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You might wish to check out this nuclear device in today’s Friday edition of Key West the Newspaper - www.thebluepaper.com:
* FEATURED STORY *
MONROE COUNTY’S SECRET ROAD-MAP TO RE-SEGREGATION
In today’s KONK Life email blast - www.konknet.com:
Renters footing the bill
Comment on ‘Homeless shelter design riles commissioners’
To the Editor:
What is wrong here?? NO AFFORDABLE HOUSING! But yet we can build a homeless shelter and a new animal shelter!!???!!! Raise city and county property taxes so the renters can foot the bill that they are already paying off homes of Realtors!!?? It is bad enough we foot the bill for the tourism industry with their use of utilities, trash and destruction. What the hell is wrong with these commissioners and the Mayor? Over it! We need to start raising hell, at these candidate and city and county meetings, in the newspaper. Let’s find out about what tax breaks and other benefits all these immigrants are getting. Look at what they are driving!!!
Shannon
My thoughts:
My dear Shannon. You had your chance to raise hell during the run up to the recent election of your city mayor. Not it’s all over but the shouting.
Father Steve Braddock replied to yesterday’s soup kitchen Jesus and other liberal fantasies – Key West laboratory post at www.goodmorningkeywest.com:
FYI- arranged for the Hidden in Plain View exhibit to be on display at the Gato building Oct-Dec. I will let you know exact dates. Also, FYI- Pritham Singh developed the Golf Club Community. Mr. Smith operates leases the golf course itself…I believe under a long term $1.00 a year lease with the city. But my memory on that is fuzzy. I do know that the Smith family did not developed the homeowners community.
I had written this yesterday:
Mayor Cates once told me the same thing about the lawsuit which eventually caused the city to agree with the plaintiffs to move the city’s homeless shelter, KOTS, from where it now is on the Sheriff’s property, to a different location. The same lawyer who filed that lawsuit represents the golf course community, which his parents developed; they also own the golf course.
Movingly laterally … some of this below might be viewed as fun, depending …
Yesterday morning, I pedaled my bicycle over to Bayview Park to speak to a real homeless expert, James Winstead, a Key West Conch ( born and grew up here), who has lived on the street since before I arrived here in late 2000, to live on the street here.
James said the city ought to put its new homeless shelter in its public bus terminal, after it is moved up to stock Island. I said the same suggestion was reported in yesterday’s citizen as being made by City Commissioner Billy Wardlow:
Wardlow, the former fire chief, says the city’s Palm Avenue property that holds the public works department is worth exploring as a possible homeless shelter site. Wardlow, like Rossi, preferred the shelter stayed next door to the sheriff’s office.
I told James (can’t find a photo of him) that putting the new homeless shelter on Palm Avenue would make a great welcome center for the new upscale Perry Court development just across the road. James laughed. I said I thought the 1 and 1/2 acres of land the city owned in front of Ed Swift’s upscale multi-million dollar Steam Plant condominiums, next to the school district property, also would be a great location for the new homeless shelter. James laughed again.
When I spoke by telephone with Todd German yesterday,
and told him of my conversation with James, Todd said those are two really expensive pieces of city property for a homeless shelter. I said, so what? The city wasted its 33 acres of Truman Waterfront property on an expensive park the city didn’t need. Todd said he couldn’t argue with that.
I said the problem all along with the new homeless shelter has been NIMBY: not in my back yard. Todd agreed, said he’s glad Mayor Craig Cates
is forcing the selection of a site for the new homeless shelter, at the October 7 city commission meeting. I said it needed to happen a long time ago, but nobody wanted to deal with NIMBY. Todd agreed.
I said the way to deal with NIMBY is the mayor and city commissioner decide on a site for the new homeless shelter, and put it at that site regardless of how anybody else feels about it. Take the political heat, get it over with. Todd agreed.
However, I said, if they try to put the new shelter at the Easter Seals property, they are going to get a lawsuit from the adjacent golf court community, and the plaintiffs will ask for an injunction, and I don’t see any judge feeling sympathic torward the city claiming it has an emergency on its hands, since the city created the emergency by not doing anything about selecting a new site for its homeless shelter. I don’t see the judge requiring a bond from the plaintiffs, to indemnify the city, if the city wins the lawsuit, since the city knew all along a lawsuit was threatened. The city knew all along it had a deadline to relocate KOTS, under the settlement agreement in the lawsuit filed by the marina next door to KOTs. The city sat on its butt, did nothing. Todd agreed.
