Monroe County Mayor Michelle Lincoln joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
Lincoln was recently appointed mayor.
She said, “The current president of the Florida Association of Counties, current chair of the South Florida Regional Planning Council, and now the mayor of Monroe County. So it’s a lot of titles, but it’s still just me, Michelle Lincoln, and still doing the things that I do every day anyway, which is go up and down the county, meet with people, and try to do what we can to make this the best place to to live, have a business or be retired or come and visit. So it’s what I love to do. So I’m excited about it.”
With the federal govenrment reopening, it should make things a little more smooth.
Lincoln said, “I’m pleased to see that they’ve come to a resolution and that we can get the federal government, back up and running, and can get some paychecks to some people who worked this whole time without getting paid. I had to go through the airport a couple of times, and I made sure I thanked every TSA officer for coming to work without a paycheck and air traffic controllers.”
What happened at the recent county commission meeting?
Lincoln said, “We did have a great presentation by Maureen Dunleavy from the Guidance Care Center. They have now taken over our transportation program for people who need help with transportation, whether it’s age related, income related or a disability, and we realized when we were streamlining our budget this year that there was a lot of duplicate services going on in that our Social Services Department was doing some transportation, Guidance Care Center was doing some transportation, and it could all fall under under the Guidance Care Center. So we had an update yesterday, because it’s been 30 days now. We wanted to know how it was working out, and it has been working out very well. Obviously there might be one or two hiccups at the beginning, but I think they had over 880 rides in the month of October, and that’s Keys wide and if you’re over the age of 60, if you have income limitations and or if you have a disability, you can call and get set up for transportation to the doctor, to the grocery store, to work. I mean, it’s just a wonderful program.”
The commissioners also talked about the new ordinance for the residential neighborhood improvement program.
Lincoln said, “So for a neighborhood that wants enhanced services, obviously the county will still be providing the core services that we’re obligated to to provide with asphalt on roads and maintenance of canals. But if you want something more enhanced, if you want more beach renourishment, if you want an elevated road with drainage, if you want maybe sidewalks with with lighting, these are opportunities that your neighborhood could decide you want. If they have more than 50% say yes they want to do this, they could come to the county and we’ll help them with a program. So this was the first meeting rolling out what all the steps would be in order for that to occur, and how we would even have a program for financial hardship. As I said, this was the first meeting. We’re going to have another one next month, and then possibly a third one. Also the commissioners are available if people have questions about it, because it’s kind of comprehensive. But I liked when we rolled it out yesterday that it goes from step one all the way through with check marks along the way. So that was really good. Then we also were able to give presentation awards to and recognize two different firefighters, one who has been in service with us for 10 years, and one who’s been in service with us for 15 years and it’s always so nice to have the ability to recognize our first responders and to honor them and thank them for their service to our county. I always enjoy getting to do that, and I was very thrilled that my very first act as the new mayor was to proclaim November as Monroe County Smoking Cessation and Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and to recognize the efforts of the of AHEC, our Florida Keys Area Health Education Centers. I sit on that board and as I told everyone yesterday morning, one of the reasons I chose to serve on that board is because my father died when I was 13 of lung cancer, and he was a cigarette smoker. It’s like, boy, if we had had a program like a smoking cessation program available back then, how different life could have been.”
There is an early legislative session in Tallahassee in January next year and yesterday, the county delegation met with Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez and House Representative Jim Mooney to talk about what we’d like to see.
Lincoln said, “Definitely the number one is to get clarification on property taxes and figure out what that path might look like with whatever decisions the legislative body might make. And then our normal asks of the millions that we ask for, for us being an area of critical state concern. Then next week, the Florida Association of Counties, we will be having our legislative meetings and we will be meeting in Tampa, and we’ll be gearing up for the legislative session just like the Senators and the House Reps do and and I do want to take a moment to thank outgoing Mayor Jim for the wonderful job he did as our leader. Each mayor has their own style, their own characteristics, their own flavor of how they conduct themselves as a mayor and I learned from every one of our past mayors, whether it was when it was David Rice, when it was Craig Cates, when it was Holly and Jim’s style truly reflected his military background and his being a a fighter pilot. He was always smooth and calm and knew when to drop the bomb and when to pull up, and always kept us steady, and very confident in his leadership style. So he did a marvelous job. And I truly thank him. And I thank his executive aide for the work she did behind the scenes, and I’m looking forward to being the mayor this year and working with my executive aide, and the work that we hope to accomplish this year under tough conditions, with us not knowing what’s happening with property taxes and over 90% of our county’s budget for our ad valorem taxes goes to our first responders, whether it’s our firefighters, our Sheriff’s Department, corrections department, and our constitutional officers. So that really only leaves us about 8% of our ad valorem budget left for parks and beaches and libraries, and so I know we have a lot of work to do in Tallahassee this year as our county and as our state of counties of what will it look like at the end of ledge session?”
The Big Pine tree lighting will be coming up.
Lincoln said, “I am so excited about this. This is the very first time the tree is already up. I saw it last Saturday when I was at the park for the Tunnel to Tower run. The tree is up. And I am so looking forward to the lighting of the tree. If anyone is out there in listening world, please join us. It should be a spectacular evening. I’m just very grateful and thankful to have this ability to serve our county, and I just cannot thank everyone enough for their confidence in me. So thank you.”