Oh, the seriously upset citizens of Key West will continue to allow the mayor and the city commissioners to know their feelings. Nobody in city likes cruise ships or their passengers, except merchants, mostly Duval Street and Whitehead Street merchants, Faustos (City Commissioner Jimmy Weekley’s family business, which he runs), and Ed Swift (Conch Train and Old Town Trolleys) and its competitor CityView Trolleys. Maybe a new Duck Tours is also now in play. Swift has a deal where his Conch Trains meet cruise ships that dock on the outer mole, which is Navy property, when the city’s Mallory Pier is taken by another cruise ship. The city pays Swift to bring those cruise ship passengers in from the outer mole. I think the passengers pay a visitor fee, but I don’t think it covers all of what Swift is paid by the city.
That’s the same Swift, in whose behalf the city “ground into dust” the original Duck Tours, for which ensuing unfair monopolist competition practice lawsuit Swift paid about $1 million to settle, I heard, then he loaned his lawyer to the city to help the city. After years of local and appellate litigation, which the city ended up losing, the city paid Duck Tours in settlement, $6.5 million. Jimmy Weekley, currently a city commissioner, formerly mayor for several terms, was a city commissioner when the city commission authorized its lawyers to “grind into dust” Duck Tours. I quote it, because that was what was said at that city commission meeting.
Now the city commission is trying to figure out a way to grind Hawks Channel into dust, so to speak. As if the “small” cruise ships are not already doing that.
jdesantis@keysnews.com
Recent indications that Key West city commissioners are approaching a new proposal for an assisted living complex on the Truman Waterfront property with great caution don’t necessarily mean the project is doomed, commissioners and supporters say.
But troubleshooting fine points of the plan — or explaining in detail to commissioners how it will fit into the city’s overall view on the feasibility of housing for elders — will have to be done in a hurry if it is to survive.
“The city staff has not yet reviewed it nor have they had the opportunity to talk to the developer,” said Ed Swift, a member of the Keys Assisted Care Coalition board of directors and a longtime advocate of an assisted living complex in Key West. He is convinced that once the plan is thoroughly examined, commissioners will have no problem approving it.
Hmmm. Although this was billed all along as an “assisted living facility” for KEY WEST SENIORS, funded by KEY WEST CITY-OWNED LAND - translates to KEY WEST TAXPAYERS-OWNED LAND, the name of the sponsoring outfit is KEYS Assisted Care Coalition, which is not KEY WEST Assisted Care Coalition. And, the current heavy hitter for the Coalition, Ed Swift, does not himself live in Key West, and cannot therefore speak for Key West, its citizens/taxpayers or seniors. Perhaps Swifts speaks for himself and other Keys seniors living outside of Key West, who wish some day to move into a waterfront elder facility subsidized by KEY WEST CITIZENS/TAXPAYERS, who themselves never will be able to afford to live there in their later years. The truth of the matter is, all along the Coalition and the city’s elected officials, and members of the public who were paying attention knew that there were not enough Key West elders to fill the facility, if it was built thanks to a give away of KEY WEST CITIZENS-TAXPAYER’S LAND, and seniors from outside of Key West, up the Keys, the mainland, and even beyond US borders would need to be found to put enough seniors in the KEY WEST CITIZENS-TAXPAYERS’ SUBSIDIZED FACILITY for the numbers to work for a for-profit or not-for profit developer. ALTHOUGH THIS ELDER FACILITY WAS SOLD TO THE KEY WEST VOTERS IN A REFERENDUM AS BEING A PLACE WHERE KEY WEST ELDERS COULD LIVE OUT THEIR DAYS, IT NEVER WAS GOING TO BE A PLACE FOR JUST KEY WEST ELDERS, AND THE VOTERS APPROVED THE ADVISORY REFERENDUM NOT KNOWING WHAT REALLY WAS IN PLAY. ED SWIFT AND QUITE A FEW OTHER KEYS LUMINARIES AND THE KEY WEST ELECTED OFFICIALS ALL WERE IN ON IT, INCLUDING THIS CITY COMMISSIONER NEXT BELOW. I RAISED BLOODY HELL ABOUT THIS IN 2007, AND PEOPLE LOOKED AT ME LIKE I WAS DAFF AND A MONSTER; THEY SAID I HATED OLD PEOPLE. WHAT I HATED WAS THE CITY GIVING AWAY ITS CITIZENS-TAXPAYERS’ LAND TO A DEVELOPER WHO WAS GOING TO FILL THE FACILITY WITH HOW MANY EVER NON-KEY WEST ELDERS WERE NEEDED FOR THE DEVELOPER TO MAKE A BUNDLE.
