Council Meeting Notes May 20, 2021

At the first regular council meeting in over a year in which the public was able to attend live, residents were greeted by plastic barriers to separate them from the members of council. Only six residents were in attendance. 

The meeting started with the mayor recognizing Kyle Burkel, an outstanding Village employee who is retiring after 25 years working in Islamorada, as a volunteer, in public works, and since 2004 as a firefighter and EMT, then paramedic in 2008.

Then. Bill Eadie from the Monroe County Health Department in attendance via Zoom, encouraged the Village Council to continue taking precautions but allow events to go back to pre-Covid days without restrictions.  

Tab 1 – Committee appointments

Most members of the voluntary Citizens Committees are appointed in May for one-year terms, although members of council can appoint or replace committee members at any meeting throughout the year to fill terms until May. 

A vast majority of members of the seven committees were reappointed. There will be just seven new faces on committees, out of a total of 62 committee positions.

Always the most intriguing committee appointment process is the Local Planning Agency. The councilmembers each get to appoint one LPA member, but if they want to reappoint a member of the LPA that has already served three consecutive terms, there must be a supermajority approval by council. There are two seats in addition that are “at large” seats that must get a super majority vote of council (4 votes). Every member of the LPA, this time around, would need a super majority to get reappointed.    

Strange procedings. Mirna Hormechea. incumbent, was appointed to LPA with four votes when proposed by Henry Rosenthal last November to fill an at-large vacancy when Pete Bacheler left the LPA when elected to council. Rosenthal made a motion to reappoint her Thursday night. Pete Bacheler and Mark Gregg voted against reappointing her, so the vote was 3-2, and she failed to get the required four votes. 

However, Gregg then stated that he may reconsider his vote against Hormechea depending on whether other current LPA members survived reappointment. He apparently wanted specific member(s) back on the LPA , as he then chose to replace his own appointee, Van Cadenhead, an environmentalist, who had served three terms. It certainly appeared then that he was challenging Rosenthal to reappoint the long time LPA member, Lesley Rhyne, who had been appointed by Rosenthal’s predecessors. When Henry chose to reappoint Rhyne and Dave Webb reappointed Tony Hammon, Hormechea was again requested by Rosenthal and got a 5-0 vote.

New members of the LPA are former mayor Deb Gillis, Rich Russell, and Dr. Stan Zuba. New members appointed by council members do not require a vote.

Consent Agenda Tabs 2 ,3, 4

Tab 2 – Approving the modular structure for marina office costing $187,070.50. The building is expected to be in place by July 31, 2021.

Tab 3 – Approving increase in price of 25-foot boat for sheriff’s department – from $75,000 to $86,000 because of increase in engine cost. The budget originally allotted $50,000

Tab 4 – Approve expenditure of $35,000 to install buoys for swim zone on Lower Matecumbe

All three items on the consent agenda passed without debate.

Tab 5 – Quasi Judicial – Boy Scout Rezoning – clearly everyone in this community loves the Boy Scouts and the phenomenal High Adventure Sea Base on Lower Matecumbe that provides sailing, diving and marine adventures and education for nearly 15,000 scouts every year. 

Henry Rosenthal questioned why the Boy Scouts wanted a zoning change from R1 residential to R2 residential to build a planned duplex for employees. With R1 zoning for properties like this on U.S. One, four affordable deed-restricted homes are allowed per lot. The answer from the Boy Scouts: They want to provide two smaller units for single employees or couples but did not want to deed restrict them in case they had employees making over the allowable income if deed restricted. Allowable income if a single person would be $99,680 or $113,960 for a couple based on the 2021 limits. The Boy Scouts currently have four other homes for employees that also are not deed-restricted. All are three bedroom, two bath homes.

Zoning change passed 5-0.

Tab 6 – Driveways and buffer yards – This was an amendment to the land development regulations to define recommended locations for residential and commercial driveways to better preserve buffer yards between properties. It applies to new development. Passed 5-0. 

Tab 7 – Watering restrictions recommended by South Florida Water Management

This ordinance limits the frequency when using sprinkler systems to three times a week. Passed 5-0

Tab 8 TDR ordinance (density) – provided changes per settlement agreement. Passed 5-0

Tab 9 – Farming out Building Department functions

The Village has a continuing service agreement signed in 2018 with MT Causley to provide building department functions for Islamorada when needed. The Building Department has been using these services since 2018. 