I said, by the way, I had just received a call from someone who works at KOTS (Key West’s overnight homeless shelter),
saying what I wrote yesterday about how to experience staying at KOTS was not entirely accurate. I wrote that you can go there around 6 p.m. and get in line. The person said they stopped doing it that way a few months back. Now, they make homeless clients wait out on the side of College Road across from the Easter Seals building. Someone from KOTS then goes out and lets homeless clients leave the staging area in groups of ten or so, until there are no more homeless clients in the staging area. That was the Sheriff’s doing, the person said; the Sheriff didn’t want homeless people coming into his property and lining up at KOTS to get in.
I told Todd that the person had invited me to come up and check out the staging area, talk with homeless people, and I was on my way up there to do just that. I did not say I’d had a nap dream telling me to do that, but I had no clue what the nap dream meant until I came out of it hearing my phone buzzing and it was the KOTs person telling me what I’d just told Todd. Then I understood the dream.
So, pedaling my bicycle on the Gulf side North Roosevelt Blvd sidewalk, I caught up with a fellow on his bicycle who had some possessions on his bicycle, and since he was headed toward where I was headed, I asked if he was headed up to KOTS? Yes, he said.
I said the last time I stayed there was in early 2005. Did he mind telling me how long he’d been using KOTS? No, since 2010, he said.
Has it change during that time? No.
Does he sleep nights there with his arms wrapped around his belongings, to keep them from being stolen? Yes.
Is it close to full nights this time of year? Yes.
Was it the Sheriff who pushed for KOTS clients to gather at the staging area on College Road, instead of at KOTS? Yes.
How long have they been using the staging area across from the Easter Seals building? About 3 months.
Does he work? Yes. He has a job in one of the shopping centers, keeping the parking lot clean.
Where’d he come down from? Mainland Florida.
Does he like staying at KOTS? It beats being harassed by police and put in jail.
I didn’t bother to ask if he could afford a place to rent in Key West.
We passed a homeless man he knew, who had parked his bicycle just this side of Cow Key Channel, and he said he was going to stop there and visit his friend, before heading on up to the staging area. I thanked him for talking with me, and continued my journey.
The Easter Seals property is just past Bayshore Manor, a county assisted living facility for who cannot take care of themselves. The staging area across the street looked like it had maybe 25 homeless people sitting and standing around, 4 or 5 were women.
I headed on up College Road to the turn off to the Sheriff’s property, and pedaled on to KOTS to see if the person who had called me was there. Yes. Another monitor came out and joined him. She gave me the suspicious eye. I said, not to wory. I had stayed at KOTS. I was one of the good guys.
I said knew Charles Davis, who had worked for Florida Keys Outreach Coaltion, who had straightened KOTS out, after the city opened it and it went straight to hell. I said Charles told the Sheriff and the City that he would take it on on his terms, he got to call all the shots. They agreed. He took it on, straightened it out, and that’s why she is working there now.
I said, I’d heard recently that the fellow the city originally hired to run KOTS, who now is in jail, had talked with homeless shelters on the mainland and had told them to tell their clients to come down to Key West and enjoy it’s new homeless shelter. Weak laughs.
I said on my way up to KOTS, I stopped at the staging area to speak with a woman standing at the bus stop, waiting on a city bus. She said she worked for the Sheriff Department, she was an office worker. I asked if she used that bus stop regularly after getting off work? Yes. Had she ever had any problems with homeless people while she waited on the bus there? No. Did the Sheriff know she walked out to that bus stop every afternoon after work? Yes. I said that was interesting, because I had heard the Sheriff say at a public meeting that he didn’t want his female staff having to be near homeless people on his property. I told her to tell the Sheriff what I had told her.
I decided to save that one to drop on you here, rather than in my description of my road trip up to KOTS :-).
The KOTS monitors said they needed to get back work and I thanked them for talking with me and said I was headed back to the staging area to talk to some of their clients, and I pedaled off.
I spoke with several men at the staging area. I told them I had stayed at KOTS back in 2005 . I was involved in city homeless issues. I was a journalist. I would write an article about my conversations with them, without naming or identifying them in anyway. In no particular order, here is what I heard.
