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dream police
After a night of turbulent, and I mean turbulent dreams, including aliens who looked like humans invading on all fronts and the more they were fought the more they liked it and the tougher they got, School District Superintendent Mark Porter, sitting at a table some distance away from me with Michael Kinneer, who used to be the school district’s comptroller and now own’s Sippin’ Internet Cafe, where I am typing up this post today, tossed me a ripe peach, which fell a little shore of me and bounced once and I caught it and woke up thinking I should on the lookout today for something regarding the school district.
Voila! In today’s Key West Citizen (keysnews.com), my interjected thoughts in bold italics, I added the pic. Backstory, I ran for the School Board District 2 seat in 2012, as a write in candidate, and, as in all prior runs for office I had made in the Florida Keys, came in dead last without even breaking sweat.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Making schools safer
County enhances facilities, measures to protect kids
BY Michael Quirk Key West Citizen
It was a busy summer for the Monroe County School District facilities and construction staff as numerous upgrades were made, from Key Largo to Key West.
Improvements included air conditioner and refrigeration replacements, artificial turf and playground reinforcements, carpentry and room repurposing, and biodiesel lab cleanup, but the main focus was on making the schools safer, according to Michael Michaud, the district’s security and safety coordinator.
“The biggest two things we’ve been working on are perimeter fencing and getting all the school cameras functioning,” he said. “During the summer, those were the two main priorities so that when the kids came back, the schools were a safer place for them.”
Michaud said the goal of the fencing projects was to create a singular access point to the schools, focused on the front office. There was also an effort to make sure there are gates that could be locked “when they need to be locked,” with work done at Key Largo and Sugarloaf schools.
Regarding the cameras, Michaud said newer schools such as Horace O’Bryant have up-to-date equipment, but some of the older schools had cameras that were malfunctioning. Those non-working cameras are in the process of being repaired, said Jeff Barrow, director of facilities and construction. Not only is the district in the process of replacing broken cameras, but new ones have been added at the request of principals, Barrow said.
Barrow declined to elaborate on which schools do and do not have new cameras, saying “it’s not in the school district’s best interest to speak on where the weak spots are,” and added that it is an extensive process. He said there were no local events that caused the need for the safety enhancements, but rather a national tragedy that brought attention to issues.
“It’s a proactive measure; there were a lot of questions after Sandy Hook both from the community and our leadership,” he said. “It caused us to look at some of what’s going on locally, and (it’s) a reason why we have a guy like Michael Michaud in that position. It was recognizing that we needed to do better.”
I’m really glad to see this being done, however, the Sandyhook School massacre occurred on December 14, 2012, and I can’t help but wonder what took our school district so long to make the schools more secure from outside threats? And, I have seen nothing indicating the school district has done anything to make students more secure from hazing, taunting, bullying and pedophole school district staff, such as the law enforcement officer, who was a resource officer at Key West High School.
Barrow said that he believes the work done has made the schools safer, and he will continue to revisit school campuses to make sure there are not any more existing security concerns.
“Absolutely (the schools are now safer), but we won’t stop,” he said. “We’ll always be looking at safety issues and improvements (for them), and bring them back to apply to the schools.”
mquirk@keysnews.com
Moving laterally in the public safety arena, the lead article in this week’s every Friday online Key West the Newspaper (thebluepaper.com) is yet another boat rocker doozie:
Tour Companies and City Spar Over Sightseeing Franchise Agreements
Naja and Arnaud Girard…….
As the “Conch Train” slows down at the corner of Eaton and Elizabeth, the conductor blows the whistle. The train’s blaring PA system floods the street:
“That’s right folks, you just made it to the top. Key West’ highest point, Solaris Hill! 18 Feet above sea level! That’s where you would want to be in a hurricane!” Resident Bob Sanders says he hears that pitch over and over, all day long.
There have been many other complaints about sightseeing busses, trolleys, and trains in Key West. Some say they’re too slow and impede traffic; they’re too loud and historically inaccurate [Solaris Hill is not on Eaton Street]. Others claim there are too many of them; they are too big. There is even a song by a local band proclaiming “The streets are too small for the Duck Tours , please!”
A new ordinance is needed to “protect the quality of life of residents while allowing competitive commerce,” wrote Commissioner Teri Johnston in 2009, about the growing number of sightseeing vehicles in Key West.
The time to renegotiate with sightseeing companies has finally come. Temporary extensions aside, all sightseeing franchise agreements expired in February 2015, including the 20-year old Historic Tours of America’s Conch Tour Train and Trolley franchise agreement.
The City Commission will decide on new regulations on September 30th. The City is treading carefully – especially where “Duck Tours” are concerned, the first encounter with the amphibious vehicles spelled financial disaster – that was in the 1990’s.
