John Bartus, city administrator for Key Colony Beach, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the city
Renovations of City Hall continue at Key Colony Beach.
Bartus said, “The Commission approved with 60% architectural drawings, making a lot of progress on that. Next up is the 90% and when we say 90%, these are the ones that are going to be approved that will basically be our construction documents. We’re looking to probably go out to bid on this with an invitation to bid sometime in August, if we’re going to stay on our schedule, and I don’t think we’re going to have any problem meeting that. The architects, the firm is CPH, they’ve been wonderful to work with, and the drawings are really fantastic. Most of this is going to be hardening and being able to storm proof the existing marble hall, the existing city hall building and the post office, and then we’re also going to be constructing a new addition onto that as well.”
Is there a target date for shovels in the ground?
Bartus said, “Not at the current moment in time. Once we do have the construction documents, we’ll be able to bid, see what comes back and then hopefully we get a selection of good bids from which to choose, and then the commission will look at those, hopefully award those to award the bid to a contractor, and from then, we’ll have a much better idea what our time frame is going to be. I do know that we do have a grant, it’s a state grant that’s going to help us. It’s $2.28 million so then we’re going to be putting some of our own funds into this as well, but it’s going to come in a whole lot cheaper than what they were thinking about doing a few years back, by tearing down the entire building and starting from scratch. There was nothing wrong with a lot of the other building that we couldn’t fix, and we’ve already fixed. That’s one of the first things we had to do is we let out a contract for pin piling and floor leveling on the existing structure and that’s done, and we’re proceeding forward.”
A city commission meeting will be held tomorrow.
Bartus said, “A lot of this is going to be contractual stuff, and not a whole lot of earth shattering groundbreaking issues, which it’s summertime in Key Colony Beach and things sort of slow down anyway, but it’s always good to get the commission together. I just can’t say enough about the forward looking members of the City Commission. They’re dedicated, each one of them, to making Key Colony Beach a better place and trying to find the right solutions to the problems. The same thing I’ve got to say about my staff. The Key Colony Beach staff is absolutely fantastic. They are dedicated community servants.”
June’s commission meeting will be moved because of Juneteenth.
Bartus said, “Juneteenth being a federal holiday, and that would be a normal commission meeting date. Currently, it’s moved to the 15th. I think the mayor suggested possibly moving it to the 11th, but we’ll see about that. It’s just such a great place to be. We’re working on a whole lot of grants right now for some park projects and I’m real happy to see the direction that the city’s going in. It’s an interesting time, especially if you’re looking for federal grants, we’re hearing that it’s not a good season to try to get those. We have been told that the funds authorized under the Florida Keys Water Quality Improvement Act, none of those are going to be available this year, in this legislative cycle up in Washington, and we’re still watching some bills in the Florida House and Senate, the legislature still in session up there, with a very extended session this year, so we hope they get that done quickly. I’m very happy that a lot of some of the really bad bills died. So that I’m really happy about.”
The tourist development tax discussion with the legislature has died in the Senate.
Bartus said, “We’ve been following that one, and so I’m very happy about that one. Some of the other ones that had some possible negative ramifications for local government have also died. The one that would increase municipalities potential liability, and in cases, that one has also died as of yesterday. Anytime the legislature in session, there could be potentially bad news. They do have a five member commission that’s going to look at alternatives to property tax or possibly reducing those but any alternative for property tax, that affects how a local government funds itself, from municipalities to the county to the school district to mosquito control, all this is done via property taxes and if they had gotten rid of that tourist tax, that would have been a serious get to a lot of local tax burden that is currently being shouldered by our visitors.”
If property taxes were eliminated in some way it could potentially destroy local governments.
Bartus said, “We would have to seriously rethink how we fund the local programs that mean a lot to our residents. I mean, how do we do this? How do we provide the services that we’re required to provide? So next year, the five member committee is going to get back with their recommendations, and that all came from something the governor had said earlier this year, he said he would like to abolish property taxes. Compared to a lot of places around the world, our property tax burden is not nearly as bad as it is in many other places. I hear this from residents all the time.”