Currently, KOTS is close to capacity at night.
Some of the men clients choose to sleep outside behind the women’s trailer, rather than inside the huts.
A fellow said, no hot showers at KOTS. You punch a button and water comes out of the shower head for a little while, and then the water cuts off. Water-saver shower, I said. Yes. You get what water is there. He takes lots of cold showers.
I said it was sort of like that when I stayed there back in 2005, when they had the old shower trailer. If you didn’t get there first, at best you got a luke-warm shower. If you got there even later, it was a cool to cold shower.
A fellow said, when the monitor comes down from KOTS, it isn’t always first in line get to go to KOTS. The monitors sometimes decide who goes first. I had seen that when I went up there to observe check in at KOTS several months ago, when clients still were allowed to check in at KOTS. Monitors sometimes took people in who were standing back in line, instead of who was at the front of the line.
A man said, yeah, he sleeps with his arms around his belongings, otherwise they will be gone when he wakes up. The A dorm is the loudest. He tries not to stay in that dorm. That’s the dorm closest to the tent where the video is set up for watching movies. He said the A dorm is loud inside, and the monitors nearby tend to be loud at night.
A man said the written rules, which were posted in plain view when Florida Keys Outreach Coalition ran KOTS for the city, were taken down when the new outfit took over KOTS for the city several years ago. After that, the rules were broken more frequently, the monitors became lax enforcing the rules.
One particular rule no longer enforced is no taking food into the dorms. As a result, food crumbs get dropped and wild woods rats come into the dorms looking for something to eat. I understood that. I was nearly run out of my trailer on Little Torch Key by wild wood rats. They joined me on my bed at night, when I was asleep. I had to get a rat cat from the animal shelter to put an end to that.
A man said monitors tend not to do anything about clients’ complaints of other clients breaking rules, and clients do not complain about monitors doing anything wrong, that is not advised, monitors do not take kindly to criticism.
I said, when I stayed at KOTS in early 2005, after monitors kept me awake most of a night, talking loud, I reported that to the next day’s monitor shift and was thrown out of KOTS. I had my cell phone handy, in it was Charles Daivs’ cell phone number. I told the monitor who I was calling. The monitor looked astounded. I called Charles, he answered. I told him what was going down. He said to put the monitor on my cell phone. I told the monitor what Charles said and handed him my cell phone, even more astounded look. The monitor started arguing with Charles. I mean like telling Charles where he could take it and shove it. That went on a while. Finally, the monitor started looking like he was getting a pistol whipping. He finally quit fighting with Charles. He gave me back muy cell phone, said I could stay there that night.
I told the men at the staging area that I’d had much the same thing happen at Florida Keys Outreach Coaltion, when I was staying there, after I reported something that needed to be reported.
I told the men that I had told the mayor and city commissioners they needed to spend a few nights at KOTS, to learn something about the place, instead of trying to make decisions about it from city hall. Amens all around from the homeless men.
I thanked them for talking with me, got on my bicycle and headed back to Key West. Reaching the top of the key, I decided to go left on South Roosevelt Blvd and head to White Street Pier and take in breathable air outside the dome. Key West is under the dome.
I was pretty thirsty and decided to stop at Smathers Beach
and drink from the water fountain next to the outdoor shower at the bathrooms. Wow. The water fountain had been plugged. A fellow under the shower said they turned the water fountain off some time ago. I said that’s weird. This is the city’s most used public beach, and there is no water fountain?
I got back on my bicycle, headed for Higgs Beach, to the water frountain I knew was there beside the public shower, next to the bathrooms. I wondered along the way why they turned off the water fountain at Smathers Beach? Was it to discourage homleless people form being there? Was it to force people who use that beach to buy bottled water and soft drinks from the portable vendors who set up there? What madness was behind them turning off that water fountain? Perhaps they should turn off the bathrooms’ plumbing and the shower, too, to get the full effect they desired.
The water fountain at Higgs Beach was working and I stole a pint or so of the city’s precious water, which it sells by the tanker truck loads to cruise ships.
I then turned around and pedaled back up to White Street Peir to watch the evening sky and sunset from outside the dome.
That, and talking with James Winstead , Todd German and the homeless men at the staging area, were the high points of my day yesterday.
