Something came in a few days ago from a Key West fellow on my email hit list. I replied:
HI PAUL. THANKS FOR WRITING. SEE MY INTERSPACED RESPONSES IN CAPS.
hi sloan,
i guess it’s impossible to reshape the budget and have it reflect actual spending requirements, or someone already would have done it. Are they really that hamstrung by state regulation that they don’t have the discretion to protect teacher/staff income and student programs?THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT $ AID THEY WILL GET FROM THE STATE, OR WHAT $ AID THEY ALREADY GOT, WHICH THEY WILL BE ASKED TO BE GIVE BACK. STATE REGULATION IS SEVERE RE HOW STUDENTS ARE TAUGHT, TESTED, ALL REPORTED TO AND GRADED BY THE STATE. BUT THAT’S NOT WHERE THE MAIN FINANCIAL CRUNCH IS COMING FROM. IT’S COMING FROM STILL FALLING LAND VALUES IN THE KEYS, WHICH TRANSLATES TO STILL FALLING AD VALOREM TAX REVENUES. TO RECTIFY THAT, AND THE VARIABLES THE STATE CAUSES, WILL REQUIRE LOCAL TAX INCREASES.
ALL OF WHICH BEGS THE IMMEDIATE UNCERTAINTY OF THE .5 MIL REFERENDUM FOR SCHOOL OPERATIONS BEING CONTINUED BY THE VOTERS. THAT’S $9 MILLION IN REVENUES THE SCHOOL DISTRICT HAD THIS YEAR, AND FOR SEVEN YEARS PRIOR (AS I UNDERSTAND THE TIME LINE), WHEN .5 MIL OF A 1 MIL TAX FOR CAPITAL ITEMS WAS CONVERTED IN A REFERENDUM TO .5 MIL FOR CAPITAL ITEMS AND .5 MIL FOR OPERATIONS. THE .5 MIL FOR OPERATIONS SUNSETS THIS YEAR, WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE NEXT YEAR WITHOUT THE JAN 31 REFERENDUM BEING PASSED. IF THE REFERENDUM IS NOT PASSED, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT WILL BE TORPEDOED BELOW THE WATERLINE. MAY DAY! MAY DAY! MAY DAY! YOUR AND OTHER PEOPLE’S QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS ABOUT THE SCHOOL DISTRICT WILL BE SERIOUSLY SENT TO THE END OF THE LINE.
if they’ve straightened out the oversight problems of former years, voters really ought to know that prior to … January, is it? an extra simplified balance sheet might be helpful. how many mc voters actually know how the “5 mils” relates to the overall school budget. i sure don’t.
WHAT VOTERS NEED TO KNOW IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS AND OTHER SCHOOL EMPLOYEES AND THE NON-EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AND THE CHILDREN, IF THEY VOTE AGAINST THE REFERENDUM. WHAT VOTERS NEED TO KNOW IS ALL OF THAT WILL FALL ON THEIR HEADS, IF THEY DO NOT PASS THE REFERENDUM, AND THEY WILL HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME OR COMPLAIN TO BUT THEMSELVES FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING THE TROUBLE AND FOR NOT VOTING YES ON THE REFERENDUM.
countywide, there’s a whole lot of stuff to keep track of, that’s why people don’t know. you should forget about ‘running’ and just keep doing this!
later,
paul
MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW BECAUSE THEY DON’T TAKE THE TIME, OR CARE, TO KEEP UP WITH WHAT’S GOING ON. I USED TO BE A LOT LIKE THEM BEFORE I WAS TRANSFERRED TO THE KEYS IN LATE 2000. I WOULD LOVE TO FORGET ABOUT RUNNING. EXCEPT FOR THE FIRST RACE IN 2003, MAYOR OF KEY WEST, WHICH WAS NOVEL, I DID NOT WANT TO RUN. I MUCH PERFER DEALING WITH LOCAL ISSUES IN THE WAY I DO IT NOW: ATTENDING GOVERNMENT/PUBLIC MEETINGS, TALKING WITH PEOPLE, DREAMING ABOUT IT, WRITING ABOUT IT. HOWEVER, IT IS A FACT THAT SIX RUNS FOR OFFICE, THREE FOR MAYOR OF KEY WEST (2003, 2007, 2009), THREE FOR THE COUNTY COMMISSION (2006, 2008, 2010), AND GETTING DEEPLY INVOLVED IN A STATE ATTORNEY RACE AND A SHERIFF RACE (2008), AND IN A SCHOOL BOARD RACE AND TWO MOSQUITO CONTROL BOARD RACES (2010), AND IN KEY WEST AND MONROE COUNTY POLITICS, AND IN WISTERIA ISLAND AND NO NAME KEY, AND IN FLORIDA KEYS AQUEDUCT AUTHORITY POLITICS AND KEYS ENERGY POLITICS, AND IN HOMELESS ISSUES TAUGHT ME A GREAT DEAL ABOUT LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND LOCAL POLITICS, AND THE MAIN PLAYERS AND THE RESISTANCE. I SUPPOSE MY EDUCATION IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS IS AS BROAD AS, IF NOT BROADER THAN, ANYONE ELSE’S IN THE KEYS. AN EDUCATION DEEPENED BY MY MORE RECENTLY BEING DUNKED INTO SCHOOL DISTRICT ISSUES LIKE THERE WILL BE NO TOMORROW.
