The Latest News: September, 2025
Kicking the Can Down the Road
Marathon won't raise taxes. KCB will. But both cities are digging into reserves to pay the daily bills.
"I think one of the commissioners calls it fuzzy math..."
KCB Invites Bids for Two City Hall Projects
And the beat goes on. The Marathon Weekly this week has Invitations to Bid for the KCB "City Hall project" and for "Marble Hall Columns and Beam Repair."
The Marble Hall columns and beam repair project includes the repair of spalling on structural and non structural elements of concrete beam and two columns, each approximately 25 feet high. The work includes the removal of the damaged concrete, surface preparation, application of a bonding agent, and patching with a repair mortar. The Bidding Documents on DemandStar include the complete electronic plan and the specifications and schedule for the bid. KCB has posted an addendum to ITB 2025-07 City Hall Columns and Beam Repair. Download and view the addendum at https://www.demandstar.com/app/limited/bids/507785/details. Bids must be submitted by September 15, 2025. See the Invitation to bid for other details.
The City Hall project includes hardening and renovating the existing City Hall facility with a new two story addition. It includes city administration offices, the building department, police department, Marble Hall, emergency operations center, and US Post Office, and associated site work. The Bidding Documents on DemandStar include the specifications and schedule for the bid. Bids must be submitted by October 14, 2025. See the Invitation to bid for other details.
It is uncertain, since Marble Hall is included in the upgrades for city hall, why the repair of damage and spalling is not included in the main project. People are asking if the "extra" invitation to bid was scheduled to hide some of the costs of the project? How many more "extras" and change orders can we expect?
Some readers have reported difficulty with external links so we also have a local copy of the invitations to bid.
Fishing at Sunset Park
The Marathon Weekly reports that Key Colony Beach weighs fishing at Sunset Park. With a design approval and preliminary cost for its upcoming City Hall remodel behind them, the Key Colony Beach City Commission moved through a lengthy session of grant updates, contracts, billing and budget items on August 21, headlined by a discussion of allowing fishing in the city's Sunset Park. Mayor Freddie Foster told the commission the city has received a $19,000 Tourist Development Council grant for running water and a filet station that would allow fishing and cleanup at the end of the pier. Some readers have reported difficulty with external links so we also have a local copy.
What Did the City Commission Do at the Regular Meeting on September 18?
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.
Report from the First Budget Hearing
The commission held its first formal budget hearing to set the tax rate on September 11. The big news of the meeting, other than that your taxes are going up 8.92%, is that the KCB Treasurer left us baffled about what "roll back rate" means.
KCB's appraised property values rose year over year from $1.211B to $1.289B. That's a 6.44% increase.
Commissioner Harding gave a very confusing definition of the roll back rate. He said roll back "looks back [several] years." That is terribly misleading as well as being totally incorrect.A "roll back rate" is the property tax rate that generates the exact same total revenue for the city as the city received the prior year.
Another way to define it is the millage rate that, if applied to the new appraised value of your house would raise the same amount of taxes as you paid last year.Commissioner Harding also announced that the city hall project will eat up the Reserve fund, the Infrastructure fund, and "completely deplete" the Impact fund. The approved FY25/26 budget now shows $499,018 coming from reserves (none of that total appears earmarked for the city hall project).
Mayor Foster "thinks we're going to have to do reconciliation. We have submitted 7 maybe 8 million worth of grants," he said. He also repeated that "It's time to put a line of credit on the agenda." He conceded that could wait until October.
As was reported in "Vanishing Reserves" in July:$1,900,000 of the city hall construction cost remains in the "hardening" grant and the rest will come from KCB taxpayer-funded KCB reserves. KCB's infrastructure was the first in the Keys to recover from Irma because a prior commission contracted for and staged cleanup and debris hauling well ahead of hurricane season and the city had cash reserves on hand to pay immediate expenses of the cleanup.
That will no longer be the case here.Commissioner Harding will start putting grant reimbursements in his treasurer's reports. "We're going to have to be very careful about cash flow," he said.
