The city commission held a long monthly meeting on Thursday, September 18, from 9:30 a.m. - 12:55 p.m. The most heated discussions concerned the golf course, lobbying, a new copier, and the golf course.
Read the introduction to the meeting here and the full Key Colony Beach Regular City Commission Meeting Agenda and Packet here.
Click or tap here to email the commissioners and city clerk .
Special Requests
City administrator Bartus offered this Powerpoint presentation of City Improvements: https://keycolonybeach.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/09-18-2025-PP-Presentation.pdf
Staff Reports
Chief DiGiovanni reminnded everyone that on the 28th, next Sunday, "we will have our September barbecue with the cops at Sunset Park." The used truck was getting wrapped Thursday and the new one's sitting in Jacksonville, waiting to come down once the new budget's in.
The commission gave a head nod to follow up on SWIG (the Sustainable Water Infrastructure Group) technology for "some examples where they've actually had FEMA reimbursement that they could provide to us. Like, if they did this for City ABC and, um… probably to the detail of they spent $500,000, they got reimbursed for $300,000."
Senate Bill 180 that came out and was passed. It is generating a lot of work for the city attorney and city staff.
The commission had a long discussion on using SWIG to do nutrient and harsh chemical removal from the canals.
Commissioner DiFransico said "The document that I looked at had to do with phosphorus removal and I'm not sure that that is pertinent to what we want to do. I'm not sure that phosphorus is our contaminant in our canals."
Mayor Foster said "The water there, especially 10, 11, um, probably 8 [Street] is just abysmal, abysmal shape, so I need to know what the quality of it is."
City administrator Bartus reported that "we don't have a lot of the testing. The county has not spent money on doing testing of our canals like they've done in other areas of the Keys." Dr. Jonathan Gueverra from the College of the Florida Keys and some of his staff will propose water quality testing in October. The commission gave a head nod to go forward with the doctor and also to pursue an EPA grant and the SWIG technology.
Building official Loreno said, "We're getting about 20-30% increase in permit applications, so it's coming for the season. We've been handling code pretty well. We've noticed that, you know, it does require a part-time person. It just seems like it's a little easier than we expected, but we're covering all the code calls and everything until the chief takes it over and we get the part-time person. We've got 2 or 3 new homes coming online."
Public Works head Mike Guarino reported that LPS will finish the detention pond next Friday. They will release the site to Blue Native so that Sandy can start plantings. The continuing high water level in the pond is a concern.
Cindy Catto announced that the Rec Committee meets through Zoom, "which has been a godsend. It will make us easy for us to meet year-round monthly." They are prioritizing a list of projects suggested by citizens, the mayor, the beautification, and the rec committee plus the "dream list for the golf course."
She noted the loss of the pine trees created "an immediate need for the golf course to make it a safe area" from errant balls. Last year, a golfer on the first green bench was hit by a ball. "I would say that it's an insurance nightmare waiting to happen."
Utility board chair Fred Swanson and commissioner Harding discussed sewer charges for the marina. Commissioner Harding said "Marina's gonna start taking some data in September, so I think we have to wait for some data to come in to come up with a recommendation." We're not charging them anything now.
Worth noting: the utility board asked the marina operator how much he pumped from the boats and the answer was none. It's hard to imagine what data we will get.
Consent Items
The commission approved the consent items unanimously.
Action Items
Mayor Foster suggested skipping the ordinance on the use of golf carts and low-speed vehicles "till I get back in town."
A heated discussion of an interim lease extension for the golf course ran another 13 minutes. Mayor Foster expressed dissatisfaction with golf course manager Daryl Rice's performance.
Catto said "This whole golf course lease has taken on a life of its own and has disenfranchised a lot of people. If you want to take care of things correctly you need to come up with a up to two-year contract with Daryl. Daryl follows the rules. .. It's a royal mess."
Roll call. Commissioner DiFransico Yes. Commissioner Diehl No. Vice mayor Colonell Yes. Commissioner Harding Yes. Mayor Foster had a condition. "He needs to uphold the contract he's under right now. I am not gonna pay the guy, or let him make money off this without doing his piece of what's required of him. So, yes."
The commission passed the implementation of fishing rules with the amendment of no chumming unanimously.
