History
Key Colony Beach, FL, used to be a pleasant and cohesive little community. Doesn't feel that way any more. What changed? "What amazes me is how the city has been in a constant downhill spiral since [Chris] Moonis was hired as a part time administrator and accelerated under [Dave] Turner," one resident wrote. "Staffing, vehicles, trailers, and what is most reprehensible, the us versus them attitude of city administration and code enforcement, all unchecked by the city commission."
Developer Phil Sadowski first laid out Key Colony on 286 acres in Shelter Bay in 1957. The ocean side had a nice sandy beach but much of his island flooded during high tides. Sadowski dredges began pumping and the island grew to almost 400 acres. After the fill was solid, the dredges cut in the canals, creating additional fill. The land elevation ended up about six feet above mean sea level. According to the 2023 census, the city now has 758 residents (down from 790 in 2020 and from a peak of 1,123 in 1994). About 3,600 people inhabit the city in mid-winter.
Overview
Hurricane Irma damaged our city hall and cleaved the community. This historical report summarizes most of the milestones in the city hall project to date as well as the high points of city official malfeasance. Note that these are just a few of the litany of bad acts.
The city proposes a wide-spread complex, now expected to cost well over $14 million, to house the community center, city staff, the police department, and the post office. City residents hold the plan is too expensive, too large, and not in keeping with community architecture.
What's worse, the existing building remains sound. The post office was only slightly flooded in Hurricane Irma and resumed operation with minimal repairs. The building department resumed normal business when water and electricity were restored. Public works employees repaired "temporary" offices in city hall and normal business resumed before year's end. The Marble Hall community center also returned to service before year's end.
This is a two-part story. Part 1 is the boondoggle around the repair or replacement of City Hall, with no progress nearly six years after Hurricane Irma. Part 2 is the unethical and unlawful actions of city officials.
City Hall Boondoggle
The current City Hall is a concrete block, mostly single-story structure with grade beams on pilings around the perimeter and poured concrete floors, similar to many original houses on the island. In 2014, the City Engineer developed a repair program to repair the long "sagging" floors in the City Hall offices.
Category 5 Hurricane Irma caused widespread destruction in September, 2017. It crossed the warm waters of the Straits of Florida before making landfall on Cudjoe Key on September 10. Key Colony Beach was on the "dirty" side of the storm about 30 miles east of Cudjoe. (The dirty side of a hurricane has the highest winds, highest storm surge, and the greatest tornado threat.) KCB city officials had opted not to deploy the City Hall flood barriers.
888 Key Colony homes reported minor damage, 206 received major damage, and one home was destroyed. The KCB City Hall survived estimated winds of 120 mph and storm flooding of about 14" above its main floor.
On October 12, 2017, "Mayor DeNeale reported [to the City Commission that] FEMA and the independent engineer didn't find enough damage to warrant demolishing and rebuilding City Hall." Despite that, they hired "an architect to design a new city hall."
The city hall flood insurance limit was $250,000 for the building. The Wright National Flood Insurance proof of loss showed $134,201.90 in damages claimed. The actual cash value of the building structure was shown to be $1,917,596.71. FEMA did not provide more funds because the adjuster had determined the damages were no more than that.
Mayor John DeNeale and other officials hired "IBTS" (likely the Institute for Building Technology and Safety), Will Campbell, PE, Daryle Osborn, PE, Criterium Peters Engineers, and others to find one who would report the amount of damage required to demolish and replace the building, then insisted the city would receive "millions" in grants and pushed forward plans for a towering new city hall complex over the objections of residents. Before the debris was even cleared from the streets, city administrator Moonis had a concrete slab jack-hammered out of the administrative offices in an effort to prove the floor sank under the weight of flood waters. This fraud is now under investigation by FEMA.
The city engineer reported "The overall condition of the structure is in good condition." Norry Lynch Risk Recovery Advisors noted that "NFIP and PA [the National Flood Insurance Program and FEMA Public Assistance] undertook several, separate inspections... each documented only cosmetic damage to the building."
The city commission has voted more than once not to repair the building. Most recently the vote was 3:2 against motions for "bids to restore the existing City Hall to its pre-Irma condition."
The commission has repeatedly told residents the building was condemned although no "substantial damage letter" has ever been presented to the public. They kept that "condemned" building in service for years. The bathrooms and offices were locked away from the public but were used by the police department and city staff for at least a year, until September 27, 2018, or longer. All city meetings and community activities were held in the city hall at least through December, 2022. The post office was still in service until May 27, 2023.
After several costly design changes, city officials finally sent a plan out for bids in March, 2023.
The full scope of the project should have been in the request for bids. City officials continued adding addendums, changing changes, and deferring questions about scope, through at least June 3, 2023, for a bid opening June 5, 2023. The city administrator refused several requests to extend the deadline. It is expected that city officials plan to bombard the contractor with changes in order to land the base bid within the budget they created.
The city administrator opened just two bids in front of citizens, outdoors on the side of 7th Street. The bid envelopes did not appear to be sealed. The KCB Police Department provided security. Hands On Builders, LLC (H-O-B) bid $8,375,000 with several addenda. Persons Services Corp bid $12,487,948.70. Those bids are two- and three-times higher than the total approved bid for the new and larger Marathon City Hall which serves a population of about 9,800.
A bid review team consisting of the former KCB Interim Building Official and an architect from the design firm analyzed the two bids June 28, 2023. The KCB Police Department provided security. One bid was deemed "nonresponsive." After analysis, the former building official noted three times that, "The city should publish a new solicitation of bids." He also specified that, "The city would be very ill advised not to provide owner's representative/project management day-to-day on site." An independent professional is especially necessary given the evidence of the bid process itself.
