Ron Saunders, village manager for the village of Islamorada, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the village.
There was a village council meeting on May 12.
Saunders said, “There’s construction going on in Islamorada, and a big part of that’s been the replacement of the FKAA’s main transmission water line. The good news is most of the pipe is in the ground now, and so now they’re going through and doing basically some joint installations, etc. So they’re connecting some things up, but the heavy work’s been done, so every month we meet once a month, we’ve asked the aqueduct to come in and give us an update. So this past update was actually very good, they’ve got most of the big work done, a few minor things to do, so that’s great, because that pipeline was getting kind of old, and there’s never a good time to do it, but they’ve worked with us pretty well, and we’re able to give us monthly updates, and so that was good.”
The village has also had some sewer line issues.
Saunders said, “We had our sewer lines getting kind of old, and we’ve had some breaks. The DEP came in, and said what are you going to do to fix this? We entered a consent order, and so we got an update from our engineers just to say we’re on schedule, we are making progress and fixing the issues, finding out what the issues are and fixing them, and that was good news. Because as far as the environment goes, we want to make sure we don’t have any leaks or problems, and so we’re on track with that. We also had some parking issues here, we’re looking into some paid parking, and that was regulated parking. We have a little pilot project going on over at Anglers Reef, where they’re actually going to pay for it, but there’s not exclusive use for them, but it’s going to be a way for us to see how parking will be working out if we do want to install some of that. So those are some of the updates that we got.”
It was a pretty long meeting.
Saunders said, “We are working with DOT, for example, we increased the amount DOT reimburses us because DOT owns the right of way, but we’ve agreed that we will do a little bit more than they were doing as far as regular mowing, etc. So it does cost us money to do that. So they asked us to take it over, but we said we need a little bit more, so I think they gave us an additional $10,000 per year, which is not a lot, but still be better than us paying it. We got some commitment from the Tourist Development Council. Our Vice Mayor, went to them, and they had some excess funds, and they distributed among the five districts of the Keys, and they authorized $750,000 to Village of Islamarada for our boat ramp and marina over at Founders Park. So we’ve agreed to contract with an engineer to do a preliminary design plan of what we would be doing at the marina, and so we appreciate the TDC helping us out there. They’ve been really good to work with. We had a couple requests for proposals, although we had one on the, it’s called Machado property, just as in the rest of the Keys, we have a problem with affordable workforce housing.”
Several years ago the village bought several parcels of property around Mile Marker 88.
Saunders said, “We asked for some proposals, we only got two for rentals, and one of them was from Habitat, but they wanted to put for sale units, which we didn’t ask for, so they didn’t get as high a rank. The private firm came in and responded for 16 units, but the neighbors had some issues with how many units there were, the traffic impacts, so in the end, the village council decided to just not take either proposal, and so I’m working now on some other ideas on how to provide more, if not nothing else, staff housing, because we have a problem, like everybody else, of finding staff. Some of our staff actually commutes from Homestead, and we’d like to have them a little closer, so we’re looking at maybe putting some staff housing on the property that the village owns.”
Ride shares also came up.
Saunders said, “Currently, we have a contract with Freebee in Islamorada, but their contract is are expiring next month. So, we put out a proposal. We got two responses, one from Freebee, called Be Free, and the other was a Circuit Transit, and our staff committee evaluated Freebee higher. But because there was some questions about the proposal, we’re probably going to have a workshop next week, or so, maybe even next Thursday, I believe. Just have a public workshop, let both sides come in and tell us their ideas, and then the council will probably take it back up again in our June meeting. We’re looking at TDRs, which are transfer development rights. We had a proposal up, but we had the village council asked for more time to take a look at that. Overall, I mean, the meeting took about five hours, actually, but we got a lot done.|
A member of the public brought up the baseball field.
Saunders said, “I’ve had discussions with Ed Tierney, the school superintendent. We have an interlocal agreement that both sides have entered into, which basically authorized the village manager and superintendent to negotiate a baseball license agreement. We’ve been talking back and forth, the village has actually passed an agreement, 5-0, but the school board came back and made some changes, and until we agree exactly, we don’t have an agreement. And so my recommendation to Mr. Tierney was to maybe just focus on the field. Baseball season’s over, we don’t have time, probably do a building and a field, but we could probably do the field if we agree they’re going to pay for it, but we have oversight on what kind of artificial turf field goes in here, because we own the properties in Founders Park, owned by the village, and so basically we’re saying let’s try to work together to do a field, at least get that in before baseball season next year, because there’s no reason to keep maintaining a grass field when both sides have agreed it’s going to be turf, we just don’t have the details, so hopefully next week or so we’ll come to an agreement. We think it’s doable. We think we’re getting closer.”
