Sam Kaufman, Key West City Commissioner for District II, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM to talk about what’s been going on in the city.
Where are we with the rainbow crosswalk issue?
Kaufman said, “There’s been quite a lot of interest on the crosswalk issue, on Duval and Petronia Streets and media has been covering this a lot, and that’s because this is affecting other cities as well. I’ve been in touch with other elected officials from Delray Beach and Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach and Orlando and St Petersburg, and it’s interesting. I’ve been contacted by national media and statewide media. It’s very interesting because it’s such an issue of interest in the media. There is a lot I want your listeners to know. There’s a lot of other things we’re working on. A lot of other things going on. We have our budget meeting meetings to finalize our budget, and of course, we don’t want to any tax increases, things like that, and there are other important things happening, but the Florida Department of Transportation did issue a letter on August 15, specific to our crosswalks and requiring their removal, but also stating that the city had a right to an administrative hearing. An administrative hearing is not really in a courtroom, but it’s a process that is organized really through the executive branch department, and that’s the Department of Transportation, and it’s sort of one way to address the factual and legal issues, and that is scheduled on September 3. The problem with that is that it’s also the date, according to the letter and the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, it’s the same date that the department says they will remove the crosswalks. So it seems time sensitive to me for the city to decide how it is approaching this in advance of September 3. So I have requested a special meeting. It should be a short meeting, just to give authorization to our legal department to actually pursue those potential legal remedies in advance of September 3.”
Do we have a defense?
Kaufman said, “Absolutely, I think we have many defenses, actually. I mean, they’re legal defenses and factual defenses, but what’s really good about how the city operates most of the time is when contractors are hired and specific to the crosswalks, a contractor was hired knowledgeable and experienced with FDOT guidelines, and those crosswalks were actually placed with the previously approved color scheme and dimensions and specifics in compliance with the Florida Department of Transportation design manual. So factually, I believe that the city has a defense that these crosswalks were actually placed with approved guidelines of FDOT and that that should be taken up, at least considered. Then, of course, there are the issues of freedom of expression, First Amendment, home rule, where cities like Key West and others in Miami Beach and Delray Beach. Delray Beach is at the forefront of this as well. A very interesting scenario there, and their main thing in Delray Beach is that they don’t want the state coming in and telling them how to manage or organize their streets, or really everything in their city. Most elected officials believe strongly, the local elected officials believe strongly that they’re elected because they’re the closest ones to the electorate, to the residents, and we’re elected to represent them and make these decisions and the folks in Tallahassee shouldn’t be doing that.”
The search for a city attorney is also continuing.
Kaufman said, “There was a meeting yesterday. The city attorney selection committee had previously met, and they recommended that instead of hiring a full time new city attorney, that the city should instead hire a temporary fill in city attorney on a contractual basis. So not a full time, but more of a part time contracted attorney, and unfortunately, there was only one applicant that had applied that that’s application was considered yesterday, and that was attorney Mayanne Downs from Orlando. She’s a fine attorney. She has a great reputation and very experienced. She has been in the leadership of the Florida Bar and been a lawyer for a long time. Some of your listeners may remember that she was hired previously by the city when Ron Ramsingh had decided to recuse himself, out of the hearing on June 26 2024 during the termination of Al Childress. So she represented the city for a short period of time, maybe about a week leading up to that meeting on June 26 2024, so some of your listeners may remember her. I’m sure that that will come up during the meeting on September 3. Remember the City Commission’s next meeting is also on September 3. So unfortunately, we can’t be in two places at one time. I would really like to be in Orlando for that administrative hearing, but we have a City Commission meeting, so we will have to be in Key West. The other concern that I have is just the cost. I did the calculations, and even at her reduced rate, you’re looking at, probably, if she’s part time, 20 to 25 hours a week, it’s going to upwards of $600,000 for her services. I will be advocating, probably not to hire her, not because she’s not qualified, but I think we should go the route of hiring a full time person at a third of the cost and having it being much more efficient. I think that’s the way we should go. Because also the question is, are we going to have to have even more of a tax increase just to pay for this temporary attorney? And is that the most efficient way to run the legal department?”
