I call David Rice “the quiet one”.  He doesn’t say much, but when he does there’s often some sense in it.  Good thing, too.  He ran unopposed in 2014 so he’ll be around until 2018.

Comm. Rice’s track record on Cudjoe Regional isn’t stellar by any means, but at some point he seems to have developed an awareness that spending was spiraling out of control – unlike Kolhage and Carruthers.  He voted against one of the grinder-to-gravity conversions proposed in January 2014 (Item D2) – thus killing it.  That undoubtedly saved the taxpayers millions.  At that same meeting he did vote for another conversion.  Like I said, his record on this is far from perfect.  He’s as guilty as any of them of feeding the money creature.

Comm. Rice represents District 4 which includes almost all of Islamorada and almost all of Marathon.  Those two communities are also hard hit by the funding disparity.  They are incorporated so they have resources that Key Largo does not have.  Specifically, they have direct access to the infrastructure sales tax.  There is a certain amount of relief available for the ratepayers in those areas because of that.  I do not know if those communities are seeking financial parity for their ratepayers.  If this is an issue, they certainly should.

The county has been so reluctant to rectify the situation with Key Largo, it’s no surprise that they’ve refused to address the issues faced by the municipalities.  Still, Rice raised the issue at the October 2013 meeting and he deserves some credit for that.

Here’s the map.