Michelle Lincoln, Monroe County Commissioner, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
The county has a survey out and would like to hear from YOU on important issues.
Lincoln said, “As an elected official starting in Marathon on their city council, and now as the Commissioner, I have had the words BPAS and ROGO drilled into my brain. As much as I thought I understood the process, prior to being an elected official, as soon as I became part of the elected crew, I started to learn even more about BPAS process, and ROGO and takings cases, and our liability and infrastructure and how it all works with a hurricane evacuation model. It is extremely complicated for anyone, and I get to hear these words and understand this day in and day out. Now what is really, really important is for all of our listeners, to understand all of the little intricacies as well as I do, because this is going to affect us today, and generations to come. So it’s extremely, extremely important for every single solitary person who lives in the Keys to understand all of this, and to weigh in and to weigh in more than once. So this is going to be a learning curve process for the entire community. From where I sit, learning and hearing what our community wants, is extremely important and the only way we can achieve that, for our 82,000 residents is for them all to somehow weigh in. The best way for that to happen is online, and on survey monkeys, and all of these wonderful capabilities we have that we used to never have.”
The survey is on the county’s website.
Lincoln said, “This is going to be the very first of many different survey questions that we’re going to be engaging with our community. So this first one is easy, cheesy. I, after yesterday’s meeting, I went over to my daughter’s house in Marathon and I’m like, come on, let’s see how easy it is. Both of us went online on our cell phones and were able to click right on the website, click right on the survey and within a few minutes, were able to complete the survey. So this is the very first one, it’s sort of we want to get a baseline of do our residents understand what a ROGO is, versus a BPAS, understanding they’re really both the same. Understanding what’s involved, understanding what this opportunity is that’s been presented to us. Then as the summer goes on, these surveys will be a little more in depth, it’ll have a little more, maybe a little paragraph or two explaining something and then asking questions, sort of like book reports we did when we were children. Not trying to simplify it, but that’s exactly what we need to do. This is such an amazing opportunity for our community. So we’re doing this online, and then yes, absolutely, the summer months, Kimberly and the team are going to be going out to all different organizations. If you’re listening to this, and you want your neighborhood to be involved, or your church to be involved, or your civic organization to be involved in this, call me and I will make sure that you get Kimberly’s information and that we come out and meet with you because this is that important.”
The project to help mitigate flooding in the Twin Lakes neighborhood is coming to fruition.
Lincoln said, “That one, and then we hope Stillwright Point will be following directly behind it. But this is, when you think, okay, we need $21 million. That’s not a drop in the bucket and as the years went on, the cost went up due to the cost of construction and materials. It’s so complicated here in the Keys. We can’t just throw asphalt on the road because of where we are, we have to get permits from the South Florida Water District. They dictate what we’re allowed to do and we have to have a way of what are we going to do with that run off of that water? And where’s it going to go? So it was extremely complicated, and it has taken this many years with engineering and this many years negotiating the cost and finding matching funds and having funds from the state of Florida and now from our federal partners. It’s all come together and we are ready to actually start the project and it’s not going to be a delay. The engineers and contractors are ready to go, the shovels are in the back of their trucks. We’re going to hopefully be breaking ground on this project within the next few months. This has been very gut wrenching. I thanked our staff because it’s been a group effort for us to realize that we can do this.”
The addition to the Harry Harris Park playground opening will be this weekend.
Lincoln said, “We have so many things in the pipeline. We have to do that. You can’t just do one project and then say, okay, what should we do next, and try to start rolling out a new one, you have to have them all lined up. A couple of the presentations we had yesterday, kind of lent ourselves to that. We had our sustainability and vulnerability assessment presentation and what this is really allowed every year she comes and gives us updates on what we’re doing county wide. What it’s really helped us with is Twin Lakes to finally get the money for that. We now understand how to access Resilient Florida grant funds and federal funds. I say this when you talk about the parks because we look at our county holistically and we look at it from 35,000 feet up and look down and it’s not just the roads that are vulnerable. It’s not just infrastructure and buildings. It’s also our parks and our beaches and property that we own and what are we doing to keep it good and safe and reliable and resilient? So a lot of our presentations yesterday kind of hit on that. We also had one from the south Florida Regional Planning Council that were a member of that did a collaboration with military installation bases in the south part of the state of Florida. So it was the NAS Key West. It was the Homestead Air Force Base, and then went up a little further on the coast of are we being resilient outside the gates of these extremely important military bases that protect our nation’s security? So I just feel like our county is so very proactive and on top of the game. We always say it, but it’s true. We are the tail that wags the dog in the state of Florida.”
The Seven Mile Bridge is also looking at a replacement in the future and FDOT will have a preliminary discussion at a meeting tonight.