All sightseeing business in Key West at the time was under the control of HTA and local businessman Ed Swift. Enter “Duck Tours Seafari” offering a ride through the City Streets before splashing into the harbor. The Blue Paper at that time had a headline: “Ed! Duck!” But Ed Swift didn’t duck!
Duck Tours, the new company, was directly threatening HTA’s monopoly. Mr. Swift went straight to the City Commission asking for enforcement of his exclusive franchise rights. “We are partners,” Ed Scales, Swift’s attorney, told them.
The City makes over $400,000/year from the HTA franchise agreement. The Commission did move to protect their “partner” but they went a little bit too far. They criminalized infringement of the sightseeing monopoly, and sent their police to arrest the Duck Tour captains and impound their vehicles.
In a closed-door meeting, they directed then City Attorney, Diane Covan, to “grind them (Duck Tours) into the dirt.” John Murphy’s Duck Tours Seafari sued under antitrust laws and won a 13 million dollar verdict. The City settled during the appeal process for 8 million in 2010.
There are now two applicants for sightseeing franchise agreements: City View, which took over Duck Tours Seafari, and Historic Tours of America/Buggy Bus, Inc. (HTA). Both City View and HTA hoped to launch lucrative amphibious vehicle (Duck Tour) operations, but the Navy took back the boat ramp they planned on using at the Truman Waterfront.
Both companies are also fighting the franchise ordinance drafted by the City.
For those residents who no longer want to be stuck behind the Conch Train moving below 15 mph on Fleming Street or White Street, the new ordinance, (which made it through the Commissions’ first reading) makes the following provision: “No operator of a sightseeing vehicle (…) shall drive at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic. The route should avoid residential side streets.” But HTA wants the word “impede” removed, the tour vehicles would only be in trouble if they “block” traffic. That would mean another 10 years at 12 mph behind a Conch Train.
HTA and City View both dislike a provision that limits the passage of tour vehicles to one per hour on residential side streets.
The Commission also approved a provision that prohibits any sound (narration) from being audible from outside the vehicles. The idea is that passengers could be accessing the narrative using headphones or through the use of Bluetooth technology and their smart phones. But the tour companies find the requirement impractical and want only to discuss “sound reduction plans” at a later time with the City Manager.
Finally the ordinance doesn’t prohibit the new oversized HTA Ducks, which are 40? long and almost 12 feet high, from riding up and down Key West’s streets; requiring only (vaguely) that they take the largest and safest streets “possible.”
The total number of vehicles is not fixed. HTA currently has 39 tour vehicles. City View suggests letting the “market control how many vehicles are necessary.” It will be interesting to see how much traction that “free market” argument receives on the dias when it concerns these large sightseeing companies considering how the City has dealt with the same issue when it comes to independent Uber drivers.
The franchisees will be required to have 10 million dollars in insurance coverage and will pay the City $7,500 per vehicle or 5% of the gross receipts, whichever is greater. The tour companies oppose logging their passengers, which seems the best way to audit those payments. City View opposes the 10 million dollar insurance requirement. However, after a Duck Tour vehicle’s catastrophic capsizing on the Delaware River in 2010, the death of two passengers was settled for 15 Million dollars and the Duck Tour vehicle that crashed into a tour bus yesterday in Seattlecaused 4 deaths and multiple injuries.
A prudent City Commission will need to balance the quality of life issues with the realities of commerce. The second and final reading of the ordinance is set for a September 30, 2015 City Commission meeting.
6 Responses to “Tour Companies and City Spar Over Sightseeing Franchise Agreements”
As for the local jail being safe …
My lady Kari’s physical and resulting psychic distress is acute due her allergy to soy food products, which cause her to have acute and painful indigestion, skin sores all over her body, crazy-making itching, hives and, as of yesterday, feeling like her skin is on fire, like she has burning, itching hemorrhoids all over her body, and she can’t sleep at night therefore. Until yesterday, she was having trouble getting into the infirmary to be looked at.
When we visited yesterday afternoon at the jail, Kari said the nurses had earlier in the day prescribed Clarendon for her, an allergy drug which, she said, takes about 30 days to show effects, and which, she said, the jail computer will automatically cancel after a certain period of time, without notice. Kari said, the way the nurses talked about her symptoms, the nurses know it a soy allergy. I said the fix for that is diet change, and Kari said it won’t happen. I said that was the operative word, won’t, but it could happen.
Kari said she was gotten onto about what I’m writing about what goes on in the jail, and she was told I can’t write about the next program she will go into after JIP; the new program is reintegration back into society, and, Kari thinks, she still will be on probation, and that’s driving her a bit crazy, too, along with the taunting and hazing from a pod of women inmates who have made her the target of their own misery. I told Kari, if the folks running the JIP program have problems with what I write about what she tells me goes on in the jail, then they themselves have not mastered the spirit of the JIP program, because core to JIP is telling the truth and looking in the mirror.
