To get the real flavor of the  Islamorada tax dollar debacle we must go back to when the residents of Islamorada were deciding whether to incorporate.

In the 1990s Milan J. Dluhy, Ph.d. prepared the feasibility study as required by Florida Statute 165.041 prior to the incorporation of any new municipality.  It is an operational plan that includes proposed staffing, building acquisition and construction and budgets.

From the 1997 Islamorada study:

• Islamorada’s 1997 population – 7,144, slightly more than the 2026 population of 7059.

• Islamorada’s 1997 taxable value - $1.047 billion, compared to 2026 taxable value of $7.554 billion.

• Projected ad valorem taxes by year three after incorporation: $2,614,073. Islamorada ad valorem taxes in current budget – $18,264,000.

Unfortunately we have since elected members of council who act like they are playing monopoly – with fake $1,000 bills – buying up goods and services, without regard to price.

Beware! The 2026-2027 budget season is coming!

Projected Millage Rate: Tuesday the staff is asking council to set the preliminary millage rate for the coming year at 3.0 mills. With the taxable value of the Village up $491.4 million in the last year, 3.0 mills represents an increase in taxes of 21.18% in just one year.

Yes… the 3 mills is just a preliminary number – but at a time when the cost of living here is driving so many residents out of the Keys to find less expensive locations elsewhere, we would hope the council and staff would show some common sense and make the number a bit more tolerable.

If past be prologue, we have seen this before.

The Council will come back at 2.6 - 2.8 millage and expect a standing ovation!

This is a gimmick. An increase is an increase. Give the residents some genuine relief instead of playing games. 

The Village doesn’t want a visit from the Florida Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Governor Ron DeSantis established DOGE, directing state agencies, universities, and local governments “to identify and eliminate unnecessary spending, maximize efficiency, and improve fiscal stewardship.”

Islamorada has resisted this at every level.

We have been told by officials that “Islamorada doesn’t need a DOGE audit.”

We are told that “Everyone is happy with Village government and spending.”

No, we are not all happy and rightfully so.

It is common sense to request an efficiency audit after a quarter of a century.

Makes fiscal and common sense.

The 21.18% increase – even just a preliminary number – makes Village management appear to be out of touch with their constituents.

The scary part - according to the staff report – “the objective is to set a rate sufficient to generate the ad valorem tax revenues necessary to fund anticipated General Fund expenditures for the upcoming fiscal year.”

Sounds like the staff and officials are anticipating plans for that 21.18% increase in revenues. 

What are these new expenditures?

More studies, ill-fated half-baked land purchases, contractors or new positions?

All governments in Florida are being tasked to reduce taxes and spending.  The state has reduced their budget 5 straight years while Village taxes have increased by 58% during that same 5 years. 

The Village always finds a new way to spend our money.

We submit some commonsense suggestions:

No more Kicking the Can Down the Road – common practice here – and boy does that add to the costs! Some on Council have kicked the same issues down the road for close to a decade.

Founders Park Swimming pool rehabilitation – paid months and months of huge water bills as the pool had major leaks - $117,000 in one 3 month period. We verified the water charges. 

Why wait until the costs were this extreme? Who checks the bills? Who’s responsibility is it?

MM92 Raw Sewage Leaks!  First leak – about 2019. Now we are in 2026 and about 8 more times we’ve had raw sewage cleanups after major leaks.

Initially the engineers estimated the cost at $2,000,000.  No fix yet.  Each year the costs go up. 

In the 2025-2026 budget - $4,125,000 for the same 2019 issue..

In Tuesday’s agenda - awarding a contractor, now the price is $6,700,500; plus engineering oversight of $821,380. And we’ve been warned the total may go up.

Village government’s ability to identify and tackle problems seems nonexistent.

We have kicked this can for 7 years, some council members have been seated for 4-10 years. It’s only “monopoly money”.

Public Works storage space: #1 priority on the Village Strategic Plan since at least 2015. Now the cost to find a space for all that equipment spread out at Founders Park and other locations – $$$millions.

So what is the solution for a can we have kicked for 10 years? Throw some more “ monopoly money” at it.

While residents fight about the ball field, the talk of bulldozing hammock at Founders Park for public works equipment is ongoing. ABSOLUTELY NUTS!

Buying property without a plan – look at the money spent for Island Silver and Spice, Machado, and the old church… $8.5 million and the properties are just sitting waiting for a decision.

Not being used. No vision, no strategy.  All three could be used to help with the affordable housing dilema.

