Long-time Big Pine Key resident, and unofficial Mayor Steve Miller, has been named the newest President of the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce.
And he wants to know from the business community on the islands how the chamber can help them be more successful.
Monroe County may get a short reprieve from the need to implement new growth management regulations to keep its place in the National Flood Insurance Inspection Program.
Extend pilot or lose NFIP
The controversial and almost universally maligned Federal Emergency Management Agency pilot inspection program of lower level enclosures that was supposed to last only seven years from its 2002 inception has been extended for at least another 18 months.
County officials received notice from the FEMA Floodplain Management and Insurance Branch, Mitigation Division last week that the federal agency feels as though Monroe County has not made enough strides in a program to eradicate non-conforming downstairs enclosures.
“Following consultations with Monroe County…we have decided to extend the Pilot Inspection Procedure for Monroe County unincorporated areas,” wrote Major May, regional administrator for that division. “Based on discussions with your staff, we understand that the county has not made significant progress identifying and remedying unlawful enclosures and it requires an extension of the Pilot Inspection Procedure to complete the requirements…”
In 2002, the county agreed, under threat of expulsion from the National Flood Insurance Program, to enter into a pilot program whereby enclosures thought to be non-conforming would have to be inspected by county personnel before flood insurance on those properties could be renewed.
Known locally as the insurance inspection program, county staff was to identify properties where potential non-conforming enclosures existed that carried federally subsidized flood insurance policies.
Continue reading ‘FEMA wielding double-fisted hammer
Extend pilot or lose NFIP’
Local residents between Sugarloaf Key and Little Torch Key will get their final chance to chime in on a vision for the future of their islands next Tuesday.
The Monroe County Planning Commission is slated to hear input on the Lower Keys Liveable Communikeys Plan January 24 at 10 a.m. at the Marathon Government Center.
Those familiar with the LCP process, now going on its fifth year, will see pretty much the same document they saw after the first series of island-specific meetings in the plan’s infancy.
Continue reading ‘Lower Keys vision plan enters final stages’
By the end of February long-awaited renovations on the Sugarloaf Fire Station should be underway.
The Monroe Board of County Commissioners is expected to approve a $150,000 grant to the Sugarloaf volunteers next Thursday to aid the group in renovating the aging structure.
Continue reading ‘Sugarloaf renovation finally ready to begin’
FEMA expected to begin process to toss county from flood insurance
Yesterday Monroe County officials were supposed to have implemented rigorous land use regulations to protect endangered species.
They didn’t.
And for that, they fully expect to receive a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency chastising them for not doing so, and informing them that the process has begun to potentially suspend Monroe County from the National Flood Insurance Program.
“I don’t know if we’ll get the notification today, or next week, but that starts the clock ticking on potential suspension from the NFIP,” said Assistant County Attorney Bob Shillinger.
Monroe County was told by FEMA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, by virtue of a federal court order, that it would be the county’s responsibility to monitor and manage development inside the county’s borders that might potentially impact habitat for four endangered species.
The court order was the final outcome of a 20-plus-year lawsuit filed by environmental groups that claimed FWS wasn’t doing enough to protect species in Monroe County under its mandates in the federal Endangered Species Act because it allowed FEMA to continue to issue federally subsidized flood insurance policies in sensitive lands.
Federal Judge K. Michael Moore agreed with the environmental groups and ordered FWS to issue a biological opinion on possible jeopardy to the species and what could be done to alleviate that jeopardy.
Continue reading ‘Deadline passes
FEMA expected to begin process to toss county from flood insurance’
County ready to face off with FEMA
In one corner we have the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with employees numbering in the thousands and a budget in the billions, along with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, with employees numbering in the thousands and a budget in the billions.
In the other corner, we have Monroe County, with about 500 employees and an operating budget around $300 million.
In the middle are the requirements of the federal Endangered Species Act.
The fight will be over who will ultimately enforce those requirements on the property owners of tine Monroe County.
And the bell will ring soon.
Continue reading ‘No pullin’ punches
County ready to face off with FEMA’
County officials last week were told in rather certain terms that the state would not be coughing up any grant money or bond money to be used to finish the county’s wastewater projects, at least not in 2012.
County officials took a trip to the capital to try and get some answers regarding financial help for the completion of the county’s largest wastewater project to date the Cudjoe Regional.
Department of Economic Opportunity Director Doug Darling told the local folks that he had little hope the state would step in with free money this year, and maybe not at all.
The Cudjoe Regional system is the county’s last major wastewater system that needs to get off the ground, and by far the largest. As the plans are written today, the Cudjoe Regional will eventually span everything from Lower Sugarloaf Key to Big Pine Key, minus some of the more remote areas like Middle and Big Torch Key, No Name Key and parts of almost every other island in the area deemed to far from planned services to be financially feasible. The planned capacity for the Cudjoe Regional is 10,000 EDUs (equivalent dwelling units, or roughly the average flow of a single-family home).
But while Darling told the county not to look for free state money, he did offer up the possibility of having the county tap into the state’s Revolving Loan Fund which makes low-interest (2 to 3 percent) loans to areas for major projects like the Cudjoe Regional system estimated to cost upwards of $150 million at completion.
As 2011 fades into the year when the Mayan calendar has some believing the world will end – 2012 – Monroe County continues to face challenges.
Some of those challenges are new to the playing field, but some have been dragging on for years, and in some cases, decades.
Even those that have simply risen to the top of the heap are usually based on circumstances that started years, or decades, in the past.
Continue reading ’2011: And it just keeps on going…’
Monroe County officials feel as though they are getting some seriously mixed signals from Tallahassee these days about the future of their wastewater development plans.
County officials are supposed to go in front of the state’s Administrative Commission Jan.18 to be judged on their annual work plan.
Serving all the Communities of the Lower Keys
Recent articles
Past Issues
Recent Comments
Supplements