Commissioner Clayton Lopez has been one of the strongest voices raising questions, though not outright objections, following a presentation by Ed Sharkey, one of the members of the development team pitching the new plan at a commission meeting last week. Delayed by the approach of Tropical Storm Isaac, Lopez plans to resume talks with city staff members today and through the week.
I lobbied Lopez and the other city commissioners and the mayor, who then was Morgan McPherson, not to go along with this deal, for the reasons stated above. I lobbied them hard. I told them it was not what the voters believed they had said they wanted. I lived in Key West that year, I ran for mayor that year. I lived in the Key West the next year. And the next year, when I ran for mayor again. I lobbied continuously against this deal, for the reasons stated above. I continued to lobby against it after moving back to Little Torch Key in 2010, and I have yet to hear or read where one elected city official ever raised an objection to this facility because it will not be limited to Key West seniors, but will be sold to seniors living anywhere, who will have no moral right whatsoever to be able to buy, or rent, living space in a facility PARTIALLY PAID FOR WITH FREE LAND OWNED BY THE CITIZENS-TAXPAYERS OF KEYS WEST.
These newest twists in Key West’s attempt to accommodate its elders with a location for “aging in place” have further complicated an already complex history.
The coalition, a nonprofit organization, holds a lease on land that is among the acreage given to the city 15 years ago by the Navy. Public meetings and workshops on how the city would use the Truman Waterfront made clear that there is strong public support for an assisted living complex. The clearest indication was a 2007 public referendum in which 65.3 percent of voters approved leasing “real property of approximately four acres at the Truman Waterfront to a qualified operator or management company … for a period of 99 years for the exclusive use as a mixed-income senior citizens assisted living and independent living facility.”
The referendum gave permission but did not require the City of Key West to do this deal. The City never has had to do this deal, and it should no do it, unless it is FOR THE CITIZENS-TAXPAYERS OF KEY WEST ALONE. NOBODY ELSE BUT THEY SHOULD BENEFIT FROM IT.
The lease to the coalition was a place-holder, intended for replacement once that organization found a lease-holder that would meet city approval.
All the pieces of the puzzle nearly came together — belatedly — when a plan proposed by developer Rick Dover, who already operates assisted-living facilities under the name Family Pride in North Carolina and Tennessee, won city approval for negotiation. But commissioners balked at giving a $1 per year 99-year lease to a profit-making firm. Instead, they offered Dover a 49-year option, which he said would not fly with his investors. While those talks were ongoing, Dover’s undisclosed history of a federal conviction loosely related to the Savings and Loan scandal decades ago caused commissioners pause at the start of this year. Dover ended up bowing out.
Meanwhile a clock is ticking. The place-holder lease for the Assisted Care Coalition was extended to the end of this year, and commissioners may be hard-pressed to extend it past that time. Commissioner Tony Yaniz is among the voices on the dais who has made clear he will not support such a move. Yaniz, the city’s newest commissioner, has questioned why the Truman site, already tapped to be the home of a park and marina, should remain a site for an assisted living project.
“You don’t place this on your most valuable property,” he said.
Another developer, Wendover Housing, a Florida firm that has built affordable housing throughout the state, is making its pitch. The Orlando-based Affordable Housing Institute will partner with Wendover.