What would be the term of her tenure?
Kaufman said, “That would be over a year. But the recommendation is to hire the temporary contractor, probably on a month to month basis, but from 12 to 18 months. To the extent that your listeners are interested, they should read the materials, look at the resumes, and make your voice heard and reach out to myself and others in City Hall and let us know what you think.”
How is the budget going?
Kaufman said, “Most of your listeners who own property in the Keys have received their trim notice. That’s their notice of what the potential tax increases are. If your listeners are like me, you look at those notices and kind of cringe. So I’m just one who is extremely careful when it comes to tax increases, and so I’m against any tax increase this year, but the City Commission did approve the tentative millage rate on July 23 which was at a 7.1% tax increase for the city of Key West. I don’t believe it’s necessary, but that’s what the majority their will was, and I know the finance director is trying to cut that down, and her stated goal was to reduce the tax increase to 4%. I still don’t think it’s necessary, when the city’s reserves are fully funded. And between the Key West bight reserves, Key West bight capital projects and our general fund reserves we’re way over $50 million in reserves. So my position is, if we don’t exhaust all the other potential revenue sources, we don’t need a tax increase.”
Is that increase being driven by the perceived cutbacks in FEMA or from the state?
Kaufman said, “Look, we have a fantastic finance department, and we have a great finance director, and the staff is great. It’s a different philosophy. I think the philosophy of staff is that we need to build the budget for the future, that the future is such that we need more money to pay personnel. My philosophy is that we need to cut personnel. If you look at the city of our size and compare it to cities across the state of Florida or even across the country, no city of our size has 550 employees. It just doesn’t exist anywhere else. So if we could cut, I mean, not through firing anybody, but through attrition, as people retire, be more efficient. Do we need to have X amount of employees that kind of do the same thing? Can’t we just reduce duplication of services and job descriptions, and take a real look at job descriptions and make us more efficient? In fact, this has been a stated goal over the last two years, but it sort of got lost in the shuffle of two new city managers, and just lost in translation, if you will, between the change in staff, but if we could reduce staff by 10% then we could have dramatic tax decreases. I believe, that’s where we’re going to head in the future. It’s just we’re not focused on that right now, and we can be, but we need to look carefully at what our expenses are, and really in the area, personnel, because that’s 70 to 80% of our budget. We should put the resources where we need them. Should we pay our police officers more? Probably. I would support that, our frontline police officers. Should we pay our emergency services personnel, who work the ambulances, who are paramedics, are firefighters, probably we should pay them more. I’m not opposed to that, but we need to be efficient. If we could really take a look at the budget and have a strategic plan that could accomplish these goals, and by the way, the city is in fine financial shape. If someone says that we are not, that’s just objectively speaking, I don’t know how anybody could say that when we have all these millions of dollars in reserves. So we’re in good shape, and we need leadership to come along and quit this idea that every year we have to have a tax increase, because Key West is different. I’m not suggesting the county has this. I’m not familiar with the county budget, and I’m not familiar with other budgets, but Key West owns hundreds of millions of dollars of assets in property around the city. So we’re in good shape and we just need to be a little bit better organized. I mean, we just the leases and the parking revenue, by the way, for your listeners, of the $285 million annual budget, only $21 million comes from property taxes, so it’s less than 10% of our budget. So, I mean, just think about that. It’s not a good future if the city depends on tax increases. Why? Because it’s such a small part of the revenue source in the big picture. So we have to be smarter about how we approach all these things and a big part of it is really looking at our personnel, being efficient, paying people more money for the positions that really need that money, to recruit and retain the best employees that we can, but not just across the board, just doing things like we’ve always done this. No one in the private sector is doing that, by the way.”