We continue to work diligently to educate the public regarding local issues that impact quality of life, our fragile environment and our limited infrastructure.
We continue to make rational suggestions. Is anyone in Village Hall listening?
We would like to commend Village Manager Ron Saunders for conducting a zoom meeting with our lobbyists to discuss Village priorities and concerns. Though actually the Village let their contract expire 9/30/2025.
The meeting with the lobbyists by V/M Saunders may be a first. In the past the Village has typically paid over $100K per year for lobbying services. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, we have never given the lobbyists specific issues regarding our Village needs.
V/M Saunder’s list, enumerated in last week’s Manager’s Weekly letter, included clear priorities for the 2026 legislative session coming up in January:
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Amending the 2025 Senate Bill 180
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Potential of reducing or eliminating property taxes
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Exemption from paying property taxes on homes in mobile home parks (example: 55 homes at Sun Community Islamorada, MM87.5)
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Failed 2025 legislation that would negatively impact TDC and may be back in 2026
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State funding for local issues
It is certainly time to get moving. Almost 100 bills have already been filed for the 2026 State of Florida Legislative session that starts in January.
V/M Saunders has a solid list of priorities, however, we question why they have not been vetted and prioritized by the public and the Council. Establishing Village priorities should be a team effort. It is called “representative government.”
We submit the following for your perusal:
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Property Tax relief (#2): Many taxpayers would love to see a major reduction in property taxes implemented statewide. The Village would be forced to truly scrutinize our spending (long overdue) of village tax dollars.
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TDC (#4): Not sure about V/M Saunder’s concern. The TDC revenue for Monroe County in the year ended 9/30/25 is approximately $60 million. That funding is likely to attract thousands of new tourists to our overcrowded highway. It is time that TDC funds be used to support the communities who house the visitors. TDC funds should be modified to underwrite local transporation, affordble housing for service workers and local public safety measures.
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· Local project funding (#5): Wastewater again?
Scope of work in the GrayRobinson (our lobbyist) contract being considered, has wastewater issues at the top of the list of needs from the state. It is basically the same contract as the first contract from 2010.
Should we not update the scope of work to include new priorities? Wastewater, as an enterprise fund, is supposed to be self-supporting now.
We got funding for the initial central sewer system and now we need to figure out how to operate and maintain the system without continuing to expect millions in grant funding to fix our mistakes.
Click here for the scope of work in the lobbying contract. Who wrote and reviewed it?
Monroe County has a Legislative Affairs Director that helps establish the County priorities in conjunction with their various department heads. See the County summary of 2025 priorities.
The County has nearly all the same priorities that the village has. That doesn’t make sense. Our village priorities should be “village priorities”.
Would it not be common sense and fiscally responsible for the county and all municipalities to share lobbyist costs and work together to provide a list of common Florida Keys priorities with a handful of individual municipal priorities.
That would be called good governance.
Elections have consequences.
Tom Raffanello
Reply to: ICA.in.Keys@gmail.com