Meanwhile, during next Tuesday’s school board meeting at Coral Shores High School, school board member Robin Smith-Martin is going to be asked by school board chairman John Dick where he stands on giving the people of the Keys a tax break if the .5 mil tax for school operations fails to pass on January 31? The reason John will ask Robin, and the other three board members and himself that question, is because Robin went and told the public at a school board meeting, which got reported in the Keynoter, that if the voters defeat the referendum, they could get a tax cut. Having gone and done that, it falls on Robin to fix what he broke, since nobody else but him can fix what he broke. If falls on Robin to step to the head of the line and say straight out to John Dick, without any hesitation, qualification or condition, if the referendum does not pass, he will not vote for a tax decrease and will vote to transfer the .5 mill back to the capital fund. There is no other way Robin can fix what he broke.
On another front is an article in The Citizen (keysnews.com) this morning re FEMA threatening to put Monroe County on probation, with an ultimate threat of removing the county from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) if it does not enforce a federal lawsuit settlement between environmentalists and FEMA to curb the issuance of building permits (development) in environmentally sensitive areas of the Keys. A lawsuit in which the county was not allowed to intervene, although it now is being told by FEMA to help FEMA enforce its duties under the settlement. The county says it doesn’t have the staff or the money to do that, but that’s the small concern. The big concern is, if the county does enforce the settlement for FEMA, the county very likely will be sued by property owners for “taking” the development value of their land from them, which could be seriously expensive to the county taxpayers, if the property owners prevail. I told the County Commission a year ago to file its own lawsuit in federal court, challenging FEMA’s right to lean on the county in that way. Now, according to The Citizen article, the county is considering suing FEMA.
On yet another front is an article in The Citizen today on Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter (KOTS) on Stock Island, which shelter belongs to the City of Key West. The new managers of KOTS want to make changes. They want people who stay there to use KOTS as a launch pad to change their lives, get work, get off of chemical addiction, get counseling, etc. If KOTS users don’t want to do that, they move on, is what the new managers envision. Move on to where? To living on the street is where. To living in the mangroves is to where. And thus to the City of Key West staring the Pottinger case squarely in the face, again. The federal case which ruled the City of Miami could not jail homeless people simply for sleeping, if the city did not have shelters where homeless people could sleep and homeless people refused to use the shelters. The whole point of building KOTS was to provide Key West’s homeless people a shelter where they could sleep, so they would not sleep outside and could be jailed for sleeping outside. Perhaps the new KOTS managers should study up on the history of KOTS and read the Pottinger case, since Key West lies in the jurisdiction of the same federal court which decided that case.
Another part of the KOTS article quotes Southern Homeless Assistant League (SHAL) executive director Wendy Coles. SHAL is one of three local agencies now managing KOTS for the city, and has been around a number of years.
“This is labeled as an emergency shelter … Why would people want to stay longer than six months? We would like to get to know these people and understand their needs?”
SHAL and Wendy have been claiming to be homeless experts for quite a few years. If you look at SHAL’s board of directors, its a veritable who’s who of local luminaries, none of whom, in this ex-homeless man’s view, knows ding squat about homeless people. If you check out SHAL’s website, you might get the impression SHAL is responsible for all local homeless help programs, but nothing could be further from the truth. If Wendy Coles does not know why people want to stay longer than six months at KOTS, if she by now does not know these people and understand their needs, she needs to do what I told her several months to do: she needs to find something else to do. I cannot believe Tom Tuell, Editor of The Citizen, who certainly knows the history of KOTS and whom to interview about homeless people, certainly not Wendy Coles, let this article go to press. Tom knows who are the real local homeless experts. He doesn’t like me, so no chance he would come to me. But he certainly could go to Father Stephen Braddock of Florida Keys Outreach Coaltion, which ran KOTS for years, after taking it over for the City of Key West, after it opened KOTS against Steve’s and my advice, and it turned into what we told the city it would turn into: a drug den, brothel and disease center. FKOC straightened KOTS out, and now people who don’t know ding squat about homeless people are calling the shots and talking of turning it into a homeless rehab center, even though there already are major, experienced homeless rehab programs in Key West, not the least of which is FKOC. Incredible.
Also incredible, also not in the uplifting sense, is the local luminaries who still allow their names to be used by Tim Gratz, as members of his stop-child-slave-trading outfit’s board of directors. You luminaries understand, don’t you, by being on Tim’s board of directors, you endorse and vouch for everything he does re that enterprise. Not only morally do you vouch for him, but also legally. I cannot believe the school district is going to allow Gratz to conduct an anti-child slave trading rally at Key West High School, now that the school district has been made aware of Gratz’s history and the way he went about starting his enterprise by collecting donations before there was a bank account or any corporate filing in Tallahassee. What is the school district thinking, letting this happen at Key West High School? In doing that, the school district endorses and vouches for Gratz and his enterprise, regardless of the school district’s claim to the contrary.
I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com, but today I’m in court, pretending to be a lawyer again.
