Monroe County Mayor Holly Merrill Raschein joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5 FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
With Election Day coming up, the Keys have seen some incredible voting numbers already.
Raschein said, “I just want to give a shout out to Joyce and her staff. It’s wonderful that folks are getting out and exercising their right to vote, well, some people would argue if it’s a right or not, but their opportunity to vote, let’s say that. She’s keeping the train on the tracks. I think fingers crossed, because there’s going to be you, there’s going to be me, there’s going to be probably millions of other people around the state refreshing their iPads or their computers over and over again once 7pm passes, and we saw that even in August when I was actually on the ballot, there was a little hiccup. But when we talk about bandwidth, or, I don’t have bandwidth for that, or maybe you don’t have the bandwidth for that, well, hopefully the state of Florida has a bandwidth for that. That’s one thing that we can compliment ourselves on in the state of Florida, and Monroe County is we don’t really have those issues. I voted early. I think that’s one of the best inventions ever. I encourage folks to get out there and go ahead and vote. Saturday is the last day for early voting. It’s a wonderful time of year.”
There was a Tourist Development Council meeting on Tuesday.
Raschein said, “I’ve had the honor of representing the BOCC on the TDC for, gosh, almost the last year, and there’s been several audits done on the various contractors that contract with the TDC for very important services like advertising, website management, PR. Those are pretty important functions of our TDC, again, it’s one of the larger agencies, and not necessarily by people, or full time employees, but by its mere existence and its mission. Tourism is our number one industry, and our TDC recognizes that and has been amazing, but there has been some examples that have presented themselves where we really need to tighten our belts and be a little more transparent and accountable. We’re learning lots of areas of our beautiful community where we have that opportunity, and folks are like, oh my gosh, what’s going on? Well, this is a good process. While it might be difficult, it might be hard, but doing business the same as we always have done it isn’t necessarily the best thing for our visitors or our residents or our community, and it has been an exercise, certainly a learning process for me, because I’m sort of a temporary board member, and a lot of those folks have been on there for years and quite frankly, a number of those contractors have been on the books for decades. It’s just sort of a human factor that you get a little complacent, right? You get used to doing what you do and the latest audit obviously came out regarding the company that oversees our website, and that is Two Oceans Digital. I didn’t know much about Two Oceans Digital until I read the audit. I thought folks go to our website, they can see what’s going on or not, and everything is hunky dory. Well, that’s not necessarily the case. And as you read the audit, it’s not mind blowing necessarily, but there’s definitely quite a few examples where we should be doing better. So we, as a TDC board on Tuesday, said this is a time of transition, we’re going through a leadership change. Our new CEO and president, she’s quite a change maker. She just recently brought on a new marketing director, pretty important job for the TDC, and she’s recognized a lot of opportunities to bring some services in house, but we did, as a board, decide to terminate the contract for Two Oceans. But it’s not necessarily the relationship between Monroe County and Two Oceans is over, but we are going to put that contract out to bid. So we’re going to go out into the universe and see who else is out there that can provide the same services, maybe for less money, maybe for more. But what is the best option for our TDC? I always like to remind people, they think the TDC is a sleepy little agency. We’re actually one of the top three performing tourism communities in the state, but behind Orlando and Miami, who else has got more juice, right? We welcome to our little island chain over 5 million visitors. That’s amazing. So it is a very, very important function that the TDC performs and provides our community. But again, we’ve talked about Monroe County Fire Rescue, we’ve talked about other areas in our community, a lot of things have changed in the last decade or so, and I think this just falls in line that same sort of trajectory of being more accountable, hopefully these efforts will lead to less waste and more transparency and just streamlining everything. That’s certainly how I want government to work. It doesn’t always, but that is our goal.”
Christine Hurley has also been hired as county administrator.
Raschein said, “A huge shout out to Christine. I think we’ve talked about her before, and she was just able to walk into her role right away, understanding our community and all the nuances and all the neat little quirky challenges that come with governing in the Florida Keys, and she’s our former land authority director. In this current time we’re kind of mapping out the future of the Keys with regard to how much development we can actually handle, while at the same time making sure that people’s property rights are preserved, and it’s such a precarious position we find ourselves in. I don’t think that there’s anyone in the United States in America that is facing our situation. But it’s not something that is new to us and I think that, historically and even now, we’ve done a wonderful job trying to manage, again, too much growth versus people’s property rights. We face a pretty broad spectrum of opinions on this subject. There’s folks that want to pave paradise, and then there’s folks that would be happy if no one else ever stepped foot again in our island chain. So when you find yourself as a body, as a BOCC, making these decisions, we know that we’re not going to get it perfect. This is not going to be a perfect solution, and there are going to be some people that may not agree with where we land, but darn it, we have done a really good job reaching out into the community and trying our best. Folks are like, this isn’t a scientific process, yeah, well, try having a year to make a decision on this super, huge looming issue that the state, God bless them, is looking forward to our input. We want to be able to give that to them. I think it’s important, knowing the legislative process like I do, it’s not going to be written in blood, like whatever legislation we have to pass, or whatever timeline that is facing us, deadlines, things like that. Yeah, those are going to come but there’s a thing, we can always come back and tweak it and say, that maybe wasn’t such a hot idea, or this was a good idea, but we need to make it better. So I just like to remind people about that. We’re not passing a constitutional amendment. Folks are voting on six of them this election cycle Wow, yes, but our issue, and we know it’s been coming, and we have sort of drawn out the issue over a number of years. That’s another thing that we will be able to do. We can draw this out some time and I certainly don’t want to be making a rash decision. I certainly don’t want to be making this decision by myself.”
