Swap Agreement Scorecard

Sylvia Murphy Campaign PosterThe swap agreement has the potential to correct the negligently unfair wastewater funding disparity imposed on Key Largo taxpayer by the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC).  It also has the potential to go very wrong and leave Key Largo taxpayers stuck.

In the past few years, the District has spent about $6 million on construction projects.  Of that, approximately $4 million could have been funded by the $17 million from the state.  (That would include almost $3 million for the aerobic digester project and nearly $1 million for the purchase and renovation of the administration building.)

Instead, those projects have been financed primarily by the District’s own resources.  The District has only received $1 million from Monroe County so far as a result of the swap agreement.  As of now, District ratepayers are down $3 million, and Monroe County owes them $16 million on the agreement alone.  It’ll take another $9 million to correct the $26 million worth of financial damage caused by the funding disparity so far. Continue reading

Posted in BOCC, Monroe County, Wastewater | Leave a comment

They Must Be Taking Their Vitamins Over at the Citizen

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Take two of these and you’ll be talking sense in no time.

Sometimes, I’m not all that impressed with the Citizen’s (KeysNews) reporting.  But they seem to be stepping up their game lately.  They were the only ones to report on Richard Toppino’s recent voting conflict.  If not for the Citizen, that would have totally flown under the radar.  Their editorial section has been hitting it out of the park on the single-member district issue.  (See here and here.)  And now there’s this editorial calling for more people to run for election.  I don’t know what the heck is going on – BUT I LOVE IT!

The title of the editorial is “Run, Forrest, Run”.  Perfect.  There are way too many incumbents running unopposed.  That is definitely a problem. Continue reading

Posted in BOCC, Elections, Monroe County | Leave a comment

Campaign Promises vs. Hard Reality

I votedHere’s an interesting one.  Last week, the Free Press profiled  one candidate for the Key Largo Wastewater Treatment District (District).  One.  There are five planning to run.  Will there be profiles of the other four?  Why focus on this particular person I wonder?

Anyhoo…the candidate in question is Sue Heim.  Sue Heim is well-known around the Key Largo area.  She’s attended many District meetings over the years, and so theoretically she should be well-informed about the issues.  I suppose we’ll learn how well-informed she truly is as the campaign season moves forward. Continue reading

Posted in KLWTD, Wastewater | 4 Comments

Clerk’s Office – Good News

beach-16698__180From KeysNews.com:  Clerk’s office audit shows progress.

I’m sure that taking over the Clerk’s office has turned out to be a turn-around job for Amy Heavilin.  Let’s face facts.  As a county commissioner, Danny Kolhage has proven himself to be extremely fiscally irresponsible .  I would imagine that with shaky standards like this, he left the Clerk’s office a shambles.   Continue reading

Posted in BOCC, Clerk of Court, Monroe County | Leave a comment

Outstanding Editorial About Single-member Districts

I votedNot sure how I missed this outstanding editorial at KeysNews.com (the Citizen) about single-member districts.  Glad I finally found it though.

In her letter to the editor, Comm. Heather Carruthers’s seemed to suggest that excluding working folks from the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) is actually a good and necessary thing.  According to Carruthers, people who are gainfully employed can’t possibly devote enough time to serve their constituents properly.  Better for the workforce to just sit back and let Carruthers and her colleagues do their thing I guess.  The Citizen’s editorial challenged her on that, which I was happy to see. Continue reading

Posted in BOCC, Cudjoe Regional, Monroe County, Single-member Districts | Leave a comment

Pam Bondi and Donald Trump

Uhoh.  Have you seen this story about Pam Bondi?

Pam Bondi personally asked Donald Trump for donation before nixing Trump U fraud case.

Posted in Off topic, State government | Leave a comment

Letter to the Editor Supports Plaintiffs

wicked witchUpdate:  The letter is online at the Blue Paper now, too.  And, yes, of course I commented.  Can’t help myself.

Lawyers can be very silly and melodramatic sometimes.  They must learn it in school.

A few weeks back the County released a statement regarding the most recent lawsuit filed by two property owners in Cudjoe Regional.  I wrote about it here.  According to the county’s attorney, Cynthia Hall, the plaintiffs want to delay the project because they object to the “efficient, cost-effective” design.  Ha!  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

So why do these property owners hate “efficient, cost-effective” designs so much?  Who knows?  The county would like us to believe they’re just plain evil I guess. Continue reading

Posted in BOCC, Cudjoe Regional, FKAA | 15 Comments

Big Coppitt – More Missing Documents?

red-flag-908686__340Update:  The FKAA responded right quick this time.  I sent an email Sunday, got a response on Monday.  This is new and different.  Here’s a link to the agenda back up for the approval of award to Giannetti.

A couple of things prompted me to take a look back at the Big Coppitt project.

Big Coppitt is a very, very peculiar project.  For one thing, all bids were rejected in the first round.  That in and of itself isn’t so unusual  especially if the project comes in over the budgeted amount.  What is unusual is that the original bid tabulation was never provided in any agenda back-up.  It took a lot of effort and persistence to turn it up.  When it finally surfaced, it showed that Charley Toppino & Sons benefited from the rebid – to the tune of $6 million.  Not bad. Continue reading

Posted in Big Coppitt, FKAA, Wastewater | Leave a comment

FKAA Follies – Public Records

deceive-1299043__340Update:  Yeah, copying the board members really seems to help.  Charley Toppino & Sons has a subcontract with Gianetti worth $2.9 million.  According to the information provided, they are doing no work on the wastewater treatment facility.  The Toppino companies will be doing a total of $12.4 million on the Cudjoe Regional project.  Glad I finally got the info, just wish it weren’t such an unnecessarily difficult and prolonged process.

Update #2:  I said in this post that Toppino ran into his first voting conflict last week.  Turns out it’s not the first.  The first voting conflict I can find occurred at the February meeting.  This would have been two months after Toppino was appointed.  It looks like that situation was managed properly.  Not sure why the wheels fell off in this latest situation.  Post has been corrected to reflect this new-to-me information.

Remember when I submitted a public records request regarding subcontractors on the Cudjoe Regional Outer Islands project?  Remember how it took a long time and a lot of back-and-forth?  Remember how they pretended they don’t keep any such records even though their contract documents require it? Continue reading

Posted in Bubba System, Cudjoe Regional, FKAA, Public Records, Wastewater | Leave a comment

Toppino – What the Law Says

 

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Do you have the form?  I don’t have the form!  Who has the form?

Update:  Here is some information about possible exemptions for someone in Toppino’s situation.  (See paragraph 12.)  The story is still very garbled, but I imagine the “form” had to do with securing an exemption for the Toppino companies.  What a mess.

I started to look a bit deeper into the latest Toppino situation.  The Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority (FKAA) is all aflutter.  Apparently Toppino bid on an FKAA project and failed to file the necessary memorandum notifying the FKAA of the voting conflict.  There were rambling statements made to the press about some “form”.   A clerical error is being blamed for the mess-up.  (As in the administrative staff ate my homework.)

Here’s FKAA’s version of events as reported by KeysNews.com.
Continue reading

Posted in Bubba System, Conflict of Interest, FKAA | Leave a comment