Residents spoke out about Key Colony Beach Commission Activity:
Here are last month's comments.
$250K Replacement for the Admin Area Slab
To: Mayor Foster, Vice Mayor Colonell, Commissioners DiFransico, Diehl and Harding, and Concerned in KCB:
Subject: Administration Area Slab and Pilings?It's curious that nobody seems to have asked how you figured out that the floor slab and the pin piles in the administration area were in such poor condition.
The replacement received a lot of attention "post-facto," but the new floor slab was already finished before that big reveal. That slab would have concealed the pin piles, all the welded plates, the pile caps and any steel reinforcement. So, what led you to conclude it was faulty?
It looks like this "discovery" has conveniently provided the contractor with an opportunity to pad both the cost and timeline for the City Hall project.
Given the history of announcements related to city hall, this certainly raises some eyebrows. Please don't include my name.
Name Withheld
Key Colony Beach
To Test or Not to Test
To: Concerned in KCB <conch@keysmail.net>
Subject: To Test or Not to TestI find this pilings talk testing just hilarious. I am building a new home in Jupiter Florida and the county there does not let you get away with not hiring testing. I installed 8 pilings and every one had to meet requirements to pass.
Not following the codes is a failure of leadership and should not be accepted.
Dan Schott
Key Colony Beach
Discarding Our Archives
To: KCB Commission and Concerned in KCB:
Subject: Discarding Our ArchivesYour 3-2-1 rule makes a lot of sense but I will never feel content with solely digital formats. This is a fundamental matter of trust. Digital files can be easily modified or fabricated. Although our original paper documents can also be changed, doing so is significantly more challenging.
Although Florida law may not mandate it at this time, restoring the trust of citizens does.
Name Withheld
Key Colony Beach
Pickleball Sun Shades
To: Mayor Foster, Vice Mayor Colonell, Commissioners DiFransico, Diehl, and Harding, and Concerned in KCB
Subject: Pickleball Sun ShadesDear KCB Commissioners and the citizens of KCB,
I have concerns about the tourism grant for sun shades at the pickleball courts. This grant is for 70% of $255,000. So KCB must fund 30%, which is $76,500.
This grant was awarded after the 25-26 budget was adopted. So the $76,500 was not included in the budget.
Mayor Foster per the minutes of the Feb 12 rec committee meeting, was asked about the need for these unbudgeted funds He said that they were being “self funded” by the Pickleball Club.
I am aware from friends that are members of the club that there has been a fundraising effort undertaken by the Pickleball Club and funds have been collected.
On March 19th, at the City Commissioner's meeting, they unanimously approved to spend $255,000. There was NO discussion of receiving the $76,500 from the Pickleball Club.
There is over 4 months left of the fiscal year. There are recreation areas that could use these funds. When are these unbudgeted funds of $76,500 going reimbursed?
Sincerely,
Cynthia Catto
Key Colony BeachMayor Foster took "five minutes [out of the June 18 commission meeting] to go out and sign a piece of paper for the pickleball shades."
What did the Commission do at the Emergency Meeting on May 5?
The city commission held a special emergency meeting on Tuesday, May 5, to discuss pin pile load testing for the replacement slab in the city hall admin area.
Vice Mayor Colonell reported a request by Commissioner Harding to provide load testing on the new pin piles in the admin area. KCB received letters from Kyle Bechtenheimer that it's not a it's not a requirement of the plans, and it's they feel it's unnecessary plus a letter from the contractor who believes it's going to cost in the $50,000 to $100,000 range and would impact the job by six weeks.
Vice Mayor Colonell clarified that "the engineer says it's not required if we drive these pin piles to refusal with the quality control engineers and the third party inspectors watching. If they're grouted properly and the plates and the caps and rebars all placed properly, and will be inspected, and the concrete that's used is tested for compliance with the engineering documents we should not have a problem."
Commissioner Harding called eight engineering firms and pin pile installation firms. The consensus for 42 pin piles, they said to test two. He also found "the contractor will focus on those two pin piles, and he may not focus as good on the rest of them... For the best quality job would be to do observation with a third party ... and have them document" the installation. "The key is to make sure you get a sealed and signed PE on that report."
