will approve the bond language, then we’ll get it to Joyce to get it on the November ballot. In between then, we’re going to do lots and lots of public education.”
Happy Earth Day to everyone!
Johnston said, “We only have one earth, please take care of it and particularly in Key West world. We’re a very environmentally sensitive island and we’d love to leave a wonderful community for our children and grandchildren. So please do everything that you can.”