Good Morning Key West

Facebook 1000 strong in favor of saving Wisteria Island forum jabber yesterday:

Sloan Bashinsky A little birdie told me, maybe it was an osprey or an eagle, or a white crown pigeon, save Wisteria Island proponents should host their own candidate forum this election season, for the city commission and mayor candidates, at some location in Key West where the public can gather, inside, to avoid rain disruption, where pointed questions are asked of the candidates re their position on Wisteria and related environmental issues now facing the city. Candidates should be leaned on to state their positions in plain English, if they do not do so without being leaned on.

Excellent idea Sloan Bashinsky!

Actually, the idea came from a nap dream this afternoon, in which Arnaud Girard, the little birdie, told me he was sorry I had not made it to the evening discussion. I awoke, clueless. Did I miss something in Key West last night? Or tonight, which I didn’t know was up? I lay in a grog, trying to get my wits about me, cussing the meaning of the dream. Then, I thought I understood. A candidate forum. I went online, to see if there was anything from Naja Giard. Nope. So I felt that was the meaning of the dream and put up the suggestion on this forum. So give credit to Arnaud, I’m just the slow to get it dreamer.

Regardless…….props to both of you!

I found myself thinking, it will be nice, and different, for an environmental group to host a candidate forum. The Chamber of Commerce, the Key West Business Guild, the Lodging Association host candidate forums. Hometown! PAC hosts candidate forums. Sometimes other groups host candidate forums. But I don’t recall GLEE or Last Stand hosting a candidate forum. There is a lot of interest in Key West re going green, community vegetable gardens, solar energy, wind and water energy, sun-reflecting roofs, recycling, water pollution, cruise ships, widening the channel, Wisteria Island. Perhaps I left something out, but these are the issues that look to the future of the health of the Keys, and I don’t think you will get a lot of play there in the other candidate forums, although cruise ships, widening the channel and Wisteria might get some play this year. And perhaps recycling, which, so far, is a joke in Key West – 7 percent. Keep in mind who hosts the usual forums and what their main concern is: making money. They tend to support development. For example, Todd German, Chairman of Hometown! PAC, strongly supports Roger Bernstein getting to turn Wisteria Island into Sunset Key Deux. I say all of this as someone who, I imagine, has participated in more candidate forums than anyone in the Keys except perhaps Bicycle Joanie Nelson in Marathon.

Email counsel from a New England sometimes snowbird yesterday, re my going overboard wanting to rid Key West of all cruise ships.

hi sloan,

remember that line from the old movie Serpico?
Never mind good/bad , legal/illegal, mystical /cheesy: “THERE’S TOO MUCH MONEY INVOLVED TO SCREW AROUND WITH THIS THING, FRANK.”

Never mind HTA or the Cruise Giants, how about the City?

You’re going to tell them to just forget about the embarcation fee revenue stream?
That’ll galvanize them into Condition One faster than a hurricane threat.

So… yes, Duval looks and feels like a jive Times square annex and no, the Tarpon don’t seem to respond well to 30 foot deep cruise ships – at least in shallow water…but…

Limit the crusade to “No wider channel and increased Port Fees” and you might stand a chance at some meaningful, lasting success in your quest to preserve what’s left of Monroe’s almost vanished angel habitat.
[an dat's da gen-erul idee-a, ain't it, slone?]

pw

Aw, hell, Paul, you think I don’t know there’s too much money to screw around with this thing? You ought to hear all the local folks’ complaints about cruise ships and their passengers, traffic reduced to a crawl by trolleys and conch trains squiring cruise ship passangers, neighborhood peace and quiet disturbed by trolleys and conch trains. If all the people who feel that way voted for me, I’d get 80 percent of the votes cast in this year’s mayor race. Note, I said if. For you nailed it. It’s one thing to complain about various form of city pollution, it’s quite another thing to do something about it after the collateral money damage is figured in. Even so, I am not a politician. I do not craft my words – sales pitch – to woo voters. I call them as I see them, so I don’t feel like a big fat liar. I never did like cruise ships, and I always felt the city sold its soul when it went for that trade. So while I know it is political suicide, I’ve taken similar stands on other issues. Such as, no more new development in the Keys, period the end. The Keys already are way over-developed and there is not a person living in the Keys who can look in the mirror and honestly argue otherwise. Just as there is not a person in the Keys who can look at that photo of a cruise ship in today’s post, tearing up the bottom of the channel, and honestly argue that ought to be allowed to continue. Money is not a compensating factor. No amount of money to local businesses, and taxes thereon into city coffers, can undo the damage cruise ships do to the Key West ocean environment. I bet if all the green people voted for me this year, I would get 80 percent of the votes. I am the only true green candidate the Keys have ever had. I don’t oppose development much in Key West because it’s already nearly all paved. It’s already nearly destroyed enviornmentally. It’s littoral waters are polluted with human excretment bacteria. It is said some cruise ships dump their ballast out of sight from the mainland. But you are right, most of the green people, who recoil when they see see cruise ships in Key West, who choke when they see the photo in today’s post, will vote for someone who will continue to support cruise ships calling on Key West. And even bigger cruise ships. And they will continue to bitch about it and not look in the mirror at who is the cause of it. You cannot worship God and mammon, is another way to say it. For if you do, you tell the angels and what they represent to take a hike. I should not even have to write this, again. Sloan

P.S. I saw Serpico, the movie. Loved it. Based on a true story, straight cop Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino, refused to play along with both his girlfriend, who tried to extort him into marring her, and with the dirty cops. He sent his girlfriend packing. He went undercover. The dirty cops set him up. He got shot in the cheek in a drug raid. He left the force, his soul still in tact.

Yup.

So why do you advise me to play along, sell my soul?

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