Key West Mayor Dee Dee Henriquez joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about what’s going on in the city.
Key West officials traveled to Washington, DC, last week.
Henriquez said, “It was a great week, and I will tell you, we did meet with Congressman Gimenez. We met with Senator Scott’s staff, we met with Senator Moody. We met with the Department of Justice. And I will tell you it was building those relationships and building the partnerships at the federal level, which I don’t know, when the last time the city of Key West has been up there and represented for our city, and just going there and learning, I’ll just give you an example. So with the Department of Justice, we were speaking with them, and at first it was like, okay, what are we going to talk about with the Department of Justice? Well, in speaking with them, they talked to us about a COPS hiring grant, and what that grant stands for is Community Oriented Policing Services. And so we asked them, please give us some information in reference to this grant. And so the last time the city of Key West applied for this grant was 2011 and they were awarded $885,000 and that was to hire four new officers over a three year period. And then before that, we had received a grant in 2009 and that was for a little over $812,000 to hire four new officers again over a three year period, and because we explained to them, we have 26,000 residents that are here, but on a course of a day, you could have up to 80,000 people in our community. We were excited, and we were like thank you for giving us this information. We have the applications, and we’re going to start filling them out, and we can even maybe use this grant for Higgs Beach, if Higgs beach passes, to hire two new police officers and help with the staffing costs over a three year period. We discussed energy initiatives and concerns and that was also discussed on collaboration with the Navy on the potential waste energy plant on federal property, major infrastructures. We talked about fire station three, and how can they help us with the fire equipment and so forth. Then we also talked to them about the Jose Marti FDOT project, where the 7 million is our responsibility, and they’re going to try and help us with that, and even the Flagler project that we’re going with the county and our part of it is like 30 million. And they were like, nope, let’s see how we can help you with that as well. So there was a lot of discussion, a lot of things going on. And I will tell you, it was great speaking to them face to face. And they are really engaged on trying to help the city of Key West. They were very happy that we were there. They were very engaged. And we’re looking forward to following up with their staff on a lot of the issues that we talked about, so we’ll be able to monitor that progress as we go along.”
The city commission will meet this Thursday.
Henriquez said, “Monroe County has proposed transferring to the city of Key West Higgs beach. So back in September of last year, the City Commission gave direction to staff to meet with the Monroe County leadership and to better understand the proposal and to do a cost benefit analysis, and that was to evaluate the fiscal and operational impacts. And they did that, and we were able to get a lot of information from the staff, and the staff reviewed all of the factors, the short term and long term impacts to the city. So when I looked at the five year cost benefit analysis, the recurring cost expenses are a little over $5.1 million and the revenue cost is a little over 5.3 million, so that leaves us with a little over $223,000 margin over a five year projection. If everything had stayed exactly the same, no unexpected expenses, no hurricanes, that is a very slim cushion over a five year period. But like I said, if everything stayed the same between the reoccurring costs and the revenues, there is a $223,000 plus revenue. But here we go again. If we use the COPS grant, and it gets awarded, that would offset some of this money over a three year period. So that would reduce some of our reoccurring costs. So I know there’s going to be a lot of conversation. The county is going to be there to answer any questions that we may have, and we’ll see what the will of the commission is.”
If the city does not approve the transfer of Higgs Beach to city ownership, what would happen?
Henriquez said, “That would be up to the county, but if we decide not to transfer Higgs Beach over to the city, it would still belong to the county, and that would be something that the county would have to decide.”
What is the county looking for in return? Was it land near the airport?
Henriquez said, “This is the overall package. So like I said, there’s going to be a lot of discussion on this issue.”
What about the property tax issue in the state?
Henriquez said, “It did pass on the House side. We are now waiting to see what the Senate is going to do. Will there be something on the ballot? If it’s up to our governor, he wants something on the ballot, and for it to pass, it would have to be a 60% margin. So we’re just sitting here waiting and monitoring the Senate side, and we’ll see what’s going to develop from there.”
HARC also talked about painting fences.
Henriquez said, “That was discussed at the HARC meeting. I was not able to attend because I was in Washington, but in reference to approving the text amendment, we’ll see. Then it will now go to planning. If it passes planning, it will come to the City Commission for two readings. If it passes the City Commission for two readings, then it will then go to state and then they have up to 60 days to either say yes or no. So that’s really the short version. It would probably take up to six months to go through that whole process. So we will monitor that and see how that goes through the process.”
The Tennessee Williams birthday celebration will also be on Thursday.
Henriquez said, “Friday, we have the early bird cleanup, and that is going to be sponsored this week by First Horizon Bank, and that’s located at 330 Whitehead Street, that’s going to be starting at 8am and I will tell you, it’s been just phenomenal the amount of volunteers that we have each and every week. I mean, we’ve been having over 100 volunteers every week, and it’s just wonderful to see how everybody just gets together and takes pride in our city and picks up all that trash, and it’s just amazing. So I look forward to the cleanup on Friday. On Saturday, we have, every first Saturday of the month, the city of Key West offers a free household hazardous waste collection from eight to noon, and that’s at Indigenous Park at 1801 White Street. So I just wanted to remind everyone that is for residents only.”