Monroe County Mayor Michelle Lincoln joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
A recent discussion was had about the possible inclusion of new offshore oil and gas leasing in Monroe County.
Lincoln said, “This was brought to our attention. Commissioner Scholl sits on a military defense committee, the state, and you have the rest of us on here who are so involved in what’s going on in our environment. So this is an issue that has both military and environmental specialists in alignment, including a bipartisan support in Congress in the state of Florida, opposing this new possibility of offshore oil and gas leasing. In 2010 I believe, is when we had the the deep Horizon oil spill, and the long term ramifications of that oil spill, and the threat of it happening again anywhere near us is just, it’s too much of a threat for us to to bear. And so we are opposing this, and we did have a unanimous support of that resolution, and we will also be sending this off to our municipalities here in the Keys, asking that they also write their own resolutions opposing this measure.”
Boat ramp fees and parking fees were also discussed recently.
Lincoln said, “This was brought to us by John Allen, our director of parks and beaches and the city of Marathon, actually implemented a program, I think it’s been like two years now, two or three. It was bumpy when they rolled it out, and it is now pretty smooth and I think they were surprised the first year with the amount of money it generated. And again, Marathon has it for only non residents. If you’re a resident, there’s no no fee involved. And the same with Key West. There’s paid parking everywhere in Key West. And so we’re always looking for ways in which to improve services at our parks and our beaches and to decrease cost of our taxpayers, and this is a perfect way in which we can generate some revenue from our visitors who come here and utilize our parks and our beaches and let them help pay for the maintenance of those parks and beaches. So originally, the the idea was to have a discounted rate for our residents, and the commissioners said, no, we don’t have an appetite for that. Let’s let our residents, who already pay property taxes and already do so much, work so many jobs, let them enjoy our beaches and our parks at no additional cost, and let’s put this more on the backs of our visitors. And so it won’t be an astronomical fee, but it will be something that will help us to keep our parks and our beaches maintained the way we all want them to be.”
What about issues with sea level rise in certain neighborhoods?
Lincoln said, “Over the years, we have been discussing sea level rise and increasing the height of some streets. And then is it fair to other areas where they don’t have a flooding for them to have to pay for the millions of dollars that it cost to do some of these projects? And then does the neighborhood have buy in? Do they even want it? And it just got us to start to step back and look at what other counties might be doing in some counties, for example, Lee County, and this is what we’ve mirrored our program on now. If your neighborhood wants a road improvement or any kind of an improvement that is only going to benefit that community, then if they have over 50% support, they can come to the county and we’ll walk them through every step, we’ll help them get grants. We will show them all the permits they need and help them every way we can then to make whatever improvement they want, whether it be raising the road or a fancy sidewalk with street lights or a weed gate in their canal. These are all things that are above and beyond what we normally provide as a core service. So we had a very good conversation yesterday on what are our core services? Roadways and drainage and stripping and right of way vegetation trimming and street lighting and signages and bridges. These are all core services, but anything above and beyond would require that neighborhood, and they don’t have to form a homeowner’s association. They could just have their own community neighborhood meetings and say, this is what we want to do. And then we will walk them through the process. And at many steps along the way, they can change their mind and say, no, the neighborhood doesn’t have this appetite anymore. Or when the cost comes in, they see how much it is, they might say, nope, we don’t want it. One of the thoughts we had though while we were doing all this is, what if you have a resident with financial hardships? What if it’s somebody who’s been in that house for 30 or 40 years? They’re on a fixed income now, they don’t have the ability to pay for it, but they really want it, and they have that financial hardship, so we asked staff to come up with a financial hardship program, and what would that look like? None of these were items that we were voting on yesterday. They were items that we were just bringing up for discussion and direction. Very happy that we had some residents of the Winston Way who are going to be doing a project. They were there in the audience to give us their feedback and input, and we are requesting all of our communities to join in on these conversations, to help us make sure we’re we’re doing this the right way, and that it will be something that will be beneficial to anyone’s neighborhood in the future. So that was our meeting yesterday. We will be bringing both that financial hardship and the Neighborhood Improvement items back at our January meeting.”