Currently, the Village struggles to recruit qualified employees for the building department, primarily because of the overall shortage of qualified manpower and the problem employees have finding housing in the Keys. The staff presented a plan to the council to have Causley provide employees that would fill four full-time building department positions for the fourth quarter of this fiscal year: July 1 – September 30. The cost to the Village is $75/hour for the contract employees.

One of the four positions is currently vacant and has been for months. The council made it clear they preferred to not have to fire the others. They discussed whether it would be more appropriate to wait until a new manager is in place but decided it was critical to move on this immediately because of a significant backlog in permitting.

Next year’s situation will be analyzed during budget discussions.

Passed 5-0

TAB 10 – modifying agreement with Advance Disposal (Waste Management)

Waste Management bought 100% interest in Advance Disposal six months ago and took over the ten-year contract with the Village. The contract in effect runs through December 31, 2023.

There are three changes requested by Waste Management to this binding contract for garbage service:

1.     Waste Management wants to change the start time for garbage pick-up for commercial properties from 7 am – to 5 am because of the heavy traffic making it difficult to get to the transfer station before it closes. Picking up those commercial dumpsters is a noisy job for 5 a.m., especially at condominiums that have commercial-type dumpsters. 
2.     Waste Management wanted the commercial rates increased by 7% effective immediately to compensate for an increase in commercial customer service costs.
3.     Waste Management has requested that the annual CPI-based rate changes utilize the “Water and Sewer and Trash” category, which they believe is more relevant to their services.

Thank goodness for resident Angel Borden, speaking during public comment, making it clear to our community and members of council that this modification was requested by Waste Management and is not beneficial to our community and the businesses we love and depend on.

Waste Management is a huge company. They bought Advance Disposal and with it our binding contract. We have no obligation to change that contract especially when there is no benefit to our community.  A 7% immediate increase in commercial (and condo) rates is totally unacceptable, especially at a time when everyone is trying to get back to normal after a year of COVID-19.  Some in the community haven’t yet recovered from Hurricane Irma.

How do condos deal with immediate increases when they have annual budgets in place that are based on the existing charges?

According to Wikipedia, Waste Management has annual revenues in excess of $14 BILLION. They have nearly 10 times as many employees as we have residents. Why are they picking on us?

Section 11.4 of the existing contract says that we have a right to the same or lower rates as neighboring municipalities or the County. Has anyone checked comparisons?  Our single family charge on our tax bills is $455.65.  Single family homes in unincorporated Monroe have solid waste charges of $407. 

Another question… why did the Islamorada staff recommend to council they approve the changes? Our top village leaders live in unincorporated Monroe and do not pay our waste disposal fees.

Islamorada does get back 15% of all the funds collected as a franchise fee, according to the contract. But, surely that should not be incentive to raise fees to put a little more money in the Village bank account when the money would come from struggling local businesses and condo owners.

The council voted 5-0 to continue this item until the next meeting.  Why didn't they just vote no?

Additions to the Agenda

• 1.     Mark Gregg requested that the staff provide a resolution at the June 10 meeting to demonstrate Islamorada’s support of Federal funding for Everglades Restoration.
• 2.     David Webb asked the staff to look into the possibility of purchasing the tennis club on Lower Matecumbe to provide a Village-owned recreational facility on the island.
• 3.     Mayor Pinder asked for a future agenda item to discuss wastewater issues that the Village faces. Recently, there were simultaneous failures at a pumping station leaving no backup in case of emergency.

  

Tab 11 – Wastewater Hookup Amnesty 

For five years, all properties in the Village have been required to be hooked up to the central sewer system. Numerous property owners did not hook up when required. Some have significant ongoing enforcement fines accruing daily. As encouragement to hook up, the Council has passed, annually, an amnesty resolution reducing the fines to 3% for residential properties and 4% for commercial properties. 

In December, this Council, led by Dave Webb, decided property owners have had plenty of time and instead of giving them another year, the amnesty was extended until June 30, 2021 only and the property owners were informed that this was the last extension.

The staff brought this item back to make certain that council had not changed their position. They did not. No more extensions.

Since December 2020, the number of properties not yet in compliance was reduced from 54 to 27. 

For those ignoring the request from the Village to comply, there may be rather dire consequences. Failing to take advantage of a reduction of 3% or 4% may result in fines well over $100,000 for some property owners when the amnesty program ends June 30, 2021.