Holly Raschein, 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 accident that took the life of a 15 year old on Monday has been devastating to the entire community.
Raschein said, “It’s been a rough couple of days. Obviously, Lauren Dunn is my best friend on the planet, and she lost her her eldest son, just in a tragic accident. So it’s been quite a moment. Just prayers for the family. Again, anytime we lose a young person, he was 15, and just at the the height of his life, and had the world in front of them and just huge prayers. Merrick is gone, but now we have his family, his little brother, Colin, and his mom and dad that will will never get over this loss. None of them will ever be the same, and our community won’t be the same.”
It looks like the county will be getting 900 ROGO units for the next ten years.
Raschein said, “There was obviously a lot of back and forth. There are several versions of the bills out there. Some that range from, 24 to 24.5 hours to 26 hours. A lot of language out there did not include the guard rails that we had hoped to have. Ultimately, we did get those guard rails passed, really focusing on workforce housing, making sure that we’re covering our bases there, while still allowing market rate ROGOs to be distributed, over 10 years. So I think folks are happy. Hats off to our entire legislative delegation up there. They have been extremely busy. It’s been a very, very interesting, unique year in the legislative process. So thank you, Representative Mooney, thank you, Senator Rodriguez, they worked really hard up there, and our county team is prepared to start the process on, amending our comp plan and things like that. Of course, working simultaneously with our municipalities to make sure that we implement the new legislation and we get to move forward.”
The new Publix Supermarket site in Tavernier was approved at the last commission meeting, including 86 deed restricted affordable workforce housing units.
Raschein said, “There’s been many, many, many meetings on this project. So this is just one of those boxes that needed to be checked. The Planning Commission is the driving force and as part of the development agreement for the developers and the Publix, they had to do a very, very detailed site plan so the community can see what’s coming in, the Commission can see what’s coming in, and they made some tweaks. I think that made the plan even better, even stronger. More green space, maybe some swing sets, or swings for the families that are going to be living in there, adding a bigger barrier, a wall in between the actual how the housing and the Publix. I think the one, the one kicker, or the sticking point remains the traffic and there was some shifting of the traffic lanes. Obviously DOT is going to be a big player in that part of it. The the housing is really important. I just want to remind your listeners that this is the perfect kind of workforce housing. We’re focusing on full time Monroe County residents, we’re focusing on our essential personnel, like law enforcement, first responders, teachers, nurses. We’ve got an issue with retaining state attorneys down here, employees of the judicial branch, and there’s a trickle down effect when it comes to being able to hire qualified employees. It’s wonderful, because they want to come here, but then they can’t afford to live here, and we lose them. So I think this is a major step and an exciting move.”
Stewardship funding looks like it will be in the state budget.
Raschein said, “Wonderful news. We utilize those funds for important things like canal restoration, all the hundreds of canals we have around here that need to be restored. We can use that for storm water implementation. There’s a couple upgrades to our wastewater facilities that need to be done. So again, really critical funding. I believe it was on both sides. We got it into the final budget, and we are sitting pretty.”
Governor DeSantis was in the Keys for the unveiling of the Reverse Osmosis Plant on Stock Island recently.
Raschein said, “It was really neat to have him down here. He pops down from time to time to highlight these important infrastructure projects. This was a reverse osmosis plant down on Stock Island, again, piece of critical, critical infrastructure. If our water supply ever goes down or we have issues with pressure and things like that, this is that backup that we need in times of water outages and things like that. So we’re doing it right. It’s a fantastic facility. It’s all upgraded, hurricane proof, and knock on wood, hopefully not, but if we ever need to flip the switch, it will be there for us. So it was neat to have the governor down and highlighting that. I believe there were some Department of Commerce folks that are a partner in many of our relationships down here. The Florida Keys Aqueduct is really a modern marvel. It is their slogan. I mean, think of what they do and how they bring water to us in a 120 mile long chain. So thank you to them, and thank you to the governor for for his support.”
While traffic flow during construction for the Aqueduct Authority can be irritating, it’s really important.
Raschein said, “You like your toilet to flush and you like your drinking water. I mean, welcome to living on an island. We can’t route traffic anywhere else, and it’s just kind of one of those things. You’ve got to dig deep and remember why you moved here. We love our water.”
There may be some belt tightening locally.
Raschein said, “We’re conducting our own DOGE exercise if you want to call it that, but just really tightening our belts, you’re going to see that because the economy is really kind of leveled out, and that really affects us at a local level, with property taxes and things like that. We want to really focus this year on making sure people can keep as much money in their pockets as possible, given the potential change of the the economy, if you will. I’m very proud we’ve been able to respond to the governor’s office and the executive branch when they put out questions about our fiscal situation and things like that. But this is one of the most important functions that we we do as government, right? We have projects, we keep up buildings, we fix roads. We build new bathrooms at our parks. This is the time when we are asking our department heads to dig deep, and that is an exercise that we’re going to be starting here soon with our budget hearings and I’m looking forward to that there might be some tough, tough decisions we have to make, but that is the reality if we’re going to live within our means.”