Right now, Kari is at the make amends step in JIP. As many times as she’s been through rehab programs, which used the 12 Steps, she’s made amends to the point there are very few people left, who are still breathing, who she feels she needs to make amends to. I said, making amends is, “I’m sorry, I apologize, I feel badly about what I did.” You do not ask for forgiveness, that’s a string attached to your apology, which hinges on being forgiven.
Kari also was really down about how long it seems she will still be under the thumb of the Monroe County justice system, a term I use loosely. She said she would not even be in jail, if she’d had a good lawyer. I agreed, said the lawyer she had had put many people’s lives at risk when he got drunk and drove his car on US 1 and then off into the mangroves; the way he defended the case was like a 3-year-old, insane; all the while he was allegedly representing her and talking down to her like she was an awful criminal and beneath him. In prison he should be, I told her, but that is not how it turned out.
Of and on, Kari was trying not to cry, and finally she did cry, and I said I’d never seen her cry before, I was glad for it. When something else came up and I said she is the only reason I want to be alive, she cried more, and I laughed and said she ought to really take that as a compliment from my heart. Before she came into my life, there was nothing happening that caused me to want to still be on this planet. That was not suicide talk; it was statement of how I feel about living on this planet, quite a few parts of which I have seen and gotten to know somewhat, or more than somewhat.
Hoping it would lead to bringing Kari some relief, I called Rose Chan M.D.’s office yesterday. A surgeon, Rose is the physician in charge of the jail infirmary, which I had only recently learned. I know Rose from our shared interest in trying to help homeless people not be run over by the city and the Friends of Higgs Beach Committee, on which I participated. Co-chaired by county commissioner Heather Carruthers and city commissioner Teri Johnson, the committee was populated by some real Nazis when it came to homeless people. A few times Rose thanked me for what I say publicly and encouraged me to keep doing it.
Rose’s receptionist told me Dr. Chan could not talk with me about jail inmate issues from her office, but only through the jail. I told the receptionist I would not be able to reach Dr. Chan in the jail and asked the receptionist to have Dr. Chan call me. I called the jail, keyed in the medical section, which was electronic voicemail saying to leave no messages, if a person did not answer. there was no key for Dr. Chan. I called Cr. Chan’s office back, told the receptionist that, and no way I can leave a message at the jail infirmary for Dr. Chan to call me.
The receptionist said Dr. Chan could not talk with me about any jail inmate, patient confidentiality. I said I was a lawyer and she had it mixed up. I didn’t want Dr. Chan to tell me anything about the woman inmate. Rather, I needed to make sure Dr. Chan was apprised of medical issues about the inmate. I said Dr. Chan would want to know about those issues, and not be later put in the position, if something bad happened to to the inmate medically, of saying nobody ever told her of the inmate’s medical troubles.
I told the receptionist that Dr. Chan and I have a history away from her medical practice, trying to help homeless people, and this woman inmate I am calling about is homeless, she was put into the jail because she was drinking, but that is not her medical issues, she has been in the jail too long for drinking to be the medical issue. Please have Dr. Chan call me. The receptionist said, “I got it.” It was very clear she did not want me to talk with Dr. Chan.
I don’t know, maybe if Dr. Chan gets involved, she could get Kari a different diet, without soy. That would be an effort for the Sheriff, but it makes a lot more sense medically and otherwise, than putting Kari on Clarendon and whatever side effects it has, and continuing to feed her soy, which is driving her body and immune system and psyche nuts, and could move into anaphylactic shock and/or a total psychic collapse from which she might not return.
When Kari called me this morning, she was at her wits end after another night of not sleeping. She said the infirmary was supposed to give her benadryl yesterday, but didn’t, and when she told a nurse about it last night, the nurse said the benadryl had been given to her that morning, and Kari said no, it had not, and the nurse said, too bad.
Kari was really out of sorts this morning, her mind was racing through various scenarios to get her out of there, which she wanted me to somehow initiatel she was panicked. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of what Kari is experiencing in there is retaliation for what I’ve been publishing that she tells me goes on in there.
She finally blew up at me this morning, told me she didn’t need my help any more, and she hung up on me. She’s done that before, several times, and came back around. I don’t know how much coming back around I can do, because my life is no bowl of cherries, although it’s paradise compared to what she is experiencing.
Kari told me last night, the woman April Thomason, who ran over and killed the dental hygienist last week on the South Roosevelt Blvd promenade, is going to be chewed up by inmates and jail staff. This morning, Kari told me before she hung up, that last night she heard nurses talking about railroading April into a mental institution. I said that would be the best outcome for April, because she was insane when she ran over and killed that poor woman, due to being deep in trying to withdraw cold turkey from a Xanax addiction. If April is prosecuted for killing that poor woman, so should be the doctor who prescribed the Xanax.
