Don Horton, Islamorada Village Council member for seat four, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the village.
Horton was just voted into his seat.
He said, “We ran a very good, clean, successful campaign. I’m very proud of all the help and the support that I got from so many of the citizens in Islamorada and I don’t know that necessarily, 61% is a mandate, but I think it’s a respectable win for sure.”
The swearing in will happen on November 19. What are some priorities for his tenure?
Horton said, “The agenda that we’ve got, it’s very standard. We’ve got some work authorizations for canal restorations, an we’re cleaning up the sins of the past in these canals, 60, 70, years ago, no one knew the damage that we could cause by over digging our canals and so the Village is hard at work with with these canal restorations, and our water quality monitoring. I think that those are daily chores that a council person has to look at and approve the work authorizations. I’m excited to do that. I think anytime we can work forward to improving our environment, that’s a wonderful thing. We’ve got an appointment of our code enforcement hearing officer, which is an important function in the village. Then we’re going to revisit some council meeting procedures, and a few other items, but just an update on the council meeting procedures, which I think are going to be good and help run a more effective and efficient council meeting, I’m hoping.”
The ROGO discussion has been ongoing in the county — will the Village talk about it?
Horton said, “The previous council, I guess, already spoke about that. I think we need to revisit that as a new council. I personally believe that mistakes were made in the numbers that were were authorized by the old Council. And I’m hoping that we revisit that in this first meeting. I think timing is key on this, because the county commission is going to be considering that, I suppose at their next county commission meeting, whatever the outcome of that is, they’re going to be heading for that information, to the state, and we need to be a part of that and have a voice in that. Our planning director had recommended that we take somewhere in the area of 250 allocations. Look, if we don’t take those, the county is going to get them, Marathon is going to get them. We’re going to be building further south, and I’ve told the council multiple times at the podium as a public speaker, that I believe that whatever we can get from the state, we should take them all. I’m not saying that we should build them all, but we should certainly protect the the village and have some control over what our growth is going to be.”
What did the Village Council think Islamorada should take?
Horton said, “I believe they had approved something like 100 or 104 allocations, which was more than 50% less than what our planning director suggested and we need to rely on our professionals that we hire and we employ in the Village. All of our department heads, our division directors, our planning director, building officials, and all those folks are professionals in their specific area. So if they come to a recommendation, unless there’s just something that that is completely out of line with the philosophy of the Village electeds, I think that they should certainly listen to their staff.”
Will that be discussed at a meeting?
Horton said, “Yes, I believe so. I think that it’s going to be on the agenda. I don’t know if it’ll be on the Tuesday agenda or the Thursday agenda, but certainly we need to take care of that. It needs to be on there. It’s it’s been requested to be on one of those agendas, so that we can take care of the Village before the county makes a recommendation to the state.”
Will council meetings still be as long as they have in the past?
Horton said, “If the newly elected, take the time and and read their agendas, go through the entire packages, have meetings with staff and understand there’s certainly an opportunity to take all of these that are on the consent agenda and just authorize those, understanding that they’ve they’ve come with a recommendation from the village manager or from the village staff. Many of the items are mundane and don’t really need to be questioned. So getting those out of the way certainly are going to be helpful. I know that the previous council, there were two or three council members that would constantly pull these daily type of decisions off of the agenda and hold them aside and maybe ask one or two questions that were really questions that they could have had answered long before the meeting and had a full understanding of what was on those consent agendas. So if we take the time and go through these agendas and study them, I think that we can certainly shorten these meetings. I’m looking forward to working hard for the citizens of Islamorada and hopefully doing the right thing for all of us.”