The commission decided not to award the contract for city hall column and beam spalling. CPH has a unit price that's already in the main city hall project and is one of the line items in the contract. There is an addendum on DemandStar.
City administrator Bartus got the head nod to move forward with Early Alert.
The commission discussed an Agreement with Ron Book for lobbyist services for $50,000.
Mayor Foster had asked staff to look into adding the lobbyist to the city. He "closed with one more statement. It's not skill sets, and it's not dissatisfied with Kate's performance or Southern. It's all about the doors that are opened. Certain people have access to certain doors. And without being too public about it, that's just the fact of life when it comes to lobbyists, so you guys, uh, noodle that." The commission gave a head nod to follow up with Ron Book.
Ordinances
A heated discussion of the Parks and Recreation ordinance ran another 37 minutes. Commissioner Harding said "I think we've done a disservice to the residents. What we're seeing is there's poor or no communication with the rec committee. That's getting worse and worse, and we're getting animosity between residents, we're getting animosity between residents and commissioners, because of that. I don't disagree that a city employee should be working through the contract. But the way the recreational committee and the golf folks read this as, I'm not involved, I don't give recommendation, you don't want my input. So I think what I would suggest is we don't approve this. And that we go back and do some updating verbiage."
Vice Mayor Colonell disagreed because he doesn't "see where they don't have input. They still have input."
Mayor Foster said "This contract had been mismanaged for years."
Attorney Smits thinks it's a "communication problem."
In the roll call: Colonel Yes. Harding No. Diehl Yes. DeFancisco Yes. Foster. Yes. The ordinance passed.
The commission amended the sewer fee from 75 to $74. The other four ordinances passed without discussion.
Commissioner Reports
Commissioner Harding discussed the August financials.
Vice-mayor Colonell: "On the General fund analysis. We expect the next month to be the same as August? So that if we just take $160,000 and add it to $380,000, that'll be our ending."
Commissioner Harding: "Yeah, so, uh, this gets back into my prediction method. And I think one of the commissioners calls it fuzzy math... we've been averaging about $115,000 a month more expenses this year than last year. So I put that into the… my prediction and came up with a worse number. So, this 379, I predict that last month was going to come in around $264. So it's a little bit worse than what I'd predicted... We should be in the range of about $600,000 at the end of September. And, you know, it was good to get all the resident feedback, so, you know, one of the key residents, you know, made a comment that I don't like spending our reserves, so, you know, we made a decision last year not to increase taxes significantly and spend some reserve. We made the same decision. We're going to talk about that at 5.05."
Mayor Foster asked "How much money do we actually have in our funds for City Hall? Let's just say we spend $2.5 million on City Hall. What does that leave us with a fund for the city itself to help with cash flow?"
Jennifer Johnson: "If you were only spending $2.5 million on City Hall. Including your general fund, you're going to have about $2.6 million in total."
Commissioner Harding reported that COVID in KCB wastewater has been consistent at a low or mid-level.
K2M completed all the dry flood proofing engineering and we met the deadline to send that on to the state.
Commissioner Diehl added transparency and the best return possible for the golf course as well as the consolidation of the recreation and the beautification committees to the agenda for October's meeting.
Commissioner DiFransico. I have a question for the City Administrator, City Clerk, I note that the mayor has issued a memo about going to complete the merit-based salary adjustments for the city employees. I presume that will be embodied in the new employment manual, and the Commission will have a chance to review or approve that manual, is that correct?
Vice mayor Colonell wants the city to lease a large format copy machine for plans and other documents at a cost of $400-500/month. Building official Loreno noted that new review plans are all digitized from the architects or engineers which they can print on the large-scale printer that we have now, if needed.
After 20 minutes of discussion Vice mayor Colonell said ""I think it's a no-brainer, quite frankly. I'm not sure why I'm getting pushback. I mean, if we spend $400 or $500, say it's $500. I mean, that's not a lot of money [NB $5,000/year, annualized]. I'll make a motion that we proceed to engage in a lease for this, this, uh, copier scanner." Motion approved unanimously.
Read the introduction to the meeting here and the full Key Colony Beach Regular City Commission Meeting Agenda and Packet here.
Click or tap here to email the commissioners and city clerk .