After further discussion Brandan DeCaro noted "I'm an architect. I can't sign and seal for structural... It's not CPH. We haven't been. contracted to to to to do that."
Mayor Foster restated the motion is "to accept the correspondence and to not do testing on the pen piles. Correct. Anything outside of that can be handled separately." The commission passed the motion unanimously.Read the full Zoom transcript of the meeting.
What did the KCB City Commission do at the meetings on May 21?
The public hearing, regular monthly meeting, and emergency meeting gave city hall updates, digitized city records, extended a building permit, got a $3 million loan, heard a plan to fix the roads, passed new ordinances, and more. Read the full Zoom transcript for this meeting.Public Hearing
The hearing approved variances for two residential swimming pools. Mayor Foster pulled the 40,000 pound boat lift to do more research.
Lynne Benton noted that "it is important that our rules and variance standards are applied fairly and consistently to everyone, and that citizens can rely on those rules." She also noted the rule requiring swimming pools be set back 10 feet from the seawall, that Marathon has a similar restriction, and many properties have narrow pools because the owners accepted the setback requirement. "There appears to be evidence that the conditions required for granting a variance are not met" She suggested denying the variance and, if KCB now believes the 10-foot setback is arbitrary, to codify new rules.
Commissioner DiFransico stated that "the city has LDRs to protect those citizens from people doing things we don't want them to do like encroaching on setbacks and things like that ... and in this case as I read it at least the justifications that's required by our procedures aren't met. That doesn't mean I don't think this variance should be go forward, but I think perhaps we need to re-look at our justifications."
After considerable discussion, both variances were unanimously approved.
Regular Monthly Meeting
The commission heard city hall updates plus tributes for Chet Dunn and National Police Week, a presentation on roadway vulnerability, and decided on digitizing city records, a permit extension request, sludge hauling, retention pond repairs, new ordinances, a $3 million loan, and more. Read the full Zoom transcript for this meeting.
Elections for Commissioner:
Three candidates have been pre-qualified. Lynne Benton (Conkling), Kirk Diehl, and Freddie Foster have announced their candidacy for the two open seats in the upcoming November election. The official Qualifying Period opens June 8 at noon and closes June 12 at noon, which is the deadline for official candidacy qualifying.City Hall Update
Vice mayor Colonell reported "We're doing better. The contractor has submitted all the requested information for scheduling. And he is sort of stacking his trades now." The roof is going on. The site work for stormwater and sewer is going on. Electrical has been resolved, The new pin piles are going in the end of the month and then the slab should be poured. "We ought to be looking at a much cleaner job site with the second floor progressing out in the new area." A few design issues remain. Commissioner Harding noted "you haven't scared me yet" with the change orders.Roadway Vulnerability
HDR and WSP, both engineering and professional services firms, presented the Roadway Vulnerabilities Project. They gave a quick background on the county's Resilience Climate Program and efforts so far. They discussed vulnerability to flooding and proposed a final plan to be approved at the next meeting. This was phase two of the county assessment with all the municipalities joined.
They note we are seeing increased levels of tidal inundation and increasing groundwater conditions, because as tidal elevations increase, that pushes the groundwater up. Most of KCB's drainage is gravity fed and the rise of groundwater means those swale and gravity systems are not going to be as effective over time. KCB road elevations at about 5' are a bit higher than some other areas in the Keys and have wider rights of way.
Their concept design is for the year 2050, about a standard useful life of a road here. They discussed lifting roads, pumping stations, and more. the total project would be about $153 million for an average of $21 million per mile for about seven miles of KCB roads. The slide show is available from Silvia Roussin .
The commission had no questions. "Let us take a look at it and see if we can scrape up $100 million ... but we already addressing some of the items anyway." Mayor Foster said.Action Items:
The commission discussed the Titl proposal to digitize city records. Commissioner DiDransico asked what the metadata is going to be. It doesn't include a search on property address and other useful terms. He noted a need to continue inputting data into this system and wondered how that unidentified interface will work. A representative was online but the commission did not call on them. The commission did not address the paper records the city is required to retain or any protocol to identify and store those records before they are shredded. The commission approved digitizing city records for $35,000 unanimously.