Waiving Competitive Bidding: Since January 2025 the Village Council has passed 25 resolutions approving expenditures while waiving competitive bidding!

Competitive bidding is supposed to encourage vendors to offer their best pricing and value, as they know they are competing against others for the contract. This market pressure is intended to provide taxpayers with lower costs and improved quality compared to negotiating with a single supplier.

Islamorada misuses the process even when they do competitive bidding – they still manage to provide favors for friends.

Work Authorizations: Since January 2025 the Council has approved 20 work authorizations with contractors in our “Library of Qualified Vendors” previously approved as to qualifications, but without competitive proposals for specific work – sometimes amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in single work authorizations, approved just hoping the price is good. 

Excess Spending:  Poster child – the pavilion at the Green Turtle Hammock.  The nearly 20 year old management plan for the Hammock called for the Village to provide an observation tower.  Did it have to be a $2 million open air pavilion at an extreme cost per sq ft.

The Village public works department bulldozed major cuts through native trees at the Green Turtle Hammock for their own use, an absolute no-no in the management plan.

Another case of poor planning and lack of a strategic plan.

For the record all current council members pledged to compose and enact a strategic plan when running for office in 2024.

The Fills: For 5 years we had a lease and paid Village employees overtime to sit in vehicles to monitor no parking signs. 

For the 5 year lease period, we budgeted $1,052,213 for Public Works to maintain that stretch of highway - with well over 1/2 for overtime for our employees to sit in Village vehicles to monitor.

Since FDOT took over no guard duty has been performed and there are negligible parking violations.

Can you spell “overtime cash cow” paid with “monopoly money”.

End result – we can and must stop the continuous stream of wasteful spending of our taxes.

We need to pay attention to detail and provide critical oversight, conducted by individuals who can identify and manage problems.

It is their job!

Start the momentum with a large reduction in the recommended 3.0 preliminary millage rate. It is just a lazy invitation to continue the uncontrolled spending.

Residents - speak out and demand the diligence and oversight promised by your elected officials.

Elections have consequences! 

Tom

Quote of the week:

"The past belongs to the future, but only the present can preserve it" ~ Irving R Eyster

Last week, the School Board approved an amended license agreement and scaled down the plan for improvements for the Coral Shore high school baseball field at Founders Park. That agreement is expected to be on the July 7 Village Council meeting agenda.  We will have all the facts, figures and opinions in our next newsletter. Along with all the ways a simple process was mishandled.

“We had a Dream”

The United States will mark 250 years as a republic on July 4, 2026.

This commemorates the 1776 Declaration of Independence and the enactment of the  Constitution.

This milestone is both a celebration of achievement and a test of whether the nation still lives up to its founding ideals.

The Founders of the United States recognized that liberty erodes when the citizens' vigilance fades.

The U.S. Constitution’s “checks and balances” were meant to protect against both authoritarianism and the dangers of unchecked majority rule.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the most influential of America’s Founding Fathers, known for emphasizing liberty, vigilance, and the responsibility of citizens as essential protectors of democracy.

Franklin’s famous quote — “A republic, if you can keep it” — remains a challenge centuries later.

The Republic depends on citizens’ active participation, moral accountability, and trust.

To “Keep the Republic,” Americans must:

·       Remain informed and vigilant.

·       Insist on upholding constitutional principles.

·       Engage in civic life and community investment

As residents of Islamorada we should also subscribe to and uphold these principles!

Islamorada came to be as a local municipal government 28 years ago.

Are we fulfilling the “dream” we once embraced?

The first meeting of the Islamorada Council was held Saturday March 28, 1998 at 7:30 PM.   A longtime resident shared the souvenir “agenda” with me. Click here to see it!

What struck me – the 1998 message “We Had a Dream” from local historian Irving Eyster (1928-2014) in the very first Village agenda:

“For a long time the folks in this part of the Keys had a dream. They believed that through self-governance they could create a unique village atmosphere with emphasis on history, culture, parks and recreation, the environment, and less or simpler regulations”

Eyster went on to say:

“We now have Islamorada, Village of Islands, and are starting a new phase of our history. We have responsible and dedicated people planning our future, but each of us must help make it a success by offering our help.” 

Unfortunately, we appear to have taken our eye off the ball.

Do we still share a common vision of the Village we want to be — and do we still believe in our local government’s efforts?

The citizens here must decide whether to allow the Village principles to erode or strengthen our principles through active participation in government.