How does the rideshare with Freebee work?
Saunders said, “The village at this point has never charged a fee. We have a grant with the state Department of Transportation, DOT, and they match it, so in other words, we put up money, they put up money, they put up half, we put up half. This one we haven’t charged, we’re looking at maybe implementing, assuming we have a contract, our staff recommended Freebee be continued if the council agrees, which they haven’t yet. Then we’ll probably look at instituting a small fee, maybe a $2 per ride, just because we want to improve the service, and that’s one way to do it. We’re also looking at this, is a point to point, it’s supposed to be multi passenger, but it’s usually one person, so we’re looking at doing a loop, a multi passenger trolley, or something, where we can take more cars off the highway, so that’s going to be part of our discussions with whoever wins the proposal to see what you can do for multi passenger.”
Any further word out of Tallahassee as far as the budget goes?
Saunders said, “During my time there, I was very involved with the budget. I was chairman of the appropriation committee, for a couple of years, vice chair a couple years, ranking member. So, the budget was kind of my specialty and my area of focus. And at this point, it’s done what’s called bump up. They’ve already had conference committees of the House and Senate, and they agreed where they could, but when you disagree, that gets bumped up to the chairs to presiding officers, and so my understanding is that’s where we are now. We’re monitoring it, but at this point it’s in the hands of about four people, and so, and we’re in touch with those four people, but I think it’ll end up okay. The state of Florida is in pretty good fiscal shape, and so I think when they end up agreeing, it’s the bigger issues that keep them from agreeing, not the smaller projects that we have. We were trying to get some beach restoration money, some improvements to our bike paths, things like that. So we’re kind of small fish compared to some of the bigger issues they’re still working on. We try to be realistic when we’re looking at what we’re trying to get from the state. We have a good relationship with our legislators, Representative Jim Mooney and Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez. So they’ve been working with us on these issues for months now. And we’re kind of getting down to the end, our lobbyists, we have a couple lobbying firms, and they feel pretty comfortable, but until it’s done, it’s not done, so we’ve got our fingers crossed, we keep in touch with them, but we’re waiting like everybody else to see what happens, and then obviously if the legislature approves it, then you have to survive the governor’s veto pen, and we’re already kind of working on that too, so we’ll see. I think we feel pretty good about it. We wanted to get our fair share, and we send a lot of tax dollars up to Tallahassee, not just Islamorada, the whole county does, and so we always like to make sure we’re getting our fair share of dollars back.”
It does look like the property tax issue is probably not on the table at the moment.
Saunders said, “That’s going to be a separate special session. The governor’s still talking about it. The problem is the devil’s in the details. It’s one thing to talk about lowering property taxes, but then you look at, for example, in the village, a lot of our property tax collection goes to just two entities: our law enforcement and our firefighters, and they’re the biggest parts of our property tax distribution, and that’s across the states, not just Islamorada. So, we start talking about cutting property taxes, and we said okay, what do you want to cut? Law enforcement? No. You want to cut firefighters? Well, where do you want us to cut? And I think that started to seep in with some of the legislators, and saying, well, we didn’t mean cut all that stuff. The other thing is that a lot of Keys, for example, homestead properties get protection with Save Our Homes, and so when it comes to property taxes, Homestead properties, if you are Homestead, do already get a lot of protection, so you’re not really paying a big increase every year, for example, you’re capped at 3% assessment value, being going forward, it’s only the rental properties and second homes and commercial property that are really getting hurt on property taxes, so there’ll be probably some movement there, but it has to be a proven legislature, and then go on the ballot, and that’s a pretty high standard, so we’ll see what happens, but there’s a lot of talk about it. It is an election year, obviously, it’s a popular issue, but once you start actually looking at the language and seeing the actual fiscal impact on cities and counties and school boards, it’s very difficult to get a consensus. I know how difficult it is, because you have 120 House members and 40 Senators, they all have their own priorities, they need to worry about the governor and your constituents, and so it’s a complicated process, but I always tell people, like having the gas station, without, without gasoline, a car won’t go anywhere. There’s a lot of nice cars, meaning a lot of projects, and basically a lot of things that you want to have done without money, they don’t happen. So this is the time where the money really gets distributed, and you see what the priorities really are.”
Memorial Day is coming up.
Saunders said, “We always want to honor our veterans and the people who risk their lives on our behalf. My dad served in World War II, he’s passed away, but he was a veteran. Always recognized the service, and we certainly honor their memory.”
A lot of information can be found on Islamorada’s website.
Saunders said, “We have our newsletter you can sign up for. We also have a form that you can report any issues to us, so we can help you. We want to be very transparent and communicate, so anything we can do better, we always are open to suggestions.”
For more information, click here: https://www.islamorada.fl.us/