Lincoln said, “Think if you were Henry Flagler over 100 years ago? Did he have to have all these meetings? Or did he just say, I’m going to do it, gather the funds he needed, not to make it sound easy on what he did, but boy what a visionary. Then you think that the old timers would talk about driving across the original bridge, and you would knock your side mirrors off, and a school bus and a pickup truck couldn’t cross at the same time and how huge the project was when we built the current Seven Mile Bridge. Then all the work that was involved with the Florida Department of Transportation and the city of Marathon and the county, five or six years ago, even more than that, gosh, to renovate the Old Seven Mile Bridge, the portion that goes from Marathon to Pigeon Key and how huge that was, and how many millions of dollars that we’re still paying for it, but to save that icon and how fabulous that is. Now here we are, again, the people in our community today have the ability to weigh in, and give their opinions on what they would like to see in this new bridge that’s going to go from Marathon to the other side, to Big Pine and how exciting that we can say we were there and we were at the kickoff meeting and we were able to give our input and say, because here’s what I’ve been saying that I want on it. I want a dedicated pedestrian bicycle lane. How cool would that be? Maybe even an area where you can pull off like a scenic, you know how they have on scenic roads on mountain sides. I mean, so this is it. This is our opportunity. How many people can say oh, yeah, I sat with Henry Flagler and helped him create that bridge. Well, hello, this is our opportunity to do just that.”
The meeting will be in Marathon at the Government Center tonight at 5:30.
Lincoln said, “However, if you don’t want to drive there, the Florida Department of Transportation is also doing it live. So you can Zoom in and raise your virtual hand and you can participate because, we’re not Henry Flagler week. So there is no reason not to weigh in on events that are happening in our county. Do not complain two years from now. Be a partner in this game of life that we’re playing in, please.”
The county commissioners also voted to increase the residential rate of trash collection by 20%. That was set as a cap and there will be negotiations with waste management on behalf of the county to whittle that down a bit.
Lincoln explained, “We are in budget season and we always have to set a notice of this is the highest that could possibly go, you can never set it higher. When you negotiate you can always get lower. We know the cost of living has gone up in the Keys. You go to the grocery store and you see what you’re paying for a gallon of milk and a pound of bacon. I know the cost to provide garbage pickup and then haul it out because remember we are a chain of islands, 120 mile linear chain of islands that we have to pick up all the trash and then we have to get it out of the Keys. There’s no place for it to live in the Florida Keys. It’s extremely expensive. It’s expensive for their gasoline, it’s expensive for their hauling trucks. It’s expensive for them to find employees. For them to find employees and find housing for their employees in the Lower Keys, you’re not going to drive from Homestead to Key West to garbage pickup. I’m not making excuses. I’m painting the picture. With all of that said, we understand, but we also understand the cost. This is on the cost of our residents. Right now, I think the cost annually is like $460 a year, and so the cost is going to have to go up somewhat. So we set it at the highest threshold that we were comfortable with and now we’re going to hope that our staff can set some compromises with our current providers that are all under contract, and see if we can’t get something that’s more reasonable and understanding how important this service is to our community and our businesses.”
The surplus of local TDC funds is awaiting the governor’s approval. It’ll be $35 million to help with affordable housing.
Lincoln said, “This is so monumental. We are the only county in the state of Florida that has been given permission to do this, with surplus funds. That was not in the budget for advertisement. And it was not in the budget for special events. It was not in the budget for brick and mortar. It was simply money that due to not understanding that we would be as busy as we were during COVID, this money was not ever budgeted. We didn’t expect to be as busy as we were during COVID. It’s surplus funds, once in a lifetime opportunity. One of the things that we always talk about is the need for workforce housing and what are the pillars that are required? You need the land, you need the ROGO, you need the funding. Here, we now have the opportunity to take up to $35 million and invest in our community and our residents that live here and our people who work in the tourist industry, and provide a quality home for them to live in while they’re working in our fabulous Florida Keys. So I think this is extremely exciting. As I said, we are the only county in the state of Florida who got permission to do this. It took a lot of creativity. It took a lot of collaboration from our legislative team, from the people in Tallahassee, our legislators, and our commissioners to come up with this plan, and I’m extremely excited about it. Yesterday was laying the framework on how we could accept the money and then we will have as long as it takes us to figure out proper ways now to spend that money with public, private partnerships, whatever it will be that will make it make sense. So super, super excited about this.”
Remember tomorrow is Be Like Mike Day.
Lincoln said, “Honoring my very favorite County Commissioner Mike Forster, and so I plan on taking some non perishable items to the food drop off in the Middle Keys. You can go to Burton in Key Largo, Tavernier area and then SOS in Key West. I love the fact that they moved it to the spring so that they can get some breakfast type items in for the kiddos that will not be getting breakfast and lunch at school during summer break.”
For the surveys, click here: https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/