Monroe County made its second payment to the Key Largo Wastewater Treatment District (KLWTD). Here’s their press release in the Blue Paper. Amazingly, the item is semi-accurate, but it is laced with a little spin. The county just can’t help themselves. Continue reading
Swap Agreement: Second Payment
Posted in BOCC, Bubba System, KLWTD, Monroe County, Wastewater
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Animal Control: Outstanding Letter
Time for the county to stop chasing its tail and tackle the high kill rate.
In my last post, I discussed the topic of animal control again. Specifically, the ongoing high kill rate at the Upper Keys shelter.
Well, there was a terrific letter in the Free Press by Lee Harris of Tavernier. It’s short and sweet. Gets right to the point. This part is spot on. Continue reading
Posted in Animal Shelter, BOCC, Bubba System, Monroe County
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That Time of Year: Animal Control
The Key West Citizen repeated its annual dive into county-funded animal shelter statistics. Although I often find problems with the Citizen’s reporting, I really appreciate that they do this. It gives taxpayers a concrete idea of what’s going on with a service they pay for. And I think its something that most people care very much about. I know I do.
In the past, I’ve responded by checking into the numbers myself. An unfortunate side-effect of that was discovering that Monroe County staff lied about the numbers in its 2015 State of Monroe County report. Which is….evil. A strong-sounding word maybe, but appropriate given the circumstances. This was an obvious attempt to mislead the public, and it appears to have been done with the intention of obscuring the fact that the shelter with the highest kill rate also receives the lowest level of funding. All that lying does absolutely nothing to help the animals. It might temporarily cover a few bureaucratic butts. Continue reading
Posted in Animal Shelter, BOCC, Monroe County
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2016 State of Monroe County – Annotated Version
Monroe County issues a rancid pile of dreck each year known as the State of Monroe County report. It’s an annual exercise in putting lipstick on a pig. It’s so chock full of bullshit, I can’t possibly capture it all. So this year, I decided to provide my own annotated version. I want to provide a useful tool to help the public separate fact from fiction.
Consider it a St. Patty’s day gift from me to you. If you needed another reason to drink, this’ll do it.
Lá Shona Fhéile Pádraig.
Posted in BOCC, Monroe County
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Key Largo Construction Accident
The Free Press has another follow-up on that horrible construction accident in Key Largo. As you might recall, contractor D.N. Higgins was working on a Monroe County drainage project when three workers succumbed to mangrove gas after entering a manhole. A Key Largo firefighter was also injured but survived.
It turns out that this may not have been the first incident. From Teresa Java of the Free Press. Continue reading
Posted in Media, Monroe County, Paving
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District News Round-up
Since I look so closely into the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority (FKAA) wastewater treatment plants, I guess it’s only fair to look into the Key Largo Wastewater Treatment District (District) wastewater treatment plant, too. The District pulled a total phosphorus number (TP) of 6.49 mg/L in January. Their single sample limit is 2.0 mg/L. That’s the bad news. The good news is it’s only one sample. They brought their monthly average down to 1.1 mg/L with additional sampling. And so they are in compliance with their monthly average limit of 1.25 mg/L. Continue reading
Posted in KLWTD, Wastewater
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Land Scarcity Chessboard – Part 4
The United Way’s new ALICE report is out. Here’s an item from the Reporter/Keynoter. Here’s an item from the Citizen. And here’s a link to the report itself. Monroe County families are struggling. ALICE, of course, means…
- Asset Limited
- Income Constrained
- Employed
Low-income working households. The people who staff the Keys tourism industry. Isn’t this what the affordable housing CRISIS! is all about? Local Keys officials love to talk about the CRISIS!, but for all that talk, they’ve done little to actually address it. In fact, many of their actions actually serve to worsen it. A few examples… Continue reading
Posted in Affordable Housing, BOCC, Bubba System, Monroe County
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Keys Media Comparison – Perjury
I you want A story, read the Citizen. If you want THE story, read the Blue Paper. And if you want to know what’s going on in “other news”, read the Reporter/Keynoter. Lol.
The state attorney’s office recently concluded a very brief investigation into perjury allegations against developer, Pritam Singh. You get two very different stories depending on which news source you read. The Reporter/Keynoter isn’t covering it at all, so if that’s your only Keys news source, you wouldn’t even know there was a perjury investigation. Continue reading
Posted in BOCC, Bubba System, Media, Monroe County
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Oceanside/Ocean’s Edge – Updated Document Tracker and Map
I was finally able to get a version of Resolution 158-2015 (second amendment to the development agreement) that I could bookmark. Attached to that was another right-of-way abandonment request (Resolution 115-2015). Updated document tracker can be found here. (Still need to add links to Res. 115-2015.)
I updated the detailed map of the Oceanside site to show both of the abandoned right-of-ways.
Posted in BOCC, Bubba System, Monroe County
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Madok Campaign Contributions
I downloaded Kevin Madok’s campaign contributions from the Monroe County Supervisor of Elections website. As you’ll recall Madok won the hotly contested race for Clerk of Court. He narrowly beat incumbent Amy Heavilin in the Republican primary and Democrat Ron Saunders in the general election after running an extraordinarily negative campaign. Sad to say – the voters ate it up.
During her tenure as Clerk, Amy Heavilin did a few things to make Madok’s bosses on the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) very unhappy. She found and corrected some irregularities in the way certain wastewater transactions were booked. And she performed an audit that found three of the county commissioners and the county administrator (aka. the iPhone bandit) had misused their county-issued purchasing cards. Continue reading
Posted in Bubba System, Clerk of Court, Elections
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The Real Poop 