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KEY WEST WEEKLY / FEBRUARY 8, 2024
OFFICIALS DROP CHARTER COUNTY IDEA — FOR NOW Proposal would have paved way for new tax for roads, bridges
MASSICOTTE ANNOUNCES RUN FOR BOCC
Newcomer candidate will face Jim Scholl for District 3 seat GWEN FILOSA gwen@keysweekly.com
T The Florida Keys is facing exponential costs of repairing roads and bridges throughout the island chain. FLORIDA KEYS NEWS BUREAU/Contributed
GWEN FILOSA gwen@keysweekly.com
Y
ou can forget about the Florida Keys switching to a charter county form of government – for now. The Monroe County Board of County Commissioners on Jan. 31 dropped its push to persuade voters to create a county constitution type of government for the island chain, citing other pressing business, plus the amount of time and effort needed to make the 2024 ballot deadline, as the proposal would have required voter approval through a referendum. After checking in with County Attorney Bob Shillinger at their recent meeting in Marathon, the five-member commission agreed to pack it in, at least for 2024. There was no formal vote, but the consensus was clear. “We hit the pause button,” said County Mayor Holly Raschein, who represents the Upper Keys. “The other business before us, the hurricane evacuation model work, supersedes this. The timing is not right.” Raschein said the BOCC and county staff have enough on their plate right now without the added work of making a Keyswide campaign for a charter county that is ultimately up to voters to approve. Shillinger has spent the past few months making trips throughout the Keys to make presentations to municipal leaders, including the Marathon City Council and the Key
West City Commission, about the history and impacts of installing a charter form of government. Raschein said in her opinion, the charter idea wasn’t a cure-all to raise the money to pay for the extensive repairs to Keys bridges and roads. Given the weight of the charter county issue, commissioners had a relatively brief discussion before abandoning it, at least for now. If voters were ever to approve a charter county measure, the BOCC would then have an opportunity to ask them to also approve an infrastructure tax to raise the money to pay the exponentially rising costs of repairing bridges and roads throughout the Keys. A new tax was attached to the BOCC’s charter county campaign. They couldn’t give their pitch without addressing the tax as the chief motive. Raschein said in her opinion the charter idea isn’t the only way for the county to raise the money to pay for extensive repairs to Keys bridges and roads. County staff is gifted in landing grants for projects, she said. “The more I learned about it, the more I feel like we’re trying to fix something that’s not broken,” said Raschein, who represents the Upper Keys and previously served eight years in the Florida State House. “We haven’t taken the proper amount of time to educate our voters, whether they want it or don’t want it.”
here’s some new competition for a seat on the Monroe County Board of Commissioners (BOCC). Chris Massicotte, a Democrat with a background in accounting and political campaign advertising, wants the District 3 BOCC seat, which is currently held by Commissioner Jim Scholl and covers the western part of Key West, including Old Town. Massicotte filed paperwork on Feb. 1 to announce his candidacy, placing him against the incumbent Scholl, a Republican and former Key West city manager who was also commander of Naval Air Station Key West. Scholl was appointed to the BOCC by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis after former commissioner Eddie Martinez resigned in 2021 amid a domestic-violence arrest and questions over his legal residency. His campaign website and fundraising platform promises that Massicotte will act as a budget watchdog that he says BOCC sorely needs, with a current county budget that sits at $667 million. “No other county in Florida spends as extravagantly,” Massicotte said. He called out the five-member commission for spending less time holding public discussions than in years past. “Over the past two years, as our budget has swelled, the monthly meetings have paradoxically shortened,” Massicotte says on his site. “There’s been a noticeable decline in discussion and engagement from commissioners.” Massicotte moved to Key West in 2017 after a vacation to the island. He’s a co-founder of Duval Street Media, a marketing firm; has been involved in the Safer Cleaner Ships campaign that led to a reduction in the size and number of cruise ships coming
Chris Massicotte
to Key West; and is on the boards of Fair Insurance Rates Monroe, which fights Tallahassee for fair windstorm insurance rates, and the Key West AIDS Memorial. In the Keys, rising property taxes hit renters the hardest, he said, because long-term rental properties lack homestead exemptions. “I’m tired of watching my friends have to leave the Keys, not because they want to, but because they are left with no other choice,” Massicotte said. “The actions of the BOCC over the last two years have made the problem worse, not better.” Although county commissioners each represent a certain segment of the Keys, they are elected by all voters in the Keys. All five current commissioners are Republicans. Two more BOCC races Also seeking reelection is County Mayor Holly Raschein, a Republican who served eight years in the Florida State House before being appointed to the BOCC by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Raschein, who holds the District 5 office in the Upper Keys, so far has one challenger on the ballot: perennial Republican candidate Jose Felix Peixoto. Commissioner Craig Cates, of Key West, is running for another term without competition as of press time. Cates represents District 1, which is the eastern part of Key West, Stock Island and Key Haven.