The final ROGO survey is out.
Raschein said, “Sometimes you hear feedback, and sometimes it’s negative, sometimes it’s positive, sometimes people are unsure of what’s going on, but I know in my heart, and it’s something that I certainly think about every day, multiple times. Sometimes it keeps me up at night, and I have been very, very pleased with the amount of feedback that we’ve received from the community. Again, some people are good, some people are super worried, some people are scared. That’s fine, but I always take that as an opportunity to remind people what a special place that we live in and I, obviously can’t speak for my colleagues, but I know that they are as proud as I am to be able to live and represent such a beautiful, challenging, marker on the planet. There’s just no place like the fabulous Florida Keys and I think a lot of times people forget that when it is kind of easier to complain or highlight, oh well, the traffic or this or that. There’s sometimes when I just want to say, I know you’ve been here a long time, and I know that you were here and you drove around and you experienced what you had stumbled upon or discovered, and don’t lose sight of that. I certainly don’t, and I’m not going anywhere. I have a 12 year old and it is about the future, and it is about preserving our way of life. But being in government, you never want to be picking winners and losers, and so as much as we can mitigate that, oh, you get your piece of paradise. Oh, you don’t, or you get a car, you get a car, you don’t. That’s not a good way to approach this topic. It’s hard, it’s difficult. It’s not going to be perfect, but it’s one of the most exciting conversations that we’ve had as of late, and one that will be ongoing.”
The mayor spent some time with the fleet director recently.
Raschein said, “I certainly did not know the extent of the amazing services that our fleet department provides our community. So we have three facilities. One is on Plantation Key. That is the one that I visited. There’s another one in Marathon in northern section of our airport there in Marathon, and then on Rockland Key. They are charged with overseeing the upkeep of not only vehicles, but all the heavy equipment that is I guess serviced and used throughout our community. It could be a tractor. It could be a lift. There’s obviously a ton of different vehicles. They also service the sheriff’s vehicles, the FHP vehicles that are local. I mean, it’s just amazing. It’s basically like a one stop shop for all things mechanics. I really would like to give a shout out to Daryl Greenlee. He is our Director of fleet management, and he has partnered with our schools lately. Do you remember back in the day? I certainly remember back in my day. I’ve been around long enough where we had shop class, but it wasn’t necessarily just like wood and timber and building things with drills and hammers and nails and things like that. But my dad is an aircraft mechanic, and he got his inspiration from his shop teacher, and it was in mechanics. So we’re seeing a rebirth of that program and Daryl, our director, is really pushing these apprenticeship programs to train the next generation. We used to see a focus on four year degrees, and then you saw people, nothing against this, to your listeners, people getting liberal arts degrees, but with a certification and avionics or in automobile mechanics, you can do something with your hands. More importantly, you can give back to the community, and you can make money right away. You can start being successful and putting your time in while you’re in high school, and being able to hit the ground running when you graduate. It’s awesome. A lot of our men and women in the Fleet Service have gone through those programs. Some of them have served in the military or in the reserves, and it was impressive. And again, as a mechanics daughter, I was very comfortable in that space, and I can’t wait to see the other facilities down the Keys.”
Voting is so critical.
Raschein said, “If you have not exercised getting out the vote, you have two more days to do that. It’s very important. I think I mentioned this earlier, the best invention ever was early voting. We got an update from our emergency manager, Shannon Weiner, that those disturbances that are out there in the Caribbean aren’t necessarily going to affect. They are going to bring above average amounts of rain. As a candidate, that’s the last thing you want to hear about Election Day. This above average amount of rain is going to come Tuesday through Thursday. People always say, what if it rains on Election Day? What if there’s an accident on the highway? That really affects your ability to get to the polls. So go now, go tomorrow, get it done, and then you don’t have to worry about it raining on Tuesday. I hope everybody takes care this weekend and enjoys their friends and family and gets out and votes.”