Mark Gregg, the Village of Islamorada Council Member, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the village.
The gigantic nautical flea market will be held this weekend.
Gregg said, “As we speak, I’m across the street from it right now and the vendors are setting up their booths and tents and the staff is marking off places for folks to park and it’s just the biggest thing that we have every year. It’s for a great cause for scholarships for local students and everybody pitches in. It’s just a wonderful time. I’m not trying to do a commercial because I’m not paid for anything, but if you if you need something nautical, there’s a good chance that we will have it. So it’s exciting. It’s exciting to be around.”
The Islamorada Village Council has extended the contract for the interim manager from Monroe County, but Robert Cole will be the incoming manager.
Gregg said, “Robert Cole has great credentials. He comes to us originally from the Chicago area, and has I don’t recall the number of degrees that he has, but all of them in public service, public administration in business areas of study, but he started his professional career in the city of Oak Park, Illinois. He had a successful career there. I think it was, like 19 years, and he wanted a change of pace. So he went over to Scarsdale, New York, and he was there for about nine years. He’s sort of semi retired now, I guess, but currently living in Central Florida and he saw our ad and he responded, and we hired him. So he’s a very pleasant man, mild mannered, kind of just easygoing kind of guy. Very good personality, for the kind of work that he’s going to be doing here, meeting with the public and dealing with other elected officials, government officials, and agencies and so forth. So I really liked the guy, I’ll just say that right up front, I just clicked with him. I think he’s a very good fit for our community and I think he’s going to like us, and we’re going to like him. So I’m excited to see him get started.”
There were 46 applications for the job.
Gregg said, “Some of them were really impressive. Others were not, I’ll just say that. Some folks that had very little if any experience in government management. One was a Starbucks manager, so management experience, for sure, just a little different than what we were looking for. But certainly, a lot of high quality, highly qualified folks. So we narrowed it down to three, and of the three, I mean, it was very close. I’m not going to say it any other way. It was like a matter of inches. They weren’t miles apart or anything like that. They were all really close, all very good. All interviewed well, but what I liked about Mr. Cole, in addition to his just pleasant, easygoing, style and personality, was that he’d actually come to the area and had a seasonal rental here, a month or two before the interviews began. So he kind of got himself in tune with who we are and what we were all about and met with several of the locals and different groups and things. That to me showed that he was really interested in the job and it impressed me. So he was my first choice and I just really liked him. He’s just a likable guy. If you meet him, I think you’d find him the same. We’ve all been waiting patiently to have a full time manager installed and I can’t wait to get to work with him and just start moving ahead with a lot of the things that have slowed down in his absence and it’ll be exciting for the Council, for the staff and I’m sure it’ll take a while but the folks that live in the village, work in the village you’re going to see the results of that right away. So it’ll be exciting to get started with fresh beginning with him and get some things done that we’ve been waiting on.”
Kimberly Matthews, the current village manger from the county, will be in place up until May 8.
Gregg said, “We did renew the agreement with the county to have Kimberly stay on with us up until May 8. However, we are anticipating an overlap between what she does for us and bringing Robert Cole up to speed. She’s of course, all on board with helping him do just that, introducing him to the village staff and our procedures and just showing him how we do things and getting him going. Rather than starting from scratch as if there was a vacancy in the office. So we’re very grateful for her help on that. But if I had to make a guess I’d say she’ll probably be around a month or less. So, early April would be my guess. But not knowing all the different variables, it could be a little shorter or even a little longer. So but certainly an overlap to help smooth out the transition is what we’re looking for and she’s going to do that.”
A few ordinances were approved by council recently. One was for reimbursement of legal expenses if a council member or others in the village are taken to court and they prevail.
Gregg said, “The intent there is to, in essence, assure whomever it is that might want to work in one of these positions with the village on the council, that if someone filed an unwarranted complaint against them civil, criminal or administrative, and they’re successful in defending that, they shouldn’t have to pay for that out of their own pocket. So we’ve done that and we just mirror what the county does. We’re not the first ones. We didn’t invent this, but we got it from them. And it seems to work well.”
Folks from Islamorada were in Tallahassee for Florida Keys Day.
Gregg said, “We get to go around and meet with the different legislators and department heads and other officials in Tallahassee that we don’t ordinarily cross paths with, and we share with them some of our special and unique concerns let them know when they go to pass laws, please don’t forget us and sometimes we even have special requests, which in this case, I understand that they’ve got a bill either passed or about to be passed that would allow money from the TDC, the big surplus $25 million, to be used towards affordable housing. It’s a one time only, kind of a special thing, because it was a unique circumstance that created the sources of money. So I think that’s going to go through. We told them about our needs, which were help us buy environmentally sensitive lands to offset takings claims or property rights issues and to help us have more badges on the water, as I’ll call them, which would be law enforcement, FWC in particular, to help us enforce our environmental laws. I think there’s a bill also pending to help us purchase a fire rescue boat. So that we have, in essence, ambulance type services available on the water. We’ve had a couple of deaths that resulted from not having that sort of thing. They didn’t have anybody to get to the people. We did buy a boat by the way. I think we bought it, a used one and we hope to upgrade and the legislature is going to hopefully give us $300,000 to do just that and start a system like that throughout the county. So it’s kind of a water version of Trauma Star, if I could make a rough general analogy.”