Last week Ed Sharkey gave specific dollar amounts for how much care will cost. The possibility that most elders in Key West may not be able to afford even the most affordable component has made Lopez, whose support has been seen as crucial to the package, ask a lot of questions. One issue is the fact that, with a nonprofit operating the facility as requested by the city, there will be no tax dollars generated directly by the project.
And there you have another sneaker play staring you right in the eye. All along it was known this was going to be an upscale waterfront retirement facility, although you never could get any member of the Coalition nor any elected city official to admit it. They kept saying there would be “affordable” units, although anyone living in Key West who was not dead asleep knew “affordable” was not what most people understood as affordable.
The plan had been for tax money to revert back to the Bahama Village community, which Lopez represents, through its Tax Increment Funding status.
Maybe stuck in Lopez’s craw is Bahama Village had their chance to develop other Truman Waterfront acreage and let it slip away in a fashion that caused Lopez and the entire city a great deal of embarrassment and heartache.
But Lopez said there is much more than TIF money at stake.
“I want to be able to compare the old Dover plan to the current plan that we are looking at, that plan we were so close to passing,” Lopez said. “I want a spreadsheet comparison and I have asked city staff to put that together. I will meet with them and talk before I can talk with the developer. One of the things I hear most from the constituents that I represent is none of us are going to be able to afford to go in there. If that is true that’s a problem. I know there are Medicaid waivers but Medicaid will not pay for a housing subsidy.”
The potential of making some of the units qualify for federal subsidies as Section 8 housing is one solution developers have put forth, but Lopez wants details.
The way the federal government is going, I’d be a bit cautious about counting it to live up to its side of any bargain. Never know when a Tea Party/Republican coalition will gain the upper hand and repeal what already was passed by Congress.
“I believe everybody is in favor of the assisted living, there is a lot of question as to whether it goes there, at Truman.”
Both Lopez and Yaniz have discussed with city staff the possibility of an alternative site, such as property behind Poinciana Elementary in New Town.
But proponents of the plan say that will isolate seniors in a way that was not intended. It would also run afoul of the referendum, they note.
“There really is no place else for it,” said Swift. “The people who would live here are not in convalescent care. To place our senior citizens in an area of town where they could be integrated in the community is vital. They can go down to the waterfront, participate with programs at the band shell, turn around and walk a half a block and be in the Bahama Village neighborhood. Anyhow, it was already made in referendum and they would be going against the will of the people to change that decision.”
Baloney. Before the referendum was put on the ballot by the City Commission, the Coalition maintained there was not another piece of property in Key West where a senior living facility could physically be built. The Coalition maintained that with a straight face, knowing there was other city property, such as the Easter Seals property on Stock Island, and the Poinciana property. What the Coalition was after all along was an upscale senior waterfront retirement community. Maybe 20 percent of the units being “affordable” was the bait they used to sell the deal, which the hoodwinked (asleep) voters approved after their elected officials, who were neither hoodwinked nor asleep, approved it for referendum.
Swift and other supporters say the prevailing concern is that, in most cases, seniors have nowhere to “age in place” near Key West. The need of one spouse in the case of a married couple, Swift said, who needs more care than that spouse can provide, risk being separated with many miles between them. The burden on grown children of seniors needing special care, of having to commute between Key West and Miami to visit, is another problem, Swift said.
Maybe if Swift and the other Coalition members had been less interested in building an upscale waterfront retirement community on prime city land, maybe if Swift ad the other Coalition member had really been interested in building a senior living facility for all Key West seniors, we’d already have it. But that is not what they wanted. The proof of that is how they went about it. They are still double-talking. And there is no way old people living on Truman Waterfront would find it convenient, unless they were rich. The Winn-Dixie and Publix and other popular places to shop and doctors’ offices are 3 miles away, through the worst driving streets in the city. The hospital and helipad are 4 miles away. Seniors who cannot drive will have to be rich to see their doctors and get their shopping done. This always was intended to be an upscale retirement community for rich people. And it always was intended to be available to rich people from anywhere.