Well, I did have some more fun with the continuation of the Facebook thread on liberals, started the other day by Gweko W. Phlocker, aka Gary Ek, aka Soundman from hell:
Yep, this pretty much sums it up.
Via The Left Compass
Leading off with the last few comments reported yesterday in yesterday’s soup kitchen Jesus and other liberal fantasies – Key West laboratory post at www.goodmorningkeywest.com:
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Brian McAloon People need to know the difference between a progressive and a liberal. Dems are progressives. I am a liberal. The term liberal has been high jacked by authoritarian dems.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp…22 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079106598576:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Sloan Bashinsky Maybe people need to learn the definition between being a label, and simply being human, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.22 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079117838857:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 3 -
Eddie Bricker I think most people just need to learn how to shut the fuck up for a few minutes.21 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079249442147:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Brian McAloon I think people need to stop telling others to shut the fuck up.19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079761454947:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1
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Steve Clark back in the 90’s rush went bar hopping in arcata california (home of humbolt state university) wearing a t-shirt that said “i am not a right wing nut … i just play one on tv ” . so as much as i disagree with him on everything , he does have a sense of humor19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079778535374:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like -
Sloan Bashinsky Hey, Gweko, did you ever go for a spin with any of these liberals?
19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079800615926:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Sloan Bashinsky Or this liberal?
19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079812856232:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 2 -
Sloan Bashinsky How about this liberal? Kali
19 hrs · Edited · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079816416321:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Sloan Bashinsky Or this liberal?
19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079822736479:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Sloan Bashinsky Or this liberal?
19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079834736779:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Sloan Bashinsky Or this liberal?
19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079842616976:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Brian McAloon Sloan who says Jesus was a liberal?19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079844337019:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Sloan Bashinsky Or this liberal?
19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079850537174:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Sloan Bashinsky Brian, by the definition Gweko provided to start this blabber? Personally, I would define Jesus as a terrorist ..19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079863097488:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Brian McAloon I would say he was definitely say antiestablishment. Maybe a terrorist by our homeland security.19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079882537974:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Sloan Bashinsky Personally, I think all political parties should be banned, and belonging to one made a capital offense, punishable by immediate extinction . Same sentiments toward religion. Look at what Christendom went and did after Jesus showed how it could have all been done differently. Christendom went and did pretty much what Jesus said could have all been done differently. This all can be jabbered until hell freezes over, and maybe even after that; about all anyone can change is him/herself, and that ain’t usually all that easy in my own experience and observations.19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079885898058:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 2
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Brian McAloon Parties have failed us no doubt. Religion? I don’t believe in any God.19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079890538174:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Sloan Bashinsky Brian, if you lived in my skin, you would not believe in any god either; you would know for a fact that God exists, and that it don’t matter what you call the Unknowable, the All, Allah, Om - it’s for real, and once you experience it, there is nothing to believe on that score, you know.19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079905138539:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Eddie Bricker I only suggested that people shut the fuck up for *a few minutes,* not forever. People so busy thinking of what they are gonna say next, they aren’t actually listening to the other side of most conversations. Besides, it’s not like anyone is going to do anything I suggest, anyhow….so it’s kind of moot. Which is a cool word. Moot.19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079907618601:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Eddie Bricker And Sloan writes a good book.19 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079909538649:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Sloan Bashinsky It just might all be moot, Eddie, as far as what human beings think, or say - it just might be this head where the sun don’t shine so-called dominant species done went and created so much nice karma that it’s all over but the shouting.
18 hrs · Edited · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079919298893:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like -
Sloan Bashinsky
18 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079922578975:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like -
Eddie Bricker Yeah, pretty much.18 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079923458997:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Sloan Bashinsky You started this, Gweko, you sly dog, you
18 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079946259567:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like -
Sloan Bashinsky Or,
18 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079950419671:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like -
Sloan Bashinsky Or,
18 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203079953499748:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like · 1 -
Brian McAloon I used to believe in God. Then I thought about it.18 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203080181425446:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Sloan Bashinsky What I briefly described has nothing to do with believing or thinking; it has to do with experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally and beyond. It cannot be imagined until it is experienced..16 hrs · "}" data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment10203074494643280_10203080561754954:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0">Like
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Sloan Bashinsky
Sloan Bashinsky
keysmyhome@hotmail.com