The expansive design has about 11,500 s.f. under roof. The plans show space for 11 desks plus one postal clerk, so the realistic, finished $14 million construction cost divided by 12 people yields a cost of $1,166,666.67 per desk. Even if we take the city's impossibly low estimate of $6-8 million, that's still a cost of half a million dollars or more per desk. Neighboring Marathon's new, 15,000 s.f. city hall houses 34 employees at a cost of $5 million including overruns. Inflation doesn't account for the factor-of-eight difference in cost per desk.
Other Official Malfeasance
» Key Colony's city officials hide.
The commission held meetings twice a month until September 22, 2023, but has changed to just once per month to avoid unnecessary constituent contact. The "city hall" trailers, rented one by one as the city officials grew in numbers, are hunkered down with the blinds drawn and the building department trailer is chained off. Official city minutes are abridged and incomplete. Constituents' comments in meetings or by mail are barely acknowledged and rarely published. The city website, designed for "full transparency" is missing great swaths of information.
» KCB ignores Sunshine Laws, statute, and ordinance for themselves but enforces them on others.
The city attorney created a revolt among KCB's volunteer committees by threatening them with Sunshine Law violations. The official recordings of KCB meetings are so poor the City Clerk prepares the minutes from her "own private recording."
» City officials use code enforcement and building fees for profit. The city has expressed a proprietary interest in its use of fines and fees which have more than doubled.
Case #1: A long-time owner has rented out his KCB home for 20 years. His rental license lapsed and, instead of informing him, the code officer let it ride for 159 days to run up the fine. The code board intended to fine him $500/day or $79,500 (the case was settled but the intent is clear).
» City officials violate accounting standards, statutes, and ordinances.
Case #2: The code officer suddenly violated hundreds of property owners for "egress windows." Every case then generated a "reinspection" fee.
Case #3: An elderly homeowner asked the city to close an Irma rebuild permit. They refused. The city red tagged the house, this time for working without a building permit, violating the stop work order, and more. (EO 22-218/EO 23-21 had tolled the permit so it was and is still active.) The city seeks $775 in daily fines plus other penalties since January 10, 2023. The city attorney asked to continue the March, 2023, Code Board hearing on this case; the city then dropped the citizen code board and has forbidden all work including maintenance since.
Case # 4: The adopted budgets also show the city overcharges for building permits as well as fees and fines and includes that revenue in its general fund each year. The FY 2022-2023 Adopted Budget shows $581,784 in Building Department revenue but only $358,107 in expenses for more than 38% "profit." The expenses shown are questionable.
Case # 5: The same budget includes six administrative staff. The payroll shows only five.
The FY 2022-2023 Adopted Budget shows $2,533,952 in Federal, State, and Local grant "revenue" earmarked for city hall construction. The commissioners transferred only $577,422 to the "City Hall Construction Reserve." The balance, $1,956,530, ended up in the general spending. Further, some $5.196 million in claimed grant funding may not be accounted for.
The City administrator stated that all excess building permit revenues were transferred to the "Building Department Reserve Fund." That was untrue. The FY 2022-2023 Adopted Budget shows $95,000 of the Building Department profit transferred to the city General Fund. Code enforcement fines go directly to the General Fund.
» City officials abuse power.
The city administrator sets the tone by blaming residents for asking questions, refusing access, and punishing employees. The code officer antagonizes residents with reams of pseudo-legalese citations. The administrator wouldn't let Book Club use the new double wide when it was "City Hall" for no reason other than to say "no." The administrator refused to "turn on the lights" for night pickleball because the light poles were "unsafe." (If the light standards are rusted out and unsafe to use, why won't he have them replaced?) City lawyers have gagged at least one resident with instructions "not to contact city officials." The commission disbanded its volunteer code board in favor of a DOAH magistrate. The city's volunteer recreation committee voted to dissolve. The city police department has filed to unionize in response to administrative harassment. One commissioner is under investigation as a Michigan resident rather than a Florida resident.
» City officials breed mistrust with "spin" and outright misstatements.
Official fraud over the city hall "condemnation" is under investigation.
In April, 2023, the city administrator claimed that "the $2.3 million needed to rebuild City Hall and to build a new post office have come from $5.196 million in grant funding" he obtained. The new building "is not fancy," they say. The city describes it as a "basic government building with a meeting hall." The city claims there will be no tax increase. The $2.6 million stormwater project also remains incomplete.
City officials promised that $2.3 million for "hardening" the new City Hall, a grant they claimed would be lost if city hall is rebuilt. The state budget included only $1 million "to rebuild and harden" City Hall. Gov. DeSantis vetoed the KCB funds.
The city administrator claims to be "licensed as a contractor, project manager, building official, building inspector, fire official and fire inspector." He is not.
Conclusion
Despite "sunshine," every official step since Hurricane Irma swept the city brought secrecy, spin, cover-ups, and obfuscation. When the administrator produced the final LIVS city hall design, he announced it was "secret" and city officials refused to make the bid package public. The plans the city did publish to "sell" the project on the city website do not match the bid package. City financial reports are murky.
Next, we will need a deep dive into the day-to-day city revenues and expenditures for the City Hall project, the building department, and city administration, all followed by an investigation of the statements of fact attributed to city officials.
History, Part II
The commission reorganized with the clear intention of fact-based decisions, friendliness, inclusiveness, and transparency. They voted not to renew the city administrator's contract and repealed the measure build the LIVS-designed City Hall Complex. More changes are on the way. Now it's up to all KCBers to restore the luster to our little gem.
Is It Working?
What Happened in 2023?
What Happened in 2024?
What Happened in 2025?