September 22 – The Key West Chamber of Commerce is looking to support area businesses, always.
Suzanne Moore, Key West Chamber of Commerce President, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about challenges for businesses.
Moore said, “We are talking about some hurricane preparedness now with some of the businesses. We try to follow that same model year after year, but as the workers become more scarce and everyone’s so short-staffed right now. That seems to be the biggest challenge that we’re having with everything.”
Key West has seen some new businesses and people coming into the area who haven’t experienced a hurricane, so the information on hurricane preparedness can be critical.
Moore said, “It’s not really the storm, as you know, it’s the aftermath of what happens. When there are no businesses open and there is no power and there’s no water. Those are the things that we want people to be aware of. As we get through hurricane season, we will continue to monitor everything very closely and try to help the businesses if we have to and of course, always we’ll be here in the aftermath to keep things open.”
One upcoming Chamber event is an Intro to a Mastermind Class, which happens tomorrow through Zoom.
Moore explained, “The Mastermind group offers a combination of brainstorming, education and peer accountability and support to sharpen your business and personal skills.”
This class will help people set goals and be accountable to the goals.
Moore said, “It’s not something that we’ve done before. We’re going to open it up to our members to see if we have people that are interested.”
Setting goals in the beginning of the year can sometimes be easy, but doing the work to reach those goals can be tricky.
Another new program is called the Introduction to Leads group. It will be next Thursday from 9 to 10 a.m.
Moore said, “The Leads group is a business networking group with the sole aim of exchanging leads from one member to the other. Generally we just let one business from each sector is represented so there’s not really competition within the group.”
This will be something a little different than Business After Hours, both in time and with the Zoom component.
The Chamber has something a bit new for Fantasy Fest this year – the first annual Friday night masquerade costume competition.
Moore explained, “We’re going to have teams of three people from the Chamber go around. We’ve got some great ideas, taking pictures of various groups because we don’t want to stop the groups because this is the flowing kind of walking parade.”
There will be thousands of dollars worth of prizes, including cash and gift certificates.
Moore said, “I’m really excited. It’s local appreciation because most of the people that participate in the masquerade walk are locals. It’s going to be giving back to the community and trying to encourage people to be creative and to get involved because we haven’t had the masquerade now for a while, so I suspect we’re going to have a big, big turnout this year.”
Participants will also be able to pre-register.
The Chamber also gives $5,000 to the Fantasy Fest façade for the businesses that decorate for Fantasy Fest.
In terms of the short term vacation rental ordinance, the workshop in September was well attended. The ordinance as it was proposed will take a 30-day minimum of short term rentals to six months and those without a business tax license at a certain date would be subject to that.
Moore said, “A lot of people had a lot of opinions. There’s a lot of representation from the realtors there and there was a lot of points made by local home owners and local people. “
One concern would be if someone doesn’t have a vacation rental license, even if they don’t use it, could the value of their house be reduced compared to a house that could have a vacation rental license?
Moore said, “You have to look at that if you’re looking at somebody from the outside coming in. How will it affect future value of property? Of course some of the commissioners are making a great point that there are vacation rentals through every neighborhood and they’re trying to prevent this from increasing. Yes, some sort of regulation must be made.”
The Chamber is always looking to improve workforce housing. There are hundreds of new units at Stock Island, as well as on College Road and Bahama Village.
Moore said, “So there’s a lot of development on work force housing in the works at the moment. What people are saying to our leadership is why don’t we see if that’s going to help and how much is that going to help before you pass a law that’s going to basically change the way everyone can do business with vacation rentals around town?”
Another suggestion was to increase taxes on a vacation rentals and the money could go towards a work force housing fund.
Compliance is another issue – how will the city make sure everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing, especially with being short staffed?
Moore said, “It was discussed at length at the commissioner’s meeting the other night and has been tabled to December 7, I believe, is when they’re going to bring something else, maybe a modification of this ordinance, but it wasn’t thrown out. There are some commissioners that really want to see this get passed and some others that have questions and would like to see it modified.”
Workshops will continue to get more input, including from residents.
Moore said, “It’s an ongoing thing and it’s very much something that everybody should be aware of and know the facts of because it may or may not affect the value of your house. We have to sort of work together. We’re just a small island, a bunch of people with a lot of different opinions. We have to try to work together as much as we can to come up with something that everybody is willing to at least to look at, accept and try to work through. That’s what we’ve got to do.”
For more information on the Chamber, click here: https://www.keywestchamber.org/