Plans are in place for the upcoming legislative session, where there is still chatter about property tax reform and/or reduction.
Lincoln said, “Every year part of our legislative ask has been to do a carve out for non homesteaded properties that rent year round to our workforce, and every year they won’t put it on, they won’t do it. It frustrates me, because we’re trying in our county to come up with ways to help our property owners the best we can. And this, to us, was a great way to help our property owners that rent long term to our workforce, and now, if the governor has his way, and all homesteaded properties are exempt from paying property taxes that will shift the burden to our second homeowners, to our people who are renting long term, to our workforce. It will also shift the burden to our property owners that own businesses that are already on a shoestring budget trying to make ends meet, living down here in the Keys and running a business. So we are very concerned on what the implications of all these property tax initiatives, what they’re going to do, where the shift will be, who’s going to then pay for the law enforcement and who’s going to pay for the parks and the beaches and everything that we’re discussing? So again, that’s one reason why we are looking at the parking fees and launch fees at the boat ramps, just as ways to be proactive to whatever is going to come out of this legislative session, and then ultimately, what the voters in the entire state of Florida want to do. I feel like in Monroe County, we have a very educated voting base. I think our county is more engaged than most counties when it comes to the issues that we’re facing. So it might be even that our county votes one way, and we’re outvoted by the rest of the state of Florida, and we’ll be stuck with whatever the state, the majority of the state, does, and again, it erodes at our home rule, which is just the core of why we live in the Florida Keys, why we live In the southern most county in the state of Florida in the United States of America, why we chose to be so unique. And it just frustrates me.”
What could happen now that Miami has a Democrat mayor for the first time in many decades?
Lincoln said, “Eileen Higgins, I’ve known her for many, many years. She was extremely involved. She was a Miami Dade County Commissioner. And we worked closely on some initiatives in protecting the urban boundary around the Homestead Air Force Base and protecting that air force base for it to remain a military installation. And so I know her very well. She was very active in the Florida Association of Counties and extremely active in the National Association of Counties. So I have her on speed dial, and I wish her the best. We are next door neighbors to Miami, and it’s very important for us to have excellent relationships with the mayors and the elected officials, regardless of whether they’re an R, a D or an I. So I do hope that we get to continue to have a good, friendly relationship with with our neighbors up north.”
There seems to be a lot of uncertainty in some issues going forward.
Lincoln said, “I know the governor released his budget last night, and I have not had an opportunity to dive deep into it yet, so I will be looking at that, as will our staff also. I know that another bill was put out yesterday as well, and again, our staff hasn’t had a chance yet to dive into it to see if it’s going to make the necessary changes that we needed here in our county to again protect Home Rule and allow the public and the community to be able to weigh in on decisions before they’re made at a higher level. So we shall see. I know that there’s a contingency of us going to Tallahassee next week to meet with the governor and the Cabinet for our annual visit with them, to review what we’re doing to protect our community, because we’re an area of critical state concern. So every year we go and give them our report card, our update on how we’re doing protecting our environment and we’ll also be while we’re there, discussing the rollout of the 900 Rogo units that were agreed upon last year in that Senate Bill 180 and now we just need to know the mechanism in which we’re allowed to use them. How many are going to go to the county? How many are going to go to the municipality? So there’s a bunch of us that will be going up to Tallahassee next week for those meetings.”
Monroe County Fire Rescue has brought Santa to a number of muncipliaties recently – and continue to do so.
Lincoln said, “They volunteered to pay for the candy, and it’s like the whole community came together and said, you will not stop this wonderful tradition. We will keep the parades going up and down every area in the Florida Keys, from the north to the south and everywhere in between. And we had several businesses reach out and say, look, they would love to donate money to this wonderful cause for next year. So I think our firefighter benevolent group will be working with some of the business owners and we’ll just make sure every year that this event always happens. And so we really do thank our union president, our union members, our firefighters, our volunteers and everyone who played a part in making sure that this event happened this year and every year.”