The commission had a long discussion of the golf course and the $160,000 budget line for "572-050 course improvements/maintenance." Mayor Foster believes Daryle Rice needs "more skin" in the golf course. Commissioner Harding noted that "we need to step up and replace the equipment for Daryle or Mike to use."
The resolution to Adopt a Tentative Millage Rate of 2.82 mills and the resolution to Adopt a Tentative Budget of $21,655,240 both passed unanimously.
Report from the Final Budget Hearing
The city commission will held the final FY2025-2026 budget public hearing on Thursday, September 18, at 5:05 p.m. It was three hours and 15 minutes shorter than the morning meeting.
There was no discussion at all. The commission didn't mention that KCB had a total long term debt of $5,351,048 in 2022. They didn't report how much "reserve" is in city accounts.
Resolution of 2025-10 to adopt the final millage rate for the fiscal year 2025 of 2.82 mils, which is greater than the rollback rate of 2.5890 mils by 8.92%. Approved unanimously.
Resolution 2025-11 to adopt the final budget for the fiscal year 2025-2026 of $21,655,240. Approved unanimously.2.82 mills is "only" 2.17% greater than the 2025 tax rate of 2.76 mills.
2.82 mills is "only" 8.92% greater than the 2025 roll back rate of 2.589 mills.The budget as passed reduces commission and law enforcement expenses slightly and shrinks the planned raid on fund reserves from $499,018 to $492,229. Commissioner Harding said, "Silvia and I worked on a few verbiage updates, corrections, so those are in this latest file. But there's no change to the financials," he said.
The change was minor but it's not "no change."
Help Wanted
KCB is advertising for another part-time code enforcement officer to enforce "municipal codes and ordinances related to property maintenance, zoning, signage, public nuisances, rentals, and other related regulations." Read the job description and apply at https://keycolonybeach.net/apply-for-a-job. Some readers have reported difficulty with external links so we also have a local copy.
Tony Loreno reported that code enforcement will now be working closely with our police department and reporting to the chief. The code department is shown separately from the building department or police department in the city budget. The cost has increased to $178,122 for FY25-26.
100% City Hall Design Drawings
The city commission held a special meeting in Marble Hall and on Zoom on August 18 for a presentation by CPH Architect Brandan DeCaro. The commission discussed the construction cost, rammed through the 100% design drawings, and approved the final bid package and contract.
Here is an abridged architectural plan showing the elevations and floor presented by CPH plus the elevation and 3D image from the citizen proposal to create a legal two story entry and to resolve the ADA access: http://peopleareasking.org/resources/100_submittal_set_floorplans-08-14-2025.pdf
KCB has added the 08-15-2025 City Hall 100% Design Development and the 08-15-2025 Opinion of Probable Construction Cost to the city website under "About Our City" on the page for "City Hall Renovations." The 17.5MB 2401034_Key Colony Beach_City Hall - Architecture.pdf is the 60 sheet architectural package. The other drawing sets include Electrical, irrigation, landscape, mechanical, plumbing, and structural drawings.KCBers are still very concerned that we're buying a five-six million dollar shopping center facade as the showpiece for the city despite the obvious violations of KCB ordinances, the probable violations of Florida Building Code and Florida statutes, the likelihood of an ADA lawsuit, and the concerns that there has been no citizen architectural review.
The architects have made vast improvements and the commission has answered some of our questions but the crucial challenges remain:
- People Are Asking why is the commission ignoring the city ordinance that calls for an architectural review by the Planning & Zoning committee?
Sec. 101-28. - Architecture.
All buildings, additions and alterations hereinafter constructed shall be of an architectural style and of building materials that are harmonious in character and appearance with existing buildings in the neighborhood and shall be appropriate to their surroundings. See section 101-167(2)(i) for additional, more detailed, criteria which shall apply to all buildings. All uses requiring site plan approval shall require architectural review as a part of that review...- People Are Asking why is the commission approving a "tower" that violates at least two city ordinances and the Florida Building Code?