The commission acted on a building permit extension for 200 13th Street. Commissioner DiFransico asked "about this state of emergency executive order permit extensions. How does that work? Do they automatically extend, or do we have to do something, or do they have to apply for it? How does that work?" Building official Loreno replied, "the contractors that were qualified for it that had open permits during that time and we found out that they did qualify. The permits have been tolled and they qualified for another 24 months extension through the state board" Commissioner DiFransico noted "we have to be on the alert for when who has an open permit when these extensions are announced" and building official replied "we're actually 60 days notice. [garbled] The four that we had, we found that did qualify for some other question."
After considerable discussion, the commission approved the building permit extension with the caveat that the associated fees for the extension will be determined at the next commission meeting
People are asking why the building official didn't answer the commissioner's question.
States of emergency declared for Hurricanes Helene and Milton automatically extended all current KCB building permits. Last month, "four permits were identified" (including this one) by the building department as "qualified for state emergency executive order permit extensions" at no additional cost to the permit holders.
People Are Asking why this project was singled out to be brought up again and why it wasn't tolled instead of "extended.".Hurricane season is upon us. The commission approved contracting for the Early Alert system.
The commission awarded the sludge hauling contract to Haack Environmental and raised the annual stormwater assessment to $84.
The commission discussed the KCS proposal for "AV equipment" in city hall. Commissioner Harding wanted assurance that the conference room and office area would be both wireless and hard wired.
The commission discussed budgeting $10,000 for retention pond repairs. Public works director Guarino agreed it was a lot of money to fix a couple of ruts in the road "and with the paver project on 7th Street, I think may we see how that works when we get heavy rains." Commissioner Harding would charge it back to stormwater budget. Motion failed. Commissioner Harding voted yes. Commissioners Diehl, DiFransico, mayor Foster and vice mayor Colonellvoted no.
Ordinances & Resolutions:
The commission unanimously approved the ordinance for Sadowski Causeway bridge and Sunset Park observation deck fishing and the first reading to raise the stormwater rate to $84. They also approved borrowing $3,000,000.Commissioners' Reports
Commissioner Harding reported the April balance is a little "larger than at this time in past years. So we're in good shape for revenue." Ad valorem is 97% of the budget target. Total expenses are under budget although lobbying, salaries, retirement, and medical are high. "I think this next budget will have to adjust the retirement medical a little bit more, and then public works as retirement and workman's comp policy."
Grant status: $955,000 remains out of the total grant for city hall hardening. Although he was concerned on the spending rate with the contractor, he thinks we will spend down the grant before it expires.
Tax exempt bonds: He discussed which charges (post office, furniture, fixtures, and the line) to pay out reserves because the IRS looks at "private use."
Loan documents: There's no specific interest rate yet. They will set that based on the Treasury rate at that day. "It should be around 4.98, 4.9, somewhere in that range."
Property tax changes: Commissioner Harding discussed timing. "the positive news is not a July 1st edict." He thinks the November ballot will drive next year's budget. And he and Silvia did some homework on homestead of properties. If they went if they went down by 50% or even100%, he called it "a smaller number than I thought it was going to be."
Wastewater sampling: very, very low level of COVID, 0 for RSV, and flu is gone.Emergency Meeting
The emergency meeting allowed Mayor Foster to hire another employee to operate the KCB sewer plant and to monitor that the current contractor. Read the full Zoom transcript for this meeting.
Mayor Foster reported "We have had too many issues at the plant to not do something To protect the city from possible fines, retribution, whatever you want to call it. Bad letters from the DEP, the citizens." Commissioner DiFransico wanted assurance that the licensed operator would "oversee US water, oversee the power of the operation."
After considerable discussion, the commission unanimously approved allowing "the mayor to advertise and hire an operator that is skilled for our plant configuration and we'll continue to monitor that after the person has started and what our relationship is with the current contractor."