Meanwhile, the only sane way I see through this hell hole for both Kari and me, is for a pile of money to fall on me, again. I hear plenty about how that notion doesn’t go down well with some people. Kari says she doesn’t want tainted money. I say, I don’t care where the money comes from. I work my butt off, even when I’m sleeping. Angels have disabled me from making a living wage doing what I know how to do. I’m physically unable to do physical labor anymore, even washing dishes in a restaurant would put me down. If human beings don’t want to pay me for what I do for them and humanity, then I’m fine with the angels dropping a pile of money on me from the blue sky. I imagine this particular lady friend of mine completely agrees.
sloanbashinsky@outlook.com
simplyrick
Thanks for an educational article! I had no idea there were so many Ducks! I also enjoyed Arnaud;s cartoon (as always) and the cool photo of the 1940s tour limo!
The Duck Tour crash in Seattle was the lead story on Good Morning America. I believe the tour train drivers should face the same requirements for licensing as the taxi drivers in Key West, tests, doctor exams, city occupational license, etc, etc.
I bumped into utility board candidate Tom Milone on the sidewalk yesterday. He has run for the utility board before, and for the city commission twice, and sits on the city’s Citizen Police Review Board, where he rocks the boat. He also attends city commission meeting pretty regularly. I asked him how the recent city commission meeting went for him? He said the rich people will get what they want. The mayor and city commissioners spent their time talking about what the two tour companies’ representatives were saying, and did not talk about what the citizen speakers said. He said I could quote him.
Perhaps this ex-practicing lawyer has his head where the sun never shines, but I imagine it would be legal for the city to restrict Historic Tours and CitiWiew’s behemoths, and the ducks, to main streets and keep them out of residential neighborhoods altogether; and I think it also would be legal to ban the behemoths from Key West altogether, because they cause traffic jams ongoing, break the sound barrier with their noise ongong, and cause relentless psychic stress in residential neighborhoods, as well – quality of life and public safety trumps tour vehicles on city streets, or at least on residential city streets.
Meanwhile, the city pays HTA maybe $600,000 a year to ferry cruise ship passengers from the outer mole pier in to HTS’s gift shops and conch train and trolley terminals, where the cruise ship passengers shop for made in Asia authentic Key West souvenirs and buy tickets for conch train and trolley rides around the city, while the city loses money on cruise ships overall.
Aruand, I love the “cartoon”, especially the elephant ride, but I imagine camel, horse and donkey lovers wish you had been more “one animal family” :-).
P.S. Jimmy Weekly was on the city commission which approved the then city attorney, Diane Covan, grinding Duck Tours into dirt. Later, Jimmy served several terms as mayor, before he was beaten by Morgan McPherson in 2005, and again in 2007. Later, Jimmy ran for city commission and was elected and has been a city commissioner ever since.
The KW City Commission is a microcosm of the larger bodies of governance in neo-liberal America. Money beats the people’s needs and wishes every bloody time. Representative government, my ass.
These mammoth DUCKS can NOT be allowed on our streets. Our small streets were designed for horse and buggys – NOT buggy buses! This has to come down to more than a consideration of PROFITS for 2 companies. The bottom line has to be SAFETY.
The safety of locals walking and riding bikes to work and social happenings ,AND the safety of millions of tourists a year who come to enjoy Key West, many who may be riding a bicycle for the first time in years on one of our very small streets, they may have had a cocktail or two, and we all see them rubbernecking at our beautiful architecture, chickens and other colorful components of life in Key West! We do not want any of there people mowed down by a massive over-sized DUCK! Not one! Philadelphia has had 3 deaths, the death of a pedestrian was not mentioned in TBP article, and now yesterday a DUCK goes out of control and has killed 4 so far.
As far as liability is concerned – the city has good reason to be concerned and ask for a $10M liability policy by these companies. How much is a life worth? Is you life worth $1M? $5M? And how much for 4 lives as happened yesterday in Seattle? But here is my concern: If the city does not put parameters on the size of DUCKS or limit DUCKS in some major way – will the city ALSO BE LIABLE in future deaths from DUCKS? In the $13M verdict, negotiated down to $8M – WE SAW HTA WALK AWAY LEAVING THE CITY HOLDING THE BAG TO PAY, while they did a back room deal for an undisclosed amount – you can bet it was NOT $8M or anything even close?
2 tour companies WANT certain concessions and specific components of the existing Ordinance removed or changed. That’s 2 FOR PROFIT companies. What about what the hundreds/thousands of residents WANT concerning noise, safety and quality of life. So often what our citizens WANT are put second behind tourism, does what we want also now have to line up behind CORPORATIONS ans PROFIT? And what about what the millions of tourists WANT (and EXPECT!) who come to enjoy Key West in terms of their safety? This can NOT be about PROFIT. Safety and quality of life MUST trump the greed driven profits of 2 companies. Organizations should NOT be considered people in Key WEST.