Sec. 101-18. - PB Public buildings and grounds districts.
Sec. 101-28. - Architecture.- People Are Asking why will anyone who needs an ADA ramp to visit the "fitness room" be unable to do so after hours, violating at least one federal statute and risking a lawsuit?
Public Buildings and Facilities: The ADA requires that public buildings, including government offices, libraries, educational institutions, and fitness rooms have accessible entrances for all open hours.- People Are Asking why is the critical records storage room below Base Flood Elevation, violating at least one Florida statute?
Florida law requires municipalities to maintain and preserve public records, including permanent records, in a manner that ensures accessibility and prevents damage or loss. This involves storing records in their usual location or, for vital, permanent, or archival records, in fireproof and waterproof environments.
It is noteworthy that the simplest solution (first recommended at the beginning of this project) is to build the entrance lobby on ground level and floodproof it.
That simple solution eliminates ADA issues, eliminates parking lot issues, reduces the overall height of the building, and reduces costs.- People Are Asking why are there are seats for as many as three receptionists, seven police officers, and eleven other staff? How many more people does the commission plan to hire?
- People Are Asking why is the standing seam roof specified as "blue" in this land of extreme solar gain?
- People Are Asking why the commission plans to spend nearly a million dollars (20% of the total project cost) for lobbies, an "open atrium" and a gym?
The commission has the project out for bids so all of these unanswered questions and design errors are simply going to be the oh, why didn't we think of that issues in the finished building.
Those design problems include completely isolating the administrative offices from the public which violates both tradition and the desire of the citizens. The lovely open atrium design wastes space (and construction cost) that could have expanded the department offices, conference space, or restrooms. Access to the first floor administrative office through the lobby ought not require climbing up to the lobby elevation and then back going down to the admin floor. The second floor restrooms have grown slightly with lockers and changing space for eight police officers but there still no showers. The gym restroom downstairs now has a shower but no lockers. And the suggestion of letting the gym share restrooms with Marble Hall and the administrative space was ignored. There are still two enclosed, office-sized reception rooms upstairs. The building department has a "reception area" when a Dutch door and counter would separate the public from the staff. There are "extra" mechanical and electrical rooms on the second floor but no janitor's closet.
There are other issues but that's not a surprise. No building has ever been built that gets everything 100% right and, overall, this design meets many of the city's requirements.
More than seven years and eleven months have passed since the commission hired K2M Design to assess city hall damage (K2M and FEMA found not enough damage to warrant "demolishing and replacing" city hall). KCBers have had no expectation that, after all that time, the design would be perfect. KCBers all do hope for and support any commission efforts to answer the issues raised, correct these errors, and finally to finish this project.
Click or tap here to email your questions and comments to the commissioners and city clerk to ask these and other questions about the plans.More than ever, we--KCBers and commissioners and architects together--need to think critically to make this project the best it can be.
KCB has added the 08-15-2025 City Hall 100% Design Development and the 08-15-2025 Opinion of Probable Construction Cost to the city website under "About Our City" on the page for "City Hall Renovations." The 17.5MB 2401034_Key Colony Beach_City Hall - Architecture.pdf is the 60 sheet architectural package. The other drawing sets include electrical, irrigation, landscape, mechanical, plumbing, and structural drawings.
Here is an abridged architectural plan showing the elevations and floor presented by CPH plus the elevation and 3D image from the citizen proposal to create a legal two story entry and to resolve the ADA access: http://peopleareasking.org/resources/100_submittal_set_floorplans-08-14-2025.pdf
All the official "City Hall Renovation" documents released so far can be found here: https://keycolonybeach.net/about-our-city-2/city-hall-renovations
CLOSED
The KCB Farmer's Market is closed. San Pablo Farmer's Market on Fridays will re-open for the new season from November, 2025 through April 2026.
Most of the vendors will be working through summer at Boondocks MM27.5, every Saturday from 10am-2pm.
Commentary
about September issues