He expresses confidence that Lopez and other commissioners, once they have had a chance to fully review the new plan, will approve it. But there is another clock ticking in addition to the one governing the lease on the property.
Special tax credits that Sharkey said are key incentives for investors to buy into the project may disappear soon, and federal programs that allow for certainty of Medicaid waivers that will keep the care aspect of the project affordable may not exist, depending on changes in Washington made as a result of the November elections, Sharkey said.
Again, relying on the federal government and its shifting ways is not the way to go with this. Especially, not the way to go with it in a big hurry. The Coalition had years to work this out and never got it worked out. Just for once, let the responsibility for something not working out in Key West fall on the people responsible for it not working out. That would be KEYS Assisted Care Coalition, whose idea and responsibility it was all along.
“For our One Human Family community to not take care of its elders, that would be a crime,” Swift said. “But I believe whole-heartedly that this City Commission, the city manager and our employees will come to the right decision and that everyone will put their shoulders to the wheel.”
Swift lives in Key Haven, above Stock Island. Let the people living in Key West make the decision. It’s their city and their land Swift wants them to give away so he can live there in his declining years.
=====================================
Commission apparently leans against firing Gastes
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, August 25, 2012 11:00 AM EDT
Roman Gastesi’s contract to be county administrator runs until the spring of 2016. But a grand jury says he set a bad example for county staff and needs to go.“I’m waiting for the third leg of the stool to hear what our county attorney has to say,” Commissioner George Neugent said. “I think that we as a commission will listen and discuss how we’re going to deal with it based upon the information provided.”
The other two legs of the stool, presumably, are the grand jury and a report from State Attorney’s Office investigator Chris Weber.
The three legs of the stool already are provided: Gastesi let Druckemiller do a Monique Acevedoesque scam after being warned by Clerk of the Court Danny Kolhage to put controls on Druckemiller’s supervision of county portable communication devices. Then, Gastesi bought five county devices from Druckemiller at a discount. The three legs of the stool are: Druckemiller, Gastesi, Kolhage. All the rest is smoke and mirrors.
Commissioners will consider Gastesi’s status at a 3 p.m. Sept. 10 meeting at the Marathon Government Center.
In its report made public Thursday, the 21-member grand jury investigating the theft and reselling of 52 county iPhones and iPads by former Technical Services Director Lisa Druckemiller calls for Gastesi’s firing because he failed to follow an auditor’s recommendation for tighter inventory control of the devices.
He also bought four deeply discounted — and stolen — iPhones and one iPad from Druckemiller.
“In our view,” the grand jury wrote, “the deplorable personal example he set for his subordinates merits special condemnation. Moreover, Mr. Gastesi personally benefited from a theft he could have prevented. He should be dismissed.”
Amen.
“It’s 21 residents that represent every aspect of community in the Keys. It deserves all our respect,” Commissioner Kim Wigington said of the grand jury.”Do we lose the $50 million in sewer funding if we lose Roman? What happens if we cut the head off the county administration? I know as a member of the public how I view things like this; it casts a shadow on the whole county. It’s hard for me to disagree with the grand jury.”
The grand jury members have their heads screwed on pretty good. Maybe some of them will run for the county commission next time, instead of letting two commissioners be reelected (Sylvia Murphy and Heather Carruthers) because nobody ran against them. But then, maybe the grand jurors don’t want to become politicians.
The sewer money to which Wigington referred was for Monroe County sewer construction in the Lower Keys. It’s the first installment of what could be another $150 million down the road. Gastesi, who has strong Tallahassee ties, lobbied hard for the money.
Well, how bad does Gastesi have to behave before losing $150 million in sewer funding moves into second place? And in what way would firing Gastesi translate into losing the sewer funding? Tallahassee would be spooked by his firing, and withdraw the funding, which the county needs in all events? Tallahassee wants to have someone like Gastesi overseeing $150 million of state money down the road, when Gastesi was not able, or willing, to oversee Druckemiller after being told to do so by the Clerk of the Court?