Are we willing to be those citizens needed to take on the responsibility as “essential protectors of democracy.”

Miami Attorney Gene Stearns played a  critical role in guiding our residents through the incorporation process back in 1996-1997. 

Once the Village became a reality through a voter referendum in November 1997, Stearns sent the Village Founders a letter of advice.  That advice, printed in the Village’s souvenir agenda should be reiterated often so we never forget:

• Be kind to each other. Don’t respond to meanness with meanness (or, as my mother used to say, two wrongs don’t make a right). Tolerate and encourage criticism.

• There is no room in public office for those with thin skins. Listen. Be respectful to those who lack the ability to articulate their opinions effectively.

• Avoid excessive political posturing.

• Before telling a citizen what to do, try doing it yourself, leading by example.

• Keep it simple. A bureaucratic answer is no answer.

• Plant lots of trees and shrubs.

• Acquire critical land for public use before price escalations make acquisition impossible.

• Every dollar you waste is a dollar which could have been used for a better purpose, either better public services, facilities or tax reductions.

• Include those who opposed you as soon as possible. 

• Hire good people and insist that public employees treat each citizen with the same respect you would want to be treated.

• Sometimes you have to say no.

• Always think about what it will be like in the future. 

• Keep your meetings crisp, with discussion of one subject at a time.

• Avoid all conflict of interest and all possible appearance of conflict of interest.

• Be ethical in all your dealings. 

• Keep smiling when all is falling around you (which from time to time it will).

• And finally, always remember, if it was easy they wouldn’t need you. 

The aforementioned guidance from Eyster and Stearn should serve as a reminder to all of us how business and government should be conducted.

“Each of us must help” – but how often do the folks in Islamorada show up for council meetings and workshops unless there is something on the agenda that directly and immediately would impact them?

When will residents learn that many decisions, though subtle as they may be, will have a lasting impact.

Include those who oppose you as soon as possible.  Instead residents here often fear retaliation just because they are not like-minded.

“Emphasis on the environment” – I think about all the hammocks that have been damaged. Sometimes on Village owned land, sometimes because we don’t consistently enforce the rules.

I think about the only living coral reef in North America that is just barely alive.

Encourage criticism. Listen. The Village has, over the past several years, restricted public comment as if it were a bother.

“Acquire land for public use.”  Conduct public meetings to discuss uses for the properties we have acquired. (It should be done before we purchase them)

Putting a “for sale by owner” sign on a $4 million Village property without any public comment is absurd.

Sometimes Council has to say no – even if it is a close friend.

Avoid conflict of interest or appearance of conflict of interest. We do a very poor job of asking council persons to recuse themselves if there is any possibility of a conflict.

The budget – how often we hear – “rich community” and thus do little to protect financial diversity in our demographics, ignoring opportunities to make costs more rational, eventually driving out all but the very rich.

Our Dream

We celebrate “our dream” and urge everyone here to refresh our memories as to the founding of our Village and our hopes for the future of the community.

Remember the words of Irving Eyster, our historian, when you want to energize yourself about our very special Village.

Enjoy the freedoms we have fought for.

This is the best country, the best in the world!

It’s not even close.

Tom

The Village of Islamorada welcomed Florida Bay Forever back into the Cottage , where they have an Eco-Gift shop alongside the Village's new Environmental Resource Center.

The Village created the Environmental Resource Center as a shared community space for local environmental nonprofits.

Florida Bay Forever will be there Wednesdays and Saturdays, welcoming visitors and storytelling about Florida Bay. On Thursdays and Fridays you can meet some of The Village's other nonprofit partners, making this a rotating hub for community learning, connection, and stewardship.

The Islamorada Library is hosting special events and activities for Summer Reading for kids.

Summer events:

Monday, June 22, 3-4 pm: Windell Campbell, puppeteer. Campbell's storytelling shows reach both children and adults with their memorable tales and the expert use of puppets.

Saturday, June 27, 12:30 pm: Movie Matinee

The Iron Giant (PG) is a giant robot from outer space — so what is it doing in Maine?

Monday, June 29, 2 pm: Movie Matinee

The original blockbuster filmed in Massachusetts half a century ago retains its bite: time to go back into the water with Jaws (PG).

Tuesday, June 30, 4 pm: Florida Bay Forever

The local nonprofit group shares the science and strength of a community through a unique program for our younger patrons.

Wednesday, July 1, 3-4 pm: Painting with Diana McGuirk

Join us for this all ages canvas painting class with Diana. All supplies provided. Registration is required.