“At this time … I don’t see anybody getting fired over this,” Commissioner Sylvia Murphy said. “The rest I’ll say on the 10th.”
Maybe Commissioner Murphy, and Commissioners Neugent, Rice, Wigington, and Carruthers will explain why they didn’t stay after Gastesi until he had implemented the controls over Druckemiller, recommended by Danny Kolhage.
Commissioner Heather Carruthers said she feels “betrayed … hornswaggled,” but added that “I thought the recommendation was inappropriate given the scale of the offense. Obviously we’re going to have a discussion about this.”
Well, Commissoner Carruthers did purchase a stolen phone on the cheap from Druckemiller. What was Carruthers thinking, doing business with a county employee? What was Gastesi thinking, doing business with a county employee? What were any county employees thinking, doing business with a county employee? Especially doing business with the county employee they knew was supposed to be looking after the county’s I-phone’s and I-pads? People who don’t know any better ought not be working for the county government, starting with Carruthers and working down from there. I told Carruthers several times in 2008, which really upset her and other people, that she had no sense of property boundaries. I told her that, hoping she would learn to set proper boundaries. I told her in vain.
Commissioner David Rice couldn’t be reached for comment.
Druckemiller, who resigned her job in February when the allegations came to light, is charged with dealing in stolen property and scheme to defraud.Prosecutors say they expect a plea bargain but want it to include some time behind bars.
As for Gastesi, he sent an e-mail Friday responding to a reporter’s questions. He said he hasn’t hired a lawyer, hasn’t considered resigning and has “no comment” on whether he would contest his firing if that’s the route commissioners take.
In December, commissioners approved a four-year contract extension for Gastesi, who was hired in April 2008. He now makes $185,040 per year.
His contract says the commission can fire him for dishonesty, violating the county’s drug policy, refusing to cooperate in an investigation, having a felony conviction, violating county code or policies, and for gross neglect or willful and intentional misconduct.
Blowing off Danny Kolhage was not gross neglect? Buying 5 cheap phones from Druckemiller, the keeper of the county’s phones, after being warned by Kolhage to put controls on Druckemiller, was not gross neglect? 21 grand jury members certainly thought it was gross neglect.
The grand jury also recommends Deputy County Administrator Debbie Frederick be fired because she was Druckemiller’s direct supervisor when the thefts happened, and because she didn’t tell Gastesi Druckemiller stole $20,000 from her.
“Knowing that Ms. Druckemiller was willing to steal from her — a friend — Ms. Frederick had a duty to the taxpayers to report the matter to Mr. Gastesi so that Ms. Druckemiller’s handling of public money and public property could be painstakingly monitored,” the grand jury wrote.
Amen.
Frederick said she hasn’t retained an attorney and questioned whether grand jurors considered that she initially reported that something was wrong in Druckemiller’s department.
“As soon as I realized that something was kind of amiss there, I took immediate action to address the situation. Never did I delay any action that I should’ve taken,” she said.
“Right now I’m just considering all the options and wait and see how the process plays out. There was no evidence, no red flag, because my whole personal issue had nothing to do with the county.”
Dear Debbie, you knew a thief was in a very important county goverment job, and you did not report the thief to the authorities. There was a huge red flag.
Let me guess, if Gastesi had stolen $20,000 from Frederick in the same way Druckemiller did it, that would not have been a red flag either, right? On what planet did Frederick grow up? Sounds like the same planet where Carruthers, Nugent and Murphy grew up. I can think of only two reasons why commissioners are hesitant to fire Gastesi: either it’s a birds of a feather stick together thing, or it’s too inconvenient, or it’s a bit of both. What a great role model for school children and county employees. Causes me to wonder if being a conch, which Druckemiller is, is contagious?
To further brighten and round out my day yesterday, the every busy